Sarah Longwell and JVL: LIVE on the Landslide

Tim Miller opens from Texas, sleep-deprived, by calling the election the biggest midterm rebuke of a president’s party since Watergate. He says Democrats defeated Republicans across the country and could control governorships representing 392 electoral votes. In Texas, only Ted Cruz remains as a statewide Republican officer. The Senate could reach 54, 55, or 56 Democrats, while the House is projected around 255–258 Democratic seats. Mississippi is still counting votes, with Democrat Scott Colom narrowly ahead and potentially becoming the state’s first Black senator since the nineteenth century. The hosts treat the results as both a rejection of Trump and a structural blow to Republican efforts to undermine democracy.

Sarah Longwell says she is running on adrenaline after watching the Mississippi count and believes the results could fundamentally change Trump’s options. Democratic victories in governor’s races, she argues, close off many feared paths for weakening democracy. She even imagines Trump becoming a “let’s make a deal” president because he will want to avoid being remembered as deeply unpopular. In her optimistic scenario, he could pursue populist measures such as health care or a higher minimum wage, though she acknowledges that his administration could still pursue harmful policies. JVL is less exuberant but says James Talarico’s victory offers a hopeful alternative to Christian nationalism.

JVL focuses on James Talarico’s victory speech and the phrase “love your neighbor,” which he sees as an unusually hopeful political message. Talarico and Kansas candidate Adam Hamilton, both Christians, are presenting an alternative ethic to Christian nationalism: politics based on caring for everyone rather than “vice signaling” or rallying around cruelty. The hosts say many Democratic winners were not merely useful anti-Trump candidates but “good people,” naming Amy Acton, Annie Andrews, Hamilton, and Talarico. JVL also notes that heavily Catholic counties swung sharply toward Democrats, partly because of demographic changes but also because voters appeared to reject the perniciousness of Christian nationalism.

The hosts argue that the election repudiated Trump’s politics and rhetoric, not only his policies. Tim recounts seeing a MAGA post mocking Talarico for having a sniffle and being transgender, but says the insult felt ineffective after the result: “This is over now, actually.” Sarah’s focus groups of low-propensity Democrats and Republicans who voted Democratic in swing states reinforce that point. Participants cited high prices, the war, poor governance, and a desire to send a message that Republicans were doing a bad job and did not deserve power. They also said people associated with the Trump administration had no future, while several wanted Pete Hegseth impeached.

Tim and Sarah revisit how badly the results beat expectations. Polls were directionally right but understated Democratic performance, and Tim says even his optimistic prediction was too cautious. Democrats have at least 54 senators, with Alaska and Mississippi unresolved, and would have a majority with enough room to be “Fetterman-proof.” The projected House total of 255–258 seats also astonishes them; Tim recalls previously estimating only 230 or 240. He argues Republicans may now struggle to win back the Senate until 2032, especially after mid-cycle redistricting produced no additional Texas or Florida gains. The structural damage to Republican power is therefore likely to last beyond one election.

JVL says one disastrously handled decision—the Iran war—helped unravel the entire Republican coalition. He argues that Trump, Marco Rubio, and Hegseth supported an action with no credible strategy, poor leadership, and little public support. Young men and rural voters moved toward Democrats, which he attributes largely to the war and its consequences. JVL finds the political punishment satisfying, especially for Rubio, Hegseth, and J.D. Vance, while acknowledging that the election is still better than the alternative even if he remains worried about America’s longer-term prospects. The hosts agree that voters’ economic pain and anger over the war made the backlash real rather than merely partisan.

The hosts examine the two unresolved Senate contests. In Alaska, they say Democrat Mary Peltola may currently be favored, but ballots are still arriving from remote communities and ranked-choice voting could prolong the result until around Thanksgiving. In Mississippi, Scott Colom leads narrowly and provisional ballots are being reviewed. Mississippi has no federal Senate recount statute and no runoff, so a win by even roughly 100 votes could make Colom a senator. The hosts describe him as potentially the first Black Mississippi senator since the 1800s and the first non-segregationist Democrat since figures such as John Stennis. Sarah says Colom’s emergence reflects a promising new generation of Democratic candidates.

Sarah celebrates Annie Andrews’s victory in South Carolina, especially because the incoming senator is a pediatrician. Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, a physician who helped expose Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s conduct, is leaving the Senate, but Andrews could provide a new medical voice against Kennedy’s policies. Sarah specifically imagines Andrews challenging the health secretary over measles outbreaks, children’s health, and what she describes as failures that could leave children with “explosive diarrhea.” The hosts also mention Abdul El-Sayed, who studied medicine and has a public-health background, as another potential counterweight. They note that Democrats did not win Louisiana’s Senate race, where Jamie Davis lost by about two points.

The hosts say Gina Hinojosa’s seven-point Texas gubernatorial victory is more informative than the Senate result because Ken Paxton was an unusually bad candidate. Hinojosa outpolled Kamala Harris in Travis County, drawing about 415,000 votes compared with Harris’s 398,000 in 2024. In rural Bailey County, Trump’s vote fell from roughly 1,400 to 974, while Hinojosa exceeded Harris’s raw total. Sarah interprets this as both new Democratic voters entering the system and Trump-only rural voters dropping out. She says voters were especially angry about prices, gas, data centers, and the war. Hinojosa also focused on public schools rather than allowing Republicans to dominate with culture-war issues.

Tim says the Texas results matter not only symbolically but for people living under the state’s immigration enforcement system. He describes extensive cooperation between Texas authorities and federal immigration agents, including the detention or disappearance of roughly 4,000 people in ten days. Some detainees had U.S.-citizen spouses or children, visas, and no criminal records, while detention centers operated with limited habeas protections. Tim argues that a Democratic victory could change the treatment of immigrants immediately, even while broader congressional policy takes longer. The hosts connect this to the election’s practical meaning: voters were responding to economic suffering and visible enforcement, and they now expect policy changes rather than merely satisfying electoral margins.

The hosts debate what the result means for 2028. Sarah says focus-group participants spontaneously named Ron DeSantis because they do not want someone tied to Trump’s administration, although the hosts question whether DeSantis has enough political athleticism. JVL suggests J.D. Vance could attempt a “heel turn,” breaking with Trump from the right and embracing an antiwar version of MAGA, but says Vance’s strength is persuading powerful insiders to reward him rather than persuading ordinary voters to like him. They also discuss Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly as possible outside alternatives. Marco Rubio faces a particularly difficult pitch because he would have to claim competence after voters rejected the administration he helped lead.

After Sarah leaves for The Daily Show, Tim and JVL read a lengthy post from J.D. Vance. Vance says the leading reasons Republicans lost were ending the war, addressing inflation and the cost of living, putting America first, and changing the relationship with Israel. He argues that voters who supported Democrats did so because of those issues and says any honest Republican reckoning must begin there. The hosts interpret the post as a possible presidential positioning move and question whether Trump approved it. They note the irony that Democrats were called antisemitic for making similar arguments, while Vance and Trump effectively adopted them immediately after the election.

Tim reviews candidates he urged listeners to support. Jamie Egger appears poised to win North Carolina’s 11th District after Trump threatened to withhold hurricane aid; Democrats could win ten of the state’s fourteen House seats. Cyril Jefferson is narrowly ahead in North Carolina, while Zach Mullock defeated New Jersey Republican Jeff Van Drew after the race had been rated safely Republican. Brian Poindexter beat Ohio’s Max Miller despite Republican leaders defending Miller against abuse allegations. Paige Cognetti won a Trump district in Pennsylvania, and Bobby Pulido and Johnny Garcia benefited from Greg Abbott’s failed Texas redistricting gambit. Jessica Killen and likely Eileen LaBauchere also won Colorado seats, with LaBauchere defeating Lauren Boebert.

Tim ends the main episode with Adam Hamilton, a Kansas megachurch pastor who entered politics because he was tired of arguing with Senator Roger Marshall in his head and wanted to persuade real voters. Hamilton ran as a Democrat without national recruitment or consultant-driven messaging, stayed true to his religious convictions, and defeated a Republican in a deeply red state. Tim says Hamilton’s appeal is not merely opposition to Trump but a positive vision of how citizens should treat one another. Alongside Talarico and Hinojosa, Hamilton represents the kind of candidate Tim believes can make democracy respectable again. He closes by singing that the long-awaited change has come.