While You Were Sleeping... Here's What You Need to Know About Midterm Results

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, November 4th. And while you were sleeping, Republicans were weeping because Democrats just damn near ran the table on them last night. With that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We just wanted to hop on and give you an update. I know a lot of people wrote and went to sleep last night wondering what happened. In a word, Democrats won. ran the table.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe, you know, we called it a red wave or they were expecting a blue wave. Everyone's calling it a blue tsunami.

00:00:31
Speaker 1: That's the hashtag that's trending this morning.

00:00:33
Speaker 2: Blue tsunami.

00:00:35
Speaker 1: So yes, folks, every high profile, close battleground race you heard about, Democrats won it. Just about everything last night. So we just wanted to hop on and get you caught up. We're going to have our regular morning run with our news headlines of the morning, non-necessarily related to the election, in just a little bit on the feed. But we wanted to start with this, and let's start with the headline, which is Democrats are going to retake control of Congress and not Democrats. in a razor thin margin.

00:01:09
Speaker 2: No, handily. They will handily take control of Congress. As a reminder, all 435 seats in the House were up for election and 35 of 100 seats in the Senate were up for grabs. And going into the night, Democrats only needed to gain four seats in the Senate and three seats in the House. They did that, as you pointed out, by wide margins.

00:01:33
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what they needed. They needed four in the Senate. What did they end up with? seven seats actually that they flipped in the Senate. We still have one pending, so that could actually still go up. And then in the House, Robes, you said they needed three. They have gained, at least of this recording, approximately 30 seats. Now, some of those numbers, we got House races all over the place, and some of them might come in a little late, but there is no question the Democrats have flipped at least 30 seats, so they will have a pretty big majority, not veto-proof necessarily, but Robes, This is not close or close margins in either one of these houses. If Democrats just stay together, mostly, they can push back against anything the president wants to put in front of them.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: It is remarkable. It is stunning. There obviously were expectations that the Democrats were going to take over both chambers of Congress. but not by this much and this easily. Most of the night, and if you listened at all to our episodes yesterday, we were talking about how we were going to watch the coverage of the results coming in, and turns out that was the most interesting part, watching the journalists jockeying for airtime rather than the results themselves, because frankly, they were kind of boring.

00:02:48
Speaker 1: It wasn't a lot of drama. We will let you know, I'm going to let you hear some of these numbers, but these margins weren't, margins in which somebody's going to say, hey, let's trigger an automatic recount. Or we think there was some funny business over here or a few thousand. No, no. These were blowouts.

00:03:05
Speaker 2: To the point where President Trump didn't even start or begin any sort of narrative where there was voter fraud or election problems, where we've seen him do that in the past, wasn't a peep about that.

00:03:17
Speaker 1: Because there's nothing to talk about here. So all the races, all the places we've been talking about, you've been hearing so much about, had to do with the Senate. And even though, Robes, they ended up fairly easily, I guess you could argue with the numbers, taking back the Senate, the Democrats were, they were optimistic, but they were cautiously optimistic about their chances. I didn't see too many predicting they would run the table like this. Iowa, Maine, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, all of these states are going to Democrats now in the Senate and Robes starting with Texas. Is this not the most high profile in the country? Maybe the Minnesota one, but is this not the big dog?

00:03:57
Speaker 2: This was the big one. A lot of people looking at Michigan, a lot of people looking at other states. But James Tallarico, that is the name of, I feel like, the 2026 midterm elections. Because, hell, we even had late night hosts getting fired over this man, or at least the view. People getting in trouble with the FCC for giving him airtime. His name became almost synonymous with the midterms and all of the discourse between Republicans. Republicans and Democrats.

00:04:27
Speaker 1: And another misfire or a backfire. Robes, they were trying to what? Keep him off of television. Keep him off of a late night show because that's going to give him too much of an advantage over his opponent, Ken Paxton, if you don't have Ken Paxton on. Okay, fine. Let's make a big deal out of it, a big show out of it, that we had to learn to pronounce Tallarico's name.

00:04:53
Speaker 2: It's so true. I didn't know how to say his name in the beginning. And now, of course, he became a household name because... Because of, frankly, the Trump administration and the FCC. And look, the Trump administration also wanted John Cornyn out a long time ago.

00:05:08
Speaker 1: Pipe down. Don't say Trump administration. That was one-on-one. Trump was mad at Cornyn. Robes, look at what they did in Texas because of what? Pride and egos. You highlighted James Tallarico and made him a star in the country, and we had no frickin' idea who this state legislator was. Nobody knew.

00:05:28
Speaker 2: And everyone knew who John Cornyn was, but because he didn't play nicely or went along, go along with what Trump wanted him to do, they pushed him out, got Ken Paxton in, thought he had name recognition as attorney general.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: They said he's the most flawed Republican candidate in the country. His background, his history, his legal problems. Robes. This is stunning. Where's John Cornyn? I would love to see.

00:05:54
Speaker 2: He's smiling this morning.

00:05:55
Speaker 1: Is he?

00:05:55
Speaker 2: Yes, he is.

00:05:56
Speaker 1: Cigar in hand? Yes, he is.

00:05:58
Speaker 2: He's feeling pretty good.

00:05:59
Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear him. So this was 55-43. That's not close. That is crazy. This is the first time in, what, 32 years they've had a Republican to have a statewide office, to win statewide there? And the governor there went.

00:06:12
Speaker 2: A Democrat, yeah.

00:06:13
Speaker 1: Excuse me. Yes. Sorry, sorry. That went to Democrats as well. What happened in Texas- is alarming if you're a Republican.

00:06:22
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

00:06:22
Speaker 1: This is wild. Turn to South Carolina. Rose, we thought there was going to be a cakewalk for Darlene Graham.

00:06:26
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Name recognition. The sister steps in for brother who suddenly passed a beloved longtime South Carolina senator. Everyone knows who Lindsey Graham is, but they rejected his sister Darlene. I mean, the truth is, it seems like Folks didn't buy this idea just because she has his name that she had any experience or any business being in that position for the next six years. So Annie Andrews handily beat Darlene Graham.

00:06:57
Speaker 1: In South Carolina, a Democrat who's a pediatrician, is that right?

00:07:02
Speaker 2: Yes, who Trump dubbed Tranny Annie.

00:07:06
Speaker 1: His words, he shouted that out several times, many times as he could.

00:07:09
Speaker 2: It backfired.

00:07:10
Speaker 1: Robes. She just won Lindsey Graham's seat against Lindsey Graham's sister in South Carolina and won handily. Yes. What is happening in the country? And, of course, Michigan. I accidentally said Minnesota a second ago. Michigan is where I'm talking about. This is probably the other highest profile race we've seen outside of Texas. This wasn't a close race either.

00:07:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first Muslim senator elected to the United States of America, Abdu El-Sayed, 52.3% to Mike Rogers, 45.7%, not close at all. Glad that one is wrapped up. This was a really ugly campaign. It was.

00:07:54
Speaker 1: Anti, just against.

00:08:03
Speaker 1: Islam, that was some really nasty stuff being said there. Turn to Maine. Stunning. They finally got her.

00:08:09
Speaker 2: Stunning.

00:08:09
Speaker 1: They finally got her.

00:08:10
Speaker 2: Susan Collins, as long as I can remember, when I first became a reporter in D.C., one of the first people I saw was Susan Collins, and I was so excited. The fact that she was still hanging on to that seat as a Republican in Maine was pretty remarkable.

00:08:24
Speaker 1: Give her credit.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: But her time has come.

00:08:26
Speaker 1: Give her credit. And this, I can't even remember the guy before this that had to drop out because of allegations from an ex- Graham, something Graham, Graham Planter, Graham Planter. Oh, wow.

00:08:37
Speaker 2: That's pretty good.

00:08:38
Speaker 1: Graham something. But yeah, so this guy. Graham Platner, you're correct. Graham Platner. I mean, how many months ago was that? So Troy Jackson wins this thing 54% to 46%. He hasn't been the candidate that long because they had to replace the other guy. So what is happening in the country? Turn to Kansas. Rose, Kansas does not elect Trump. Democrats to the Senate.

00:09:00
Speaker 2: Until now. Adam Hamilton, 50.9% to Roger Marshall's 46.1%. He is the first Democratic senator since 1932. That is significant.

00:09:14
Speaker 1: Okay, turn to Ohio. This is where the president was hot on the guys. He's always talking about the Republican candidates, but backside.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: Oh, John Husted, he loved his butt, but apparently the voters did not like it. did not feel that that was enough for them to choose him. Sherrod Brown, 49.7% to John Houston's 45.5%. Again, not close. Iowa, same thing. Josh Turek, 50.5% to Ashley Hinson's 46.4%.

00:09:41
Speaker 1: She's one that broke with the president a little bit on some things. He'll obviously say that's why she lost.

00:09:46
Speaker 2: That'll be her fault, right?

00:09:47
Speaker 1: The other notable races, we have to mention Ohio there as well, with Sherrod Brown, Democrat, picking up the Senate seat. Again, this is kind of a Republican territory or has been, Robes. This governor's race was the one that got him. a lot of national attention because just that one ad.

00:10:03
Speaker 2: That one ad by Vivek Ramaswamy certainly backfired. At least a lot of folks believed it would. And look, there were a lot of things, obviously, that were at play for voters, but that had to have had an impact. Amy Acton, 52% to Vivek Ramaswamy is 44.7%.

00:10:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that kind of is in line with a lot of the polling that came out, Robes, but it's good to have that one over with. I don't know if he conceded. I know he made a speech or said something, but I'm not sure if he's conceded yet this morning. But anyway, that's over. This is fun. All over the place, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, black, white, or other. You can be proud of a lot of history robes that was actually made all over the country last night.

00:10:44
Speaker 2: This was pretty cool. Keisha Lance Bottoms has become the first black governor in Georgia history and the first black female governor in U.S.

00:10:54
Speaker 1: History.

00:10:55
Speaker 2: Aaron Ford in Nevada became the first black governor there. Byron Donalds became the first black governor of Florida, notably the Republicans. He's kept the streak of Republican governors there in Florida. David Crowley became the first black governor of Wisconsin.

00:11:10
Speaker 1: That's a lot of that's just that's cool to see. Very cool. And finally, I remember in Georgia with Stacey Abrams, she got so close. Twice, but didn't. Right? To see Keisha Lance Bottoms, who was the Atlanta mayor there.

00:11:22
Speaker 2: The first mayor, by the way, to win governor as well.

00:11:24
Speaker 1: This is really, that's special. Robe, this is 2026. It's awesome. The first time in 2026. In U.S. history, we're seeing something.

00:11:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got chills.

00:11:33
Speaker 1: That's cool. That's really cool.

00:11:34
Speaker 2: Look, to see new faces, new ideas, new perspectives, yes, this is what America is all about. Marsha Blackburn became the first female governor of Tennessee. Peggy Flanagan became the first Native American elected to Senate out of Minnesota. Yeah. Deb Haaland became the first Native American woman elected governor in New Mexico. And then we mentioned Abdu'l-Sayed became the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate in Michigan. This is cool and kind of surprising, actually, in states like Texas and California where you have massive Hispanic populations. Gina Hinojosa became the first Hispanic governor of Texas and the first Democrat in more than three decades to become governor.

00:12:15
Speaker 1: She beat Abbott. He's a high-profile Republican. Governor Abbott. She beat Abbott.

00:12:20
Speaker 2: Abbott, that is huge. And Xavier Becerra became the first Hispanic governor of California, which again is shocking when you think about the Hispanic population in the state of California.

00:12:30
Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness. We do have one outstanding we should mention, Robes, and this is the one that got a lot of attention in the closing days. The Alaska Senate race is not settled yet. This whole thing about the two Dan Sullivans, people will remember that story. As of this recording, at least, they are still figuring it out. And they do ranked choice voting out there, Robe, so this could get really interesting.

00:12:51
Speaker 2: It's close. As of this recording, 72 percent are reporting. And Dan Sullivan, the incumbent, the Republican.

00:12:58
Speaker 1: The real one.

00:12:59
Speaker 2: The real one is at 48.49 percent. And Mary Peltola, who was accused, of course, of being a part of this plan to bring in another Dan Sullivan to confuse voters. She sits at 47.68%. So they're well within the margin of error. And by the way, the fake Dan Sullivan got 1.66%.

00:13:20
Speaker 1: See, that would matter.

00:13:23
Speaker 2: Yes, that does matter in a tight race.

00:13:25
Speaker 1: If they don't get to 50%, then they have to go to ranked choice voting. So unless the incumbent gets to 50%, they're going to have to consider... who people ranked second and third. That's when the math gets weird to me. I don't know how they figured that out.

00:13:40
Speaker 2: And if you add the fake Dan Sullivan's 1.66% to the real Dan Sullivan, you get 50%. That's the OMG part of it.

00:13:49
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. All right, well, stay with us. Everything we just told you about, well, the president was keeping an eye on all of this as well. And he was posting on social media like crazy. You can probably guess who he blamed for these losses, but there's one place he blamed that we didn't even see coming.

00:14:20
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. While you were sleeping, the Democrats swept the country, literally and figuratively, in every way. And as you might imagine, President Trump had a lot to say about it. Now, he did not question the validity, the credibility of our elections. And I will say, it's sad that that's where the baseline is here. But hey, we'll take it because we've seen him in just about every other election. If it didn't go the way he wanted it to, point to voter fraud thank god that's not happening we're not having our president try and undermine our electoral process.

00:14:57
Speaker 1: So at least we're there he can't on this one the numbers are too wide it's too much of a it's too much of a blowout it's it's right if georgia is beating arkansas 62 to 7 in the fourth quarter in the refs what we're not gonna you know throw a challenge flag and say we want to check the spot. We think the referee got the wrong spot of the ball. No, for what? Why are you wasting everybody's time here? There's no reason to do that. So he knows better. I'm going to start from the bottom, taking it in chronological order, because this is how he started early on. We know he was going to be watching Fox News. So he starts tweeting. This first one was around... 5.30ish. And then we'll just go up and you can see the direction things were going. So he starts around 5.25. He posts, watching the pre-election results on Fox News, but I can't stand Jessica Tarloff's voice. Dumb as a rock. But it's the voice that gets me. Have to go somewhere else until that loser is off the air. I'll be back later.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: That's so mean. That's how it starts.

00:16:01
Speaker 2: It's so mean.

00:16:02
Speaker 1: Not her commentary.

00:16:03
Speaker 2: She even referenced her own voice because obviously she saw that. and read that, as did everybody, it's just unnecessary.

00:16:11
Speaker 1: Her voice, not her commentary, not her opinion. I can't stand her voice. She's dumb as rocks.

00:16:16
Speaker 2: You know what I say? You've been triggered, President Trump. Obviously, you're irritable today. You know when you say you're in a bad mood, you're like, you know what, I know something's wrong because little things that shouldn't annoy me are, and I need to take a moment? You've said that to me before.

00:16:29
Speaker 1: I say, yeah, absolutely, probably once a week.

00:16:33
Speaker 2: And you're like, it's my mental health that I need to take care of. And I'm recognizing this because I'm getting so annoyed about stupid things.

00:16:39
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes.

00:16:40
Speaker 2: President Trump needed to take a little page out of your book.

00:16:43
Speaker 1: He continues. The next one he posts says, quote, the Fox News poll, always the worst, is so insulting with the questions they ask. Every question is a hit job and every answer is bullshit. This has been going on for years. He's going after Fox. All he does is post the things he said they say that are positive about him. Turning on them. This is early in the evening.

00:17:04
Speaker 2: And then it gets worse.

00:17:06
Speaker 1: Let's go.

00:17:08
Speaker 2: Fox News ratings are way down, 27%, because they're spending too much time covering the Trump-deranged Democrats. All of those people who used to watch Fox and no longer do get it. It's not them, not me. My numbers are better than they have ever been. The new CNN poll stated that Trump is at 99% among Republicans. Quoting CNN. Please go ahead. And among Republican presidents, Trump is at 53% compared to Ronald Reagan at 18% and Abraham Lincoln at 8%. Fox knows this, and so does everyone else. Also, why is Fox Corps spending so much money donating to the worst of the worst, including... Hakeem Jeffries, Jamie Raskin, Teddy Lou, Pete Aguilar, the California Democrat Party.

00:17:56
Speaker 1: He goes off the rails.

00:17:57
Speaker 2: Blah, blah, blah, blah, saying all the people that Fox News is spending money donating to. No wonder Fox News ratings are collapsing, and they're going to go down a lot further. They're way down, not because of me, but because they are against me. This happened once before, and Fox almost collapsed. It's happening again.

00:18:16
Speaker 1: Sounds like a Sith Lord. If you watch Star Wars.

00:18:20
Speaker 1: A lot of people will recognize some of that language. What is.

00:18:24
Speaker 2: Darth Vader?

00:18:25
Speaker 1: That's some dark... Like, everything around me, everybody's doing it to me. Somebody is... If you're failing, it's because you're not supporting me. Babe, it's delusional.

00:18:36
Speaker 2: That is what people do. When you find someone in your life, personally... or even someone you work with that blames everyone else and never once is introspective, is never once humble, is never once self-reflective. Those people you run away from saying, get me out of here. But that is the biggest sign when you just see someone who only blames everyone else, takes zero responsibility. That is our president on full display.

00:19:02
Speaker 1: And that goes in line with the next one he did post. Quote, I wasn't on the ballot. And if I was, we would have won in a landslide. That was the post.

00:19:12
Speaker 2: And then the next one, if Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, hadn't become a rhino, which means Republican in name only, in the last six months of his political life, he wouldn't have lost. He went back to his original formula and it wasn't pretty.

00:19:24
Speaker 1: He continues, and I don't know what this meant, Rose, but another one. Getting late into the night now, he says, quote, I'm going to become a political pundit, both good and bad, on the reasons these candidates won and lost.

00:19:37
Speaker 2: I'm thinking it's because whether or not they were loyal to him or not.

00:19:41
Speaker 1: I mean, is he going to start posting today, giving a review of all these candidates and what they did?

00:19:46
Speaker 2: I would bet yes. And then what was the red hat veto?

00:19:50
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. At 1140 p.m. last night. Think of all the MAGA hats you see out there, all those solid red hats. He posted a picture of one, just an image, solid red. And on the front, it said veto. That means veto. he had come to grips with the losses.

00:20:03
Speaker 2: Yes, that was his only power play for the rest of the next two years. And then finally, at 11.52, why does Fox News have Bill de Blasio, the worst mayor in the history of New York City, on air, ranting and raving like a lunatic? He left the city in disgrace, and the damage he caused was incalculable. It has never been the same, and now he's telling us how to run America? Fox News bears responsibility for these losses by constantly... and consistently putting on the Democrat opposition and worse.

00:20:34
Speaker 1: Fox News bears responsibility. The Republicans just lost in historic fashion to Democrats in the midterm, and it had every vote that was cast had to do with President Donald Trump. This is on him. He is actually saying out loud, he is putting in, he is typing out that Fox News bears responsibility for these losses because of who they put.

00:20:59
Speaker 2: On the air.

00:21:00
Speaker 1: We have them on a lot. Not a lot of Democrats are on ever on Fox News. This is one time I will defend Fox News for their coverage. This ain't on them.

00:21:12
Speaker 2: But Trump has to blame someone other than himself. And that is what he made abundantly obvious. There is no humility. There is no reflection. There is no, hmm, what? about what I am doing and saying and my messaging and my focus has not resonated with the American people. There's no interest or curiosity in trying to figure out what America wants and what America needs.

00:21:36
Speaker 1: It's a new day. Maybe you'll get up today and have a new perspective. So I look forward to seeing what you put on True Social. Just wanted to get you all caught up. I know a lot of folks went to bed early on a lot of this coverage, but a lot of it was also decided fairly early, relatively speaking, because the Democrats just had a doozy of a night. I just wanted to get you caught up. We will have our regular morning run newscast podcast coming up here in the feed in just a short time. But for now, we always appreciate you spending some time. I'm TJ for my dear Amy Robach. We'll talk to you soon.