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(11/6/2026) A recent New Yorker cartoon shows two toddlers discussing the election. One says to the other, "This is the most important election of our lifetime." It's a play on what has become a cliche about every single election I can remember, and I can remember a lot of them.
Hindsight is 20/20, to quote another cliche, but if I had to pick the most important election of my lifetime, it would either be 1980 (Reagan vs. Carter) or 2016 (Trump's first election). Ten years ago, Trump seemingly did everything wrong--vulgarity, scandal, trash talking women and veterans, making fun of the handicapped, weak command of policy issues--yet to the wonderment of all, he got enough support in enough states to get elected President. In doing so, he legitimized a surly undercurrent in America that must have been there all along, but only came to full flower when he did.
That surly undercurrent is still with us, despite the Democrats' thunderous national victory in the 2026 offyear election, and it's not going away soon, and maybe not ever. After the 2020 election, my post suggested Trump was behind us, and it was time to heal from the trauma and come together as a nation. Written barely a week before Trump-inspired insurgents trashed the U.S. Capitol, I was overly optimistic if not hopelessly naive.
We are in a different place now, but how different? Democratic candidates currently lead the vote count in U.S. House races--counting is ongoing in many places--by 11.6 percentage points, which will translate into a gain of at least 40 seats, and maybe more. (In 2018, in Trump's first midterm, the Democrats' national advantage was a little over eight points; in 2020, when I was ready to heal, the House Democrats led by only three points nationally, and actually lost 13 seats.) Here in Iowa, where the Democratic Party's pulse has been barely detectable for over a decade, Democrats picked up three U.S. House seats, flipped the Senate seat currently held by Republican Joni Ernst as well as the governor and attorney general, and gained seats in the state House.
President Trump has been soundly smacked, but it's less clear that the common life he rejected has been reaffirmed by the voters. That remains to be hashed out by the numbers people and those who frame issues.
If we were doing natural science here, we could run the 2026 elections over and over again in our lab--wouldn't that be fun?!?--to test the strength of different factors on the eventual outcome. How much impact did the shaky economy have on election results? Vice President J.D. Vance said that the quagmire in Iran was what doomed Republicans, and it certainly played a large role, not in the way that Vietnam or Iraq II did, but because Iran's ability to interrupt energy supply chains rippled through the American economy in a way that negatively affected nearly everyone. What if Trump, whose true genius is saying and doing things to keep the spotlight on himself, had this time listened to military advisers and held off on invasion?
It would be good to know whether the 2026 outcome resulted entirely from Trump's economic mismanagement, or whether the President and his allies also suffered from their rejection of American (and world) common life. The last Real Clear Polling averages showed approval of Trump's immigration policy at 43 percent against 54 percent disapproval. (Approval on the economy and inflation was much lower.) Real Clear Politics didn't report evaluations of things like corruption/character, equality, and education; but in New York Times surveys of battleground states, those factors showed up much lower among voter concerns than the economy. Would enough voters have tolerated Trump's staggering corruption, use of immigration personnel as shock troops, and denigration of science and government management, as long as their pocketbooks were okay?
The good news for our common life is that American democracy lives another day. The electoral wave was large enough to swamp all the electoral shenanigans the Republicans had tried or planned to try (cf. ProPublica 2026, Bock Clark 2026). The mid-decade redistricting may have spread Republican support in places like Texas so thinly that it made their candidates more vulnerable. It's an open question whether this evil playbook gets reopened in a more typical election year.
Let's talk in 2030, when Democrats hold a national trifecta and there are problems. Let's say they're economic problems. There won't be a lot for the government to work with: Between grift and wars and building monuments to himself and ICE, Trump has bled America pretty nearly dry. In a competitive political environment, will the important election of 2016 be truly behind us?
SEE ALSO:
Adrian Carrasquillo, "Latino Fury: How Anti-ICE Fervor Helped Democrats Take Back Congress," The Bulwark, 4 November 2026
Lyz Lenz, "Is Iowa a Blue State Now?" Men Yell at Me, 4 November 2026
Angie Schmitt, "Let's Put This Embarrassing Period in Our Politics Behind Us," Love of Place, 4 November 2026
"2026 General Election Turnout" (University of Florida Election Lab)
