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GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "News Hour" tonight: (CHEERING) GEOFF BENNETT: A blue tsunami.

Democrats win both chambers of Congress in a midterm election sweep.

Now the task turns to governing during President Trump's last two years in office.

AMNA NAWAZ: A deep dive into the data.

We break down some of the key races that led to Democratic victories and the issues that drove voters to the polls.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Deb Haaland, the newly elected Democratic governor of New Mexico, joins us to talk about her historic win to become the country's first female Native American governor.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

Well, it was a Democratic tsunami at the ballot box.

Voters have delivered a sweeping rebuke of President Trump and his party in the 2026 midterms, handing Democrats major victories across the country and dramatically reshaping the balance of power in Washington.

Trump now enters a lame-duck phase of his second term, promising both to use his veto power and also to work across the aisle as he faces the largest Democratic majorities in decades.

LIZ LANDERS: After two years of unified Republican government... JAMES TALARICO (D), Texas Senator-Elect: We just took back Texas.

(CHEERING) ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), Michigan Senator-Elect: Michigan, we did it!

TROY JACKSON (D), Maine Senator-Elect: We did it!

(CHEERING) LIZ LANDERS: ... a sea change is coming to Washington, a blue wave that grew into a tidal wave, Democrats poised to seize control of both houses of Congress by wide margins.

CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): The American people reduced the red brick wall to a pile of bricks.

JON OSSOFF (D-GA): In sweeping and decisive victories... (CHEERING) SEN.

JON OSSOFF: ... the American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption and incompetence of the failed lame-duck President Donald J. Trump.

(CHEERING) LIZ LANDERS: For many Republicans, it was a reckoning, including Vice President J.D.

Vance, who analyzed the defeat in a lengthy post, saying bluntly -- quote -- "The reason we lost is the Iran war."

He added that the Republican Party has to have an honest conversation about that thorny topic after it led to higher prices and drove voters to want change.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I can tell you that, as far as that war is concerned, I would have done nothing different.

LIZ LANDERS: In his first comments since last night's midterm losses, President Trump updated on his ballroom construction project.

DONALD TRUMP: If I put the kitchen on top, you would lose three walls.

LIZ LANDERS: But he also acknowledged the issue that cost him at the polls.

DONALD TRUMP: Probably, that's the primary reason, the price, not the war, the price.

RON DESANTIS (R-FL): To call it a wave, I don't think would be fully accurate.

It's the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States.

This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last hundred years.

LIZ LANDERS: Democrats handed historic losses to the GOP from Maine to the Carolinas to Michigan and Texas.

With James Talarico to the Senate and Gina Hinojosa to the governor's mansion, Democrats won in the Lone Star State for the first time in nearly 40 years.

JAMES TALARICO: We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas.

JAMES TALARICO: We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love.

LIZ LANDERS: Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan's Senate race, beating Republican Mike Rogers, despite a last-minute defection from fellow Democrat Haley Stevens.

He'll become the first Muslim ever elected to the Senate and withstanding ugly campaign attacks on his faith, including when the president called him a jihadist.

El-Sayed did not hold back in addressing his opponent.

ABDUL EL-SAYED: So, Mike, enjoy your retirement.

(CHEERING) ABDUL EL-SAYED: I know you got a house in Florida and two yachts.

(CHEERING) ABDUL EL-SAYED: See, you chose hate and Michigan chose hope.

LIZ LANDERS: In Maine, five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins conceded to Democrat Troy Jackson.

In Kansas, Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor, will be the state's first Democratic senator in nearly a century.

And in South Carolina, the Graham family name was not enough.

Darline Graham, sister to the late Senator Lindsey Graham, lost in her election bid, despite being handpicked by President Trump.

DARLINE GRAHAM (R-SC): It is clear that we as conservatives have work to do.

LIZ LANDERS: A defiant President Trump repeated today that, if he were on the ballot himself, many races would have been different.

But he also said that he would accept the midterm results and that he was prepared to work with Democrats.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, we're going to work with the Democrats to make sure things go well for our country.

They have already called and they want to work with me.

I have the right to veto everything.

But I don't want to be just sitting there for two years vetoing everything.

LIZ LANDERS: Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, poised to make history as the first Black speaker of the House, said he was open to dialogue.

HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): If the other side of the aisle wants to work with us to deliver the type of bold, dramatic, and decisive change the American people are demanding, we will sit down and we will have that conversation.

LIZ LANDERS: The election also produced many other firsts.

New Hampshire Democrat Chris Pappas is the first openly gay man elected to the Senate in U.S.

With Illinois Democrat Juliana Stratton's win, three Black women will serve in the Senate for the first time ever.

LIZ LANDERS: In the governor's races, Gina Hinojosa will become Texas' first Latina governor.

Deb Haaland becomes the first Native American woman to lead a U.S.

KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), Georgia Governor-Elect: So, Georgia.

I have said over the past few days, if I were your woman.

(CHEERING) KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS: Well, now I am your woman.

LIZ LANDERS: Keisha Lance Bottoms becomes the first Black woman governor in U.S.

Democrat David Crowley will be Wisconsin's first Black governor.

Republican Byron Donalds becomes the state of Florida's first Black governor.

Melat Kiros is the first woman from Gen Z elected to Congress.

Though control of Congress is set, the exact composition of the House and Senate will take time.

Votes across the country are still being counted, and dozens of states are still unresolved.

Two of those contests that have not yet been called are the Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi.

In Alaska, a rural state where some ballots have to be flown in by plane, there remains about a quarter of the vote to count.

And Mississippi is extraordinarily close.

The Democrat, Scott Colom, is up only 65 votes over the incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.

It is expected that there are a few thousand provisional ballots still to count there.

The state has until next Tuesday, Geoff, to resolve those.

GEOFF BENNETT: Liz, our thanks to you.

Meantime, top officials in Iran welcomed the results of last night's U.S.

midterm elections, casting them as a rejection of President Trump's war.

That's where we start our day's other headlines.

Iran's Parliament speaker and chief negotiator said American voters sent a clear message, no to war.

But Iran's supreme leader warned that anyone expecting a change in U.S.

policy toward Iran is, in his words, gravely mistaken.

has carried out limited strikes on Iranian targets in recent weeks, while fears of renewed all-out war following the election have kept the region on edge.

In Israel, President Isaac Herzog says he's accepted the results of last week's election and will consult with party leaders there on forming a new government.

Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party nor that of his chief challenger, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, secured a parliamentary majority.

That means Herzog must now meet with party officials and choose a candidate to form a coalition government, which would likely lead to weeks of talks.

He urged all sides to work towards a compromise.

ISAAC HERZOG, Israeli President (through translator): I expect the factions and the representatives to understand that, in the current reality, it is not possible to fulfill all commitments and promises.

I'm not asking anyone to give up their fundamental values, but, in the current reality, in which there is no clear winner after, I'm asking for originality, creativity, boldness, and goodwill.

GEOFF BENNETT: Earlier today, Israel's election commission said it found no evidence of voting irregularities, despite Netanyahu's attempts to cast uncertainty on the result.

He's claimed without evidence that Arab-led parties, as he put it, stole that election.

Ukraine's air force says Russia launched more than 300 drones overnight.

Most were shot down, but one strike in Western Ukraine set a shopping center ablaze, injuring at least one person.

Meantime, rescue crews are still searching for bodies after Monday's attack on a former school that was being used as a shelter in Southern Ukraine.

President Zelenskyy says at least 40 people were killed, while 30 more possibly trapped beneath the rubble.

It's believed to be one of the deadliest strikes of the war.

In Brussels, officials from the U.S., Germany, France and other countries met to discuss Ukraine's postwar reconstruction.

's foreign policy chief expressed cautious optimism following the U.S.

KAJA KALLAS, Foreign Affairs High Representative, European Commission: U.S.

voters have made their choice clear.

I hope that the new Congress and the new Senate will continue supporting Ukraine and also putting more pressure on Russia.

Let's see what happens now, but elections have results.

GEOFF BENNETT: The talks in Brussels come ahead of a new round of U.S.-brokered peace talks set for next week in Abu Dhabi.

A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a case against a Russian-born Harvard scientist who was accused of smuggling frog embryos into the U.S.

Kseniia Petrova was arrested last year as she returned from a holiday in France with the specimens.

She spent four months in detention, during which she spoke with us on this program via video call.

Prosecutors agreed to drop the charges after a judge said she could seek evidence to support her claim that she had been unfairly targeted.

Petrova has said she did not realize she had to declare the items.

One of NASA's most successful space telescopes plunged back to Earth today.

Space Force says the Swift Observatory reentered Earth's atmosphere near Indonesia.

NASA officials believe the 3,200-pound spacecraft likely burned up upon reentry, though a few components may have survived.

Its demise came less than three months after a rescue mission failed.

Swift was launched in 2004 to study gamma ray bursts and exploding stars and has been pulled back towards Earth ever since.

The mission was meant to last for two years, but instead continued for more than two decades.

Well, stocks surged on Wall Street today as investors welcomed last night's election results.

The Dow Jones industrial average soared more than 1, 500 points.

The Nasdaq jumped nearly 1.5 percent.

The S&P 500 also ended sharply higher.

And we have two passings to report tonight, starting with British celebrity hairstylist and beauty entrepreneur John Frieda.

Frieda built a global hair care empire best known for products like Frizz Ease and Sheer Blonde.

He started his career in London, styling some of the world's most famous figures, including Princess Diana, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Madonna, and Sarah Jessica Parker.

He opened his first salon in 1976 and later turned his expertise into a multimillion-dollar hair care business, which he sold in 2002 for a reported $450 million.

His salon announced that Frieda died peacefully surrounded by family.

And a founding force of techno music, Juan Atkins, has died.

His 1985 single "No UFOs" made "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 200 greatest dance songs of all time.

The Detroit native broke out in the early 1980s, inspired by the German band Kraftwerk and George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic.

Over the years, his work as a deejay and producer helped bring techno to a global audience.

Atkins is even credited with originating the name techno.

His talent agents confirmed his death in Mexico City this past weekend, but did not provide a cause of death.

Still to come on the "News Hour": how the Latino vote shifted back toward the Democrats and helped turn Texas blue; we speak with New Mexico's Deb Haaland, set to become the country's first female Native American governor; and Oklahoma City's mayor discusses the path forward for the GOP.

Turning back now to tonight's top story, last night's midterm results have set up a two-year power struggle between Trump's White House and the incoming Democratic Congress.

AMNA NAWAZ: Lisa Desjardins is back at the Super Screen with more on the races and the potential size of the coming Democratic majority.

So, Lisa, let's start with the Senate.

Democrats have so far swept the toss-up races, but it's not over yet.

Remember, this is where we started last night, a look at the toss-up races all held by Republicans right now.

This is a sweep like you seldom see in politics.

And we are still waiting, of course, for results from Alaska and from Mississippi.

So, just given what they have already flipped, Democrats have flipped seven seats in the Senate.

That total, nine, is something that only comes around for either party in, say, 50 years.

Either way, this is quite a tsunami that we see tonight.

Now, I want to look at exactly kind of what the numbers are saying, as you see, gaining seven, and you can see all around the country.

There's one that stands out here, Mississippi, which is light blue and waiting on.

As you heard Liz say, we are waiting on votes because right now there's just a 65-vote difference.

That is fewer than one vote per county difference in this race right now.

As they're waiting for provisional ballots, they also have some votes out here in Hinds County.

This is a place that has 90 percent counting, and where the Democrats Scott Colom is ahead by quite a lot.

We may be waiting for days or weeks on this.

And, as well, we could very well be the same for Alaska, where we have a virtual tie right now as well.

GEOFF BENNETT: So that's the Senate.

Let's shift our focus now to the House.

We know Democrats have claimed control of the House, but the question at this hour is the margin.

I wanted to look at what the current Congress looks like.

First of all, you can see it's a mostly red Congress that we have today.

And then if you go to our map of where it stands now, here you can see all of this blue in the center of the country and on the side of the country, more than one blue dot in the center now.

You can see Democrats at this moment have gained 28 seats.

And what's interesting, as I prepared this segment, I also carefully looked at all the seats where we haven't had race calls yet.

And as I have been standing here, Democrats have picked up in Michigan 10 and in Michigan 4 and in Nebraska 2.

The Republican has conceded, Mike Lawler, in New York 17.

So remember the numbers, 28 pickups so far.

This is another 23 seats where Democrats are leading and poised to flip.

That is 51 seats that they could have total gain.

That's the kind of number that Newt Gingrich saw in 1994, a huge shift.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Lisa, those are the numbers.

But what do the maps tell you about who or what shifted in this election?

Let's talk about Texas there, because I think that is something historians will study for a long time.

James Talarico 55 percent to Ken Paxton, that is a huge margin.

Again, let's compare this to 2024 and the presidential vote.

You can see right here the Rio Grande Valley nice and red.

I want to pick one county that I think typifies the state a little bit.

That's Brewster County, where they happen to be having their famous chili cook-off right now.

President Trump won this county by 13 points in 2024.

And this is a plurality Hispanic district.

I also want to point out we have a lot of close races in the House.

So it may take some time to know exactly what's going on.

For example, here, Arizona, we have a virtual tie right there in Arizona's Second District.

And one we're watching closely, Tennessee's Fourth District right here, again, just 280 votes between Victoria Broderick and Scott DesJarlais.

It's going to be a while before we know the exact margin, though we do know the general outcome.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, Lisa Desjardins still going strong at the Super Screen for us.

GEOFF BENNETT: And for a deeper dive into the data and why people voted the way they did, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter is back with us.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Hello, Geoff Bennett.

(CROSSTALK) AMY WALTER: ... I didn't.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes, we just stayed here under the desk.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, look, President Trump urged voters to treat his -- this election as a referendum on him, and in many ways that's what they did.

GEOFF BENNETT: The economy was a top issue for voters, as we know, with gas prices soaring amid the war in Iran.

How much did voters hold the president and his party, the Republican Party, personally responsible for the economic pain they're feeling?

AMY WALTER: Yes, I mean, that's the real takeaway from this election.

It's not just that people thought that the economy was their most salient issue.

It's that they believed that it was Trump's policies that had caused the higher prices.

In The Voter Poll, the exit poll, 63 percent of Americans who voted said Trump's policies are the cause of higher prices.

Only 37 percent said it was for some other reason.

And here's really -- the next piece of this is the priority piece.

It's not just that they were frustrated about the war and its impact on gas prices and on inflation.

The president has mentioned that today, as you noted, the vice president saying it's really the Iran war that's the big problem.

But what voters also felt was a real sense that the president was focused much more on his priorities than he was focused on their priorities.

Just 36 percent of voters said they believed that Trump has the right priorities; 64 percent said no.

And when asked, well, what does he actually prioritize, 62 percent again said his priorities.

Just 38 percent said the country's interests.

And this, I think, was really typified, Geoff, by the fact that he ended his campaign -- we talked about this a lot going into the election -- ended it at the Reflecting Pool talking about the work he was going to do there, and then the day after the campaign, he's standing in the still-not-completed ballroom.

Voters looked at that and said, I just don't understand how he could be more focused on this than on bringing down my costs.

And I think the issue of betrayal overall -- it's not -- again, I don't think it's just that people are upset that their prices went up.

It's that they believed that, when he came to Washington for a second time, he was not only going to fix the economy, but he was going to focus on them, and he was not, certainly not going to get the U.S.

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, let me ask you something about the redistricting push.

I know we have talked a lot about the president pushed for that in a number of states over the last two years.

All of that was based on the idea that Republicans could recreate the coalition that pushed him back into the White House in 2024.

AMY WALTER: Yes, with almost every single piece of that coalition that Trump put together in 2024, Latinos a big piece of this, in 2024, Harris only won Latino voters by about 12 points.

But Democrats this election won them by 30.

Texas is a great example of the swing that we saw there.

Remember, we talked so much about especially younger men, younger men of color; 18-to-29-year-olds only supported Harris by three points in 2024.

They gave Democrats 73 percent of the vote in this election.

So the real sense, again, of the betrayal of the core promises of a Trump presidency really led to much of this backsliding with this coalition.

GEOFF BENNETT: Amy Walter, thanks so much for your sharp insights this entire election season.

GEOFF BENNETT: We deeply appreciate it.

AMNA NAWAZ: We want to zero in now on some of the most notable results from last night's election.

And we will start with Michigan's Seventh Congressional District.

That is where progressive activist William Lawrence unseated Republican Tom Barrett in one of the years' most competitive House races.

Representative-elect Will Lawrence joins me now.

Representative-elect, congratulations.

WILLIAM LAWRENCE (D), Michigan Representative-Elect: Thank you so much.

AMNA NAWAZ: So this race was one of the most closely watched races in the entire nation, also among the most expensive House races in the country.

It's a critical swing district in Michigan that Republicans really fought hard to hang on to.

WILLIAM LAWRENCE: It was all about the grassroots movement that we built.

We knocked on more doors than any House campaign in the entire country.

We have got thousands of volunteers who were out there knocking on those hundreds of thousands of doors.

And I spent the last 15 months crisscrossing the district, showing up in small towns all over and here in the city of Lansing in the suburbs.

And we took nothing for granted, went out to reach every single voter.

And people were motivated by our campaign because I didn't take a dime of corporate PAC money, despite going up against $23 million from the other side.

More money was spent trying to take me down than any other Democrat in the country.

And they saw me speaking out on issues like stopping these wars, saying no to AI data centers, and investing in good housing and health care that we can actually afford.

AMNA NAWAZ: We should mention to folks you co founded the Sunrise Movement.

And, yes, AI data centers, regulating AI, those were core parts of your message.

Why did they resonate so deeply where you are?

WILLIAM LAWRENCE: You know, it came to me from the bottom up.

I started getting calls in the fall that we had not one, not two, but three hyperscale AI data centers proposed in different parts of my district.

And in listening to people, it was clear that the pitch from these data center developers was just not persuasive.

They're proposing to suck up a lot of our water, jack up our energy bills, cause all kinds of noise pollution and damage people's property values, all for the sake of generating AI, which, to hear them tell it, is going to put tens of millions of people out of work, if it doesn't kill us all by accident.

So people just really responded organically in opposition to these bullies from Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and I was proud to stand alongside those residents throughout the campaign.

AMNA NAWAZ: So you were previously endorsed by Bernie Sanders.

We should note your primary opponent was actually endorsed by Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, who previously held this seat.

What does your win say about this district or about the party more broadly?

WILLIAM LAWRENCE: I think all the results last night show that the American people delivered a striking rebuke to the Trump agenda and are -- have delivered a mandate for change.

We have got to get the prices down.

We have got to protect the Affordable Care Act and reverse the cuts to Medicaid.

We have got to pass a war powers resolution to end this war in Iran.

And people also want to see us stop arming Israel, stop sending money to drop more bombs around the world when our neighbors here in Michigan can't afford basic housing and health care.

And I see that similar message was delivered all over the country, and I'm thrilled to be part of this huge majority, and we got to be ready to go in January to pass bills through the House and the Senate to make folks' lives easier.

AMNA NAWAZ: I hear you saying your priorities for wanting to bring prices down, which seems to be the number one reason people voted so broadly for Democrats wanting change.

On the accountability front, if I can ask you, where do you think Democrats' priority should be?

Where should you go first in oversight hearings or impeachment or some other step?

WILLIAM LAWRENCE: I think there will be various ideas about how to approach it.

But we've got to end this... AMNA NAWAZ: What is your top priority?

WILLIAM LAWRENCE: I'm interested to have conversations with my colleagues.

We have to put a stop to this elite impunity.

I mean, we got to get the Epstein files released.

So there's a bill that it was introduced by Khanna and Massie that was just one signature shy on the discharge petition from getting a vote.

We definitely have to vote that bill on the House floor.

And when it comes to the rest of the president's corruption and that of his administration, we have to pursue oversight and hearings and accountability and do it in a way which makes sure that we're clear that this is about defending the rule of law and putting to an end this age of elite impunity that, frankly, both parties have been complicit in.

So we got to make sure to do it the right way and not allow it to distract from the economic agenda, but we got to continue to defend our economy and our democracy walking hand in hand there.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Representative-elect William Lawrence from Michigan's Seventh Congressional District joining us tonight.

GEOFF BENNETT: As have been reporting, yesterday's election brought a number of historic firsts.

In New Hampshire, Chris Pappas became the first openly gay man elected to the U.S.

In Colorado, Melat Kiros became the first Generation Z woman elected to Congress.

And, in Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor.

Among those making history is Deb Haaland, who will become the first Native American woman to serve as governor of any U.S.

Haaland previously served as interior secretary under President Biden and was one of the first Native American women elected to Congress.

Governor-elect Deb Haaland joins us now.

Congratulations on your victory and welcome back to the "News Hour."

DEB HAALAND (D), New Mexico Governor-Elect: Thank you so much.

GEOFF BENNETT: You made history, of course, but voters are also expecting results.

So how will you balance the symbolism of this victory with the responsibility now of governing a state that has faced persistent challenges?

So many people are dealing with the high cost of living, persistent challenges with poverty, education, access to health care.

How are you planning to deliver tangible results in New Mexico?

Thank you so much for the question and for having me.

And, of course, very proud to be the first Native American woman governor in the history of our country.

That wasn't why I was running, though, of course.

I have so much experience, having served at the highest level of government as the secretary of the interior, where I managed a work force of 70,000, an $18 billion annual budget.

And, yes, like the rest of the country, our state is facing steep Medicaid cuts; 89,000 people can be kicked off the Medicaid rolls come the beginning of the year, people losing their SNAP benefits.

This is all the result of the Trump bill that passed earlier this year.

And so, of course, we want to make sure that we're stepping up, the legislature and myself continuing to fill in the gaps that our governor now has worked to fill in.

We know that prices are getting higher due to so many of the tariffs and the war in Iran making gas prices higher.

New Mexicans are paying higher costs for everything.

And so we want to put more money in the pockets of New Mexicans, enhancing the child tax credit, the working families tax credit, continuing to move our clean energy forward, which we know will lower utility costs.

So there's a lot of work to do, but I'm confident that we can get there.

GEOFF BENNETT: Democrats had a strong election night across the country.

How much of your victory, in your view, was a rejection of President Trump and his approach, and how much of it was an endorsement of your own vision for New Mexico?

Well, we currently have a Democratic governor here in New Mexico.

Generally, every eight years -- our governor is termed out the end of this year.

Every eight years, the seat flips back to Republican.

And New Mexicans realized that yes, we needed to keep going on the trajectory that we are going on.

We have early childhood education for every child in New Mexico.

And those are things that New Mexicans feel have made their lives better.

And so I want to ensure that we can enhance those programs, expand them across the state, so that every New Mexico family has an opportunity to participate.

Universal childcare, it's an economic driver all over New Mexico.

It creates jobs and helps parents to know their kids are safe while they're at work.

So it's a win-win for our state and the people of New Mexico, and we will continue down that path.

I wonder, what have you learned from your time in Washington, both in Congress and in the Cabinet, about what government gets right and what it gets wrong, and how does all of that shape your approach to governing?

DEB HAALAND: Well, I will tell you, I feel like I always do the right thing when I listen to stakeholders, when I have the people at the table whose lives would be affected by the decisions that I make.

I did that when I was at the Interior Department, and I will do it again.

The most successful projects that we got across the finish line, transmission lines, offshore wind projects, protecting millions of acres of public lands across the country, that was all done with the idea that we need to bring people to the table early, that we should act with full transparency.

So I intend to be transparent as the governor of New Mexico.

I intend to bring stakeholders together to tell us what they need and what is best for their communities.

New Mexico is different anywhere you go.

None of our communities are the same, the northeast, the northwest, the north, the south, Central New Mexico.

There's so many different communities with different needs.

And so we're going to make sure that we're listening and that we can do what's best for our state.

I hear you when you say that you did not run for the sole goal of making history.

But you have broken barriers before, as we mentioned, the first Native American woman -- among the first Native American women elected to Congress, the first Native American Cabinet secretary.

Does this victory feel different, serving as governor?

DEB HAALAND: Well, I mean, look, this is my first successful statewide campaign.

New Mexico's the fifth largest state, hundreds and hundreds, thousands of miles of rural roads that we drove on all throughout this campaign.

So I feel like I worked really, really hard for this victory.

We raised the funds to hire organizers.

We had them on the ground all over the state.

We worked very hard and didn't take anything for granted.

So, I feel that hard work still means something in our state and in our country, and I was really proud of the success that we had.

GEOFF BENNETT: New Mexico governor-elect Deb Haaland, thanks again for speaking with us.

AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump has sought to deflect blame in last night's sweeping Republican losses.

But within the party, some are beginning to ask whether they have been too deferential to the president and whether the GOP needs to rethink its identity.

To discuss what comes next for Republicans, we're joined by David Holt.

He's the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City.

Mayor Holt, welcome back to the "News Hour."

DAVID HOLT (R), Mayor of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Absolutely.

AMNA NAWAZ: So it was a tough night for your party.

You posted on X last night this message, writing: "A political party that's morally and intellectually bankrupt deserves the rebuke of the American people."

So what do you think Republicans could or should have done to avoid that rebuke, to mitigate some of those losses?

DAVID HOLT: Well, how much time do you have?

(LAUGHTER) DAVID HOLT: We 10 years ago as a party -- I wouldn't say I was a part of this decision and that -- or that I have gone along with it -- that we as a party ultimately ceded our decision-making and our intellectual capacity to one person and really became a cult of personality, instead of what we had been, at least for the remainder of my adult life, which was a party of ideas, a conventional American political party trying to bring together enough people to win an election and build a coalition.

And so I don't think this was a -- like something we could have messaged better in the last two weeks.

I mean, I think we made a fundamental decision to really not be the Republican Party anymore, but to be this banner carrier for Trumpism, for a specific individual and his whims and desires, and to be the MAGA party.

And what happened last night was such a total rejection of Trumpism and MAGA that really that party now no longer exists as a functional political movement.

AMNA NAWAZ: We should point out your state of Oklahoma was one of the few bright spots for Republicans, right?

You still control the governorship, both Senate seats, all five congressional seats.

So if this was a referendum on the president, what do those results tell you about where Oklahoma is?

I mean, the Republican nominee for governor did win in Oklahoma last night, but certainly the writing was on the wall that something was shifting even in Oklahoma, maybe not enough to shift all the way over to exchange control.

But I have often pointed out, I mean, I'm a student of politics in my part of the country, and Oklahoma always follows Texas a few years later.

We did in the '90s and in the 2000s, and so anyone who doesn't take pretty serious lesson from what happened last night in Texas in my neck of the woods is just living on borrowed time, because that's going to happen in Oklahoma.

Oklahomans, Texans, Americans, they're ready to move into a different kind of conversation.

And they still want, in my view, a center-right party, and this country needs a center-right conservative party.

But people are wanting a normal party that's competent, that's talking about the real priorities that are in front of us, the real challenges and opportunities that are in front of us.

And, ultimately, that's just not what was being offered.

The MAGA movement had exhausted itself.

AMNA NAWAZ: If there is one thing you want to see from your party and party leadership right now that you think could be some kind of a course correction, what's that first step?

DAVID HOLT: Well, we have to return to being a political party again with a platform and ideas, and we have to be serious.

I mean, too much of what you have seen from Republican governance the last few years is really seemed geared more towards entertainment.

And we need -- this isn't professional wrestling.

We have to be talking about pocketbook issues, not reflecting pools and arches.

We have to be meeting people where they are.

I mean, I don't think this is going to be like some quick turnaround.

I think this is going to be a multiyear conversation, but it finally began last night, and it needed to.

And this country needs two real parties.

And I think we're finally going to -- we're finally going to have that conversation that we have needed to have really for the better part of a decade.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, David Holt, joining us tonight.

Mayor Holt, thank you for your time.

GEOFF BENNETT: As we have heard tonight, a major factor in last night's victories were the number of Latino voters who headed to the polls and supported Democrats.

AMNA NAWAZ: For perspective on this massive swing, we turn now to Maria Teresa Kumar.

That's an organization that helps register Hispanic and Latino voters.

MARIA TERESA KUMAR, Founder and Executive Director, Voto Latino: Thanks for having us.

AMNA NAWAZ: So Amy mentioned earlier, of course, that there was the shift we saw from 2024 to 2026.

We should also just say, to be clear, Latinos are not a monolith.

But how do you look at that and what's behind the people who backed Trump in '24 and went Democrat -- Democratic in '26?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: So it's -- folks are absolutely right.

Latinos are not a monolith until you come for our families.

And that's basically what we saw last night.

It was a repudiation of the ICE raids that have been happening.

I can tell you that I can go around the country and there's not a Latino, whether they work in Wall Street or they work in the fields, that don't know someone that's been caught in the dragnet.

You marry that with the fact that financially they're not doing well; 36 percent of Latinas that we surveyed in April were skipping meals.

All of a sudden, you realize that there is an opportunity for the Democrats to have a real conversation with them that is not talking about who is and isn't an American.

What Amy was talking about, I think, is really important.

I think it's something that both the Republicans and the Democrats need to take note, is that the Latino vote, because they are so young -- they're about a generation-and-a-half younger than the rest of the American voter.

They are oftentimes considered very much independent, but the swingiest of swing voters because they don't have a history of voting even among their families.

And if you promise that you're going to basically provide for them to be able to actually stretch that dollar, then they will listen to you.

But at the same time, if you start criminalizing them, then you're going to see what happened last night.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to talk to you about Texas in particular, basically a 30-year grip by Republicans broken last night.

You have the first Latino governor in the state in Gina Hinojosa.

You have the Democrat, James Talarico, winning the Senate race there.

How do you look at Latino participation in those races?

And generationally also, what are the trends you're seeing in Texas?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: So, Voto, I tell you, we started investing in Texas almost three cycles ago because we recognized that 54 percent of the kids in classrooms were young Latinos.

And when you go down to the Rio Grande Valley, it is one of the poorest zip codes of people who are incredibly resilient.

And when they flipped from left to right, it was because of the flood of immigrants coming across the border that was creating real chaos in their communities, and they were having a hard time stretching that dollar.

I spent a lot of time with in the Rio Grande Valley, and I was talking to folks that were -- that voted very heavily for Trump and said, look, I'm a builder.

It used to cost me $300 to do a square foot.

Now it cost me $630 for a square foot because they're deporting my men.

And because of the tariffs, we can't actually be able -- we can't actually try to figure out how to plan for our job, for the work that needs to happen.

But I do think that the headline is, is that young Latinos showed up.

And, again, when we talk about this idea of affordability versus immigration, for young Latinos, this is where we're going to see a generational shift.

For young Latinos, it was absolutely to protect their parents.

AMNA NAWAZ: When you look at this broader picture, this is the question we're asking again and again, do you feel like these votes were solely against President Trump?

Or was there something also going for Democrats here?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: The candidate quality in Texas specifically was through the roof.

Something that I -- when -- during the 2024 campaign that I often reminded the Harris campaign, neither Harris nor Biden went down to the border.

Vance and Trump were there all the time.

They did the retail politics so well this last week that their closing arguments were all along the Valley.

If you look at who swung the most, who in Texas, when you look at the map of all the blue, it was all the southern border of Texas.

This was a community that has been long overlooked, but once you recognize them and you gave them something to vote for, they came out in force.

AMNA NAWAZ: So what do you think Democrats have to do now?

They have two years to try to make good on some of the promises that they made.

What should they prioritize for these voters that they have won back to make sure they don't lose them again?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: So, Amna, in August, we actually asked this very question, and we came up with a pothole agenda.

Latino voters are looking for accountability on ICE, they're demanding for a pathway to citizenship and for the Democrats to say that out loud, and they're trying to figure out economic relief.

Talk about raising the minimum wage.

Talk about how you actually can identify their taxes, and, believe it or not, how do you actually create term limits for the Supreme Court?

AMNA NAWAZ: Maria Teresa Kumar, CEO of Voto Latino, thank you so much for being here.

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: Thanks for the conversation.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, for perspective now on how both parties are responding to last night's historic wins, we're joined by two strategists from both sides of the political aisle.

GEOFF BENNETT: That is Mo Elleithee, Democratic strategist and former spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, and Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee.

DOUG HEYE, Republican Strategist: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, Mo, Democrats didn't just win.

They won in places, in states and districts that Republicans thought were safe.

What did Democrats get right in this cycle and what can they replicate in election seasons beyond this Trump era?

MO ELLEITHEE, Democratic Strategist: Yes.

So we talked about this a little bit last night.

My party isn't always the best at message discipline.

But this cycle, boy, were they solidly on message.

Candidate after candidate, the most progressive to the most moderate, from Kansas and Texas to Maine and Michigan, every Democratic candidate was talking about cost of living and corruption, and, in many cases, tying those two things together.

All cycle long, Donald Trump did what Donald Trump does, just tossed out a bunch of crazy.

We stayed focused, and the results showed that.

GEOFF BENNETT: And looking at the scale of the losses, was any of this avoidable for Republicans, or was the environment just too politically toxic?

DOUG HEYE: The environment was too toxic.

And, ultimately, if it were going to be avoidable, Trump would have had to be the one to avoid it by telling voters, here's what's important that we're doing for you, not here's what I'm doing that's important to me.

So every time he talked about building an arch or reconstructing the East Wing or something about the Kennedy Center, all these things that voters don't really care about, especially when they're going through so much in their lives, is a real -- was a challenge to every Republican on the ballot.

And I always start with my home state of North Carolina.

Here's the most interesting thing to me about it, is that we have all seen the big losses, right?

You have lost the General Assembly.

The state Senate is still in question.

So many Republican members have lost, and we're still counting ballots.

But there were three constitutional amendments on the state ballot last night.

All three were fairly conservative.

One was voter I.D., and then two were about constitutional amendments limiting and capping taxes on property and income.

Those three passed was 60 percent of the vote.

So people voted for these conservative initiatives and then voted against every Republican that they could up and down the ballot to send that message to Trump.

GEOFF BENNETT: To include Richard Hudson from North Carolina, who has the job of getting Republicans reelected across the country, congressional Republicans.

And the dean of the delegation, Virginia Foxx, who's the chair of the House Rules Committee, my member of Congress, right now is behind by 99 votes.

They will go to a recount, but that's not an optimistic place to be in.

GEOFF BENNETT: The vice president, J.D.

He's saying that the war in Iran was the reason Republicans lost.

He says: "The reason we lost is the war.

The president himself said so last night.

If you would like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so."

What do you make of those comments?

Vance is -- has got some real challenges moving forward.

The guy clearly wants to be president.

He wants to be the Republican nominee.

And his entire party got wiped out because of his boss and him.

So he's -- really interesting to see him try to put some distance between himself and the war.

Vance, it's been reported, wasn't for the war in the beginning.

But I don't know that voters who repudiated this administration are going to see that, right?

It's partly the war, but it is also the long litany of broken promises that both Donald Trump and J.D.

It is, as Maria Teresa was talking about, the inhumanity that we saw in the streets.

And, remember, just days ago, when Vivek Ramaswamy put out that terrible ad in Ohio that was repudiated by both parties, J.D.

Vance was the first guy to go into the state and hug it and embrace it and chastise the Republicans who were complaining about it.

Vance is going to have a hard couple of weeks trying to figure out how to position himself.

GEOFF BENNETT: And President Trump, his midterm closing argument was at the Reflecting Pool, as you mentioned.

Today, the morning after his party sustained these major losses, he was at the site of his reconstructed -- or in the process of being rebuilt here, this -- this future White House ballroom.

What does that choice tell you about how the president is processing these results and whether he's prepared or has a willingness to pivot?

DOUG HEYE: Well, it's not where we would want him to be consistent with his messaging, but he's been consistent that what is important to him as a priority of building things is somehow going to be important to voters throughout the country, and it just hasn't been.

And if we were having this conversation and there were no Iran war, or we're having it the day before it started, what would we be talking about?

We would be talking about gas prices, that everything is too expensive.

So was the war in Iran a contributor?

But there were still so many problems going into this midterm before that.

This just massively exacerbated it.

Maybe if we didn't go into this war in Iran, we'd be talking about a 25-seat Democratic pickup and three Senate seats, good night for Democrats, not the slam dunk they had last night.

And, Mo, despite the Democrats' slam dunk, I mean, there were a couple of races where Democrats came up short, like in Florida, the Florida governor's race.

And it just raises the question, could more money, could better infrastructure have sealed the deal in those tight races?

MO ELLEITHEE: Look, some red states are -- we have got work to do still.

But when you look at that Florida race, where you had two statewide Democrats who could not have been more different from one another, moderate former Republican member of Congress David Jolly running for governor, progressive Democratic Socialists of America-aligned Senate candidate Angie Nixon, both got $3.9 million -- or votes.

Both came within a point, maybe slightly more, from where their -- from their Republican opponents.

Compare that to where Democrats in Florida were last cycle.

You saw 12-, 15-point swings within some communities, if not more.

And it's an opportunity for Democrats to say, OK, this was a major step forward.

Just like the investment in Texas over multiple cycles paid dividends, just like investment in Georgia over multiple cycles paid dividends yesterday, I think you can see states like Florida become competitive again.

DOUG HEYE: And I'm looking at -- given past history.

What Republican members of Congress in Florida lost, so we will know who the Florida Democrats are going to nominate for governor in future years.

The midterms are beyond, behind us.

What do last night's results tell us about what's to come in 2028?

MO ELLEITHEE: Look, on the Democratic side, there's going to be a lot of energy.

I think you're going to see quite a few candidates jump into the race, maybe even more than we thought not long ago.

I actually think the Republican side is suddenly about to become a lot more crowded.

They want to turn the corner on the Trump era.

That much was made crystal clear last night.

Democrats now have two opportunities, one, to deliver on the promises that they made and hold the president accountable.

That's the job of those in Congress now, and those who are thinking about running for president to help paint a picture of what it -- what comes next.

For the past decade, what we have mainly been doing is playing opposition to Donald Trump.

Even when we took the White House for a couple of years, we were still in many ways playing opposition to Donald Trump.

Now we can paint a picture of what the future looks like.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you see it, Doug?

DOUG HEYE: I start with what happens in the opening weeks of the next Congress, because they're going to be presented with the opportunity or the challenge of keeping the government open.

So how is this new Democratic majorities, how are they going to be able to cut a deal with Donald Trump, who tells us he's the great dealmaker, but's never been able to really do it, and especially given the numbers against him and his inclination to fight and find foils?

GEOFF BENNETT: Doug Heye, Mo Elleithee, thank you for adding so much to our election coverage... DOUG HEYE: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: ... both last night and, of course, right here at this desk.

MO ELLEITHEE: Let's do it again soon.

And there's a lot more online, including a conversation with our Liz -- our Lisa Desjardins and Liz Landers, answering your questions about the 2026 midterms.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

For all of us here at the "News Hour," thanks for spending part of your evening with us.

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