The votes are (mostly) in. Republicans have (mostly) lost. Now, we who seek to conserve the American Experiment and combat the wrongheaded ideas of both right-wing populists and left-wing progressives have our work cut out for us.
It is a job we wholeheartedly accept. The Freedom Conservatism project was built for precisely this moment — an inflection point not just for the American Right but for the country we love and the founding ideas we revere.
Among the hundreds of signatories to the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles are some of America’s leading political commentators and policy specialists. They share our commitment to such FreeCon principles as liberty, order, family, limited government, free enterprise, free speech, free trade, economic opportunity, federalism, the rule of law, and republican virtue. But these FreeCons share something else: a passion for election analysis! After the polls closed last night, they immediately began crunching the numbers and drafting their thoughts.
Today we offer some of their initial takes on the 2026 midterms, including the political implications for 2028 and the likely policy consequences of new Democratic power centers in Washington and many state capitals:
• At the Washington Examiner, FreeCon signatory Tiana Lowe Doescher wrote that what differentiated “an ordinary blue wave from the evident indigo tsunami that voters delivered to Republicans is how uniquely President Donald Trump manufactured the dismantling of his own Senate majority.”
In a world where John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, and J.D. Vance “all remained in the upper chamber and South Carolinians were allowed to vote for one of their own known politicians in an open primary,” she concluded, “Republicans would keep, at a minimum, four Senate seats that they lost tonight, save hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, and likely save their own majority from the poppycock investigations, stonewalling, and impeachments to come.”
• At National Review, FreeCon signatory Charles Hilu and coauthor Brittany Bernstein reported on the Democratic takeover of Congress. “Republicans expected a difficult night on Tuesday, as voters have historically turned against the party in power during midterm elections, and the GOP enjoyed a governing trifecta heading into Election Day,” they wrote. “But outrage over Trump’s handling of issues related to an ever-increasing cost of living led to an unprecedented bloodbath that few predicted.
“In some cases, Republicans were hurt by their poor choice in candidate, as was the case with scandal-plagued Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race, and Darline Graham in South Carolina. But in others, the blue tsunami didn’t spare even ordinarily popular GOP lawmakers, like Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who won his reelection bid in 2022 by double digits.”
• In an interview with RealClearPolitics, FreeCon signatory Tim Chapman predicted that “Democrats will overreach on what they think their mandate is, and that’s exactly what Trump did”
“Trump thought his mandate was to run the country from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to not include Congress, to adopt nationalist populist economic proposals, to adopt a foreign policy that was on again off again at the whims of Trump. The beatings will continue for both parties until one party accepts some level of humility about what they’ve actually been elected to do.”
“You’re entering an environment where Republicans are going to have to scramble to rethink what they stand for as a party and rethink what their movement is all about. They’re going to have to recover some muscle memory about how to be legislative entrepreneurs themselves and how to actually propose solutions that address the problems that the American people face. And if they don’t do that, then the pain will continue.”
• On X, FreeCon signatory Jared Walczak analyzed the fate of ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments on tax and fiscal issues. “Future startup founders, worried their pre-profit businesses could face steep taxes under a future California wealth tax, likely feel more confident about CA with the apparent rejection of Prop 40,” he wrote, referring to the supposedly one-time 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires. “But now they have to account for its supporters saying it’s coming back in 2028.”
• On Substack, FreeCon signatory Vance Ginn argued that midterm voters punished “failed leadership” and that “more government isn’t the answer” to the concerns they expressed at the ballot box and in election surveys.
“Americans experience the economy through grocery bills, mortgage payments, insurance premiums, and what remains of their paychecks, not politicians’ talking points,” Ginn wrote.
“National Conservatives promised prosperity through tariffs, industrial policy, and intervention. Their electoral setbacks warrant rejecting those ideas. Democrats shouldn’t assume higher taxes, subsidies, and price controls will work better. Voters want relief they can feel, not promises they can’t afford.”
• At National Review, Freedom Conservatism co-founder John Hood identified the Trump administration’s foolish policies on trade, and the inevitable corruption associated with them, as key explanations for the Democratic victories of 2026.
“More than a decade ago, populist activists described the conservative movement they sought to displace as ideologically moribund and the American right’s primary electoral vehicle, the Republican Party, as politically inept,” Hood wrote. “The GOP establishment, they argued at the time, seemed content to be the Washington Generals to the left’s Harlem Globetrotters, perpetual losers in a game rigged against middle America.
“Well, if yesterday’s Republicans were the Washington Generals, today’s Republicans are the Washington Corporals.”
And at RealClearPolicy, Hood cited voter approval of tax limitations and rejection of California‘s proposed wealth tax as evidence that free enterprise and fiscal conservatism are far from lost causes. “Converting those sentiments into future political and policy victories requires more than hope, however. Conservatives must strategize, organize, educate, and nurture a new generation of leaders to combat both left-wing socialism and right-wing populism.”
• On X, FreeCon signatory Charles C.W. Cooke also spotlighted the contrast between partisan outcomes and referenda results. “There is a very interesting mismatch,” he wrote, “between the elections for candidates, which effectively yielded a massive and historic sweep for the Democrats, and the ballot initiatives, almost all all of which yielded conservative outcomes, even in the deep blue states (but not VA).”
Cooke also posted that watching the election turns Tuesday evening was like listening to famous “the aristocrats” joke — “except the punchline was ‘populism.’”
• At National Review, FreeCon signatory Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out that while tariffs and the war in Iran both hurt Trump and the GOP because of their direct connection to the affordability issue, the president’s party bore another heavy burden.
While 74% of exit poll respondents “called the Iran war a crucial or major issue in their vote, and 63% of that subset of respondents voted for Democrats,” he wrote, “an even higher percentage of all respondents — 90! — cited corruption as a crucial or major issue, and 56% of them voted for Democrats.”
• On X, FreeCon signatory André Béliveau argued that the GOP’s colossal defeat had many causes, but that “one large factor that cannot be overlooked is an entire generation of GOP political operatives, activists, influencers, and consultants who came of age at a time when institutional wisdom was seen as a crutch, building coalitions wasn’t based enough, and humility to learn was abandoned for fast tracking to podcast land and chasing clicks. This is what we get. I hope we learn from it.”
On the Calendar
You can hear other takes on the 2026 midterms, and ideas for how the American Right can best respond to them, at our upcoming regional summits and other events:
• The Goldwater Institute, the 1912 Institute, and other partners will host FreeCon Phoenix on Monday, November 16 from 8am to 5pm at the Westin Phoenix Downtown. Clint Bolick, justice on the Arizona Supreme Court and co-founder of the Institute for Justice, will deliver the keynote address. Click here to find out more about FreeCon Phoenix.
• The National Review Institute, the Commonwealth Foundation, and other partners will host FreeCon Philadelphia on Tuesday, November 17 from 3pm to 7pm. Former U.S. Sen Pat Toomey and Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday will deliver remarks at the event, which will be held at at the Union League in Philadelphia. Click here to find out more about FreeCon Philadelphia.
• The John Locke Foundation, Carolina Journal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and other partners will host FreeCon Raleigh on Wednesday, November 18 from 4pm to 8pm at the Renaissance Raleigh North Hills Hotel. Delivering the keynote address will be Stephanie Slade, senior editor at Reason magazine and author of the new book Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right. Click here to find out more about FreeCon Raleigh.
• Also on November 18, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) will host its annual Freedom & Progress Conference from 8am to 4:30pm at Le Méridien Washington/The Madison. Several FreeCon signatories will speak at the event, and there will be a working-group session devoted specifically to Freedom Conservatism. Click here for more information about Freedom & Progress 2026.