To understand why Democrats scored immense victories in the 2026 midterms President Donald Trump can simply look to what he was talking about and not talking about, U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson said.
“The president was talking about his bedrooms and his bathrooms and his planes and his currencies — he was talking about everything but the fuel in people’s houses, the gas in people’s cars, the food in people’s grocery stores. He had no time for that, but the American people have spoken back,” the Illinois Democrat and son of the late Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson said during a post-election discussion hosted in Chicago by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Jonathan Jackson said he wished his father, who died in February, could “come out of heaven and run back around Earth one more time” to see the results. “He’s trying to get back down here to see what just happened, and so this was quite a remarkable day.”
But he also warned Democrats against engaging in “business as usual” when they get to Congress and instead immediately begin meeting peoples’ needs and holding “crooked government” accountable, including through the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Jonathan Jackson
“And we have to ask our evangelical friends, what Bible are you reading from when you cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to the poor? And what Bible are you reading from when you can’t provide temporary assistance to needy families? And what Bible are you reading from when you want to abandon women and children?”
Restoring the values of diversity, equity and inclusion also must be a priority in the new Congress, he said, adding the acronym “DEI” lines up well with the theological concept that human beings are made in the image of God, or Imago Dei, in Latin.
Democrats won at least 252 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives versus 161 for Republicans, with more than 22 races remaining uncalled, according to Ballotpedia. Of those, 46 swapped party control, with Democrats winning 44 of those flips.
Democrats also dominated in U.S. Senate races, winning 20 of 35 contests. Two remained uncalled as of Nov. 10 and seven changed party control, all of them going to Democrats, Ballotpedia said.
Democrats also won 22 of the 36 gubernatorial contests and currently hold more than Republicans (28 to 20 and two races uncalled) for the first since before 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Democrats also flipped five state Houses of Representatives (Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas), one state Senate (Pennsylvania) and both chambers in three states (Arizona, New Hampshire, Wisconsin).
In addition, Texas got its first Hispanic female governor, Georgia its first Black and first female governor, and Michigan sent a Muslim to the U.S. Senate.
Rainbow PUSH was founded by Jesse Jackson in 1996 as a civil rights, social justice and economic empowerment organization and is currently run by Jackson’s son Yusef Jackson, who did not participate in the Nov. 7 discussion.
However, Rainbow PUSH joined with the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the AFL-CIO for a pre-election voter education, registration and safety campaign called the People’s Revival.
Jackson’s keynote was followed by a panel discussion among Chicago-area political experts about how Democrats can best understand and channel the “blue tsunami” that propelled them to victory Nov. 3.
Amina Barhumi, executive director of the Muslim Civic Coalition, said Muslims voted for many of the same reasons other Americans did with the added concern of Republican-driven Islamophobia. She urged the victors to take voters’ economic needs seriously.
“What we heard (from Muslims) was similar to some of the results that we saw on Tuesday (Election Day): affordability, investment in schools, accessible health care … gas prices, grocery prices, folks having SNAP benefits cut from them and wanting to invest in our communities here at home and not seeing money go overseas to genocide and forever wars.”
Young Americans, who voted in near-record numbers in the midterms, also need to be heard in Washington, D.C., said Ellison Radek of Chicago Votes.
The economy was a significant factor for younger voters who are coming into adulthood without the upward mobility that was available to their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, she added.
“Allowing young people to be the drivers of the changes they want to see in their own communities is the best way to get young people engaged. We want to see ourselves represented at the highest levels, we want candidates who are interested in youth-serving policies, and we want to see an elected official that is not only representative of our communities but of our needs as young people.”
The “blue wave” that swept Democrats to power in Congress and across the states was inspiring, but now it’s time for citizens to do their part by having hard discussions about the needs and priorities of the communities, civic engagement strategist Ashley Munson said.