US Midterm Elections 2026: Trump's handpicked candidate bets backfire as Democrats capture key Senate seats

President Donald Trump asked voters to treat the midterm elections as if he were on the ballot, handpicking Republican candidates in several of the nation's most critical Senate races. By Tuesday night, voters had rejected them.

Trump-backed candidates in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas were defeated, while his preferred choice trailed in early results in Michigan. The losses gave Democrats control of the chamber and highlighted the limits of Trump's political influence.

For over a decade, Trump has reshaped the Republican Party around his MAGA movement, controlling primary matchups and sidelining conservative figures he viewed as insufficiently loyal or aligned with his vision. He consistently favored loyalists and ideological allies over established Republicans with stronger statewide networks and proven track records, gambling that his endorsement would outweigh their political drawbacks.


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Tuesday's results demonstrated that he could not convince the broader electorate to support his picks.

One of the most notable defeats occurred in South Carolina, a state that had not elected a Democratic senator since 1998 and which Trump won by 18 percentage points in 2024. Trump endorsed Darline Graham, the sister of the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. However, Democrat Annie Andrews secured the seat in a major upset.

In North Carolina, Trump-backed former national Republican campaign official Michael Whatley suffered a heavy loss to former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

In Texas, Trump stepped into a contentious Republican primary to support scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton over Senator John Cornyn, whom some party members viewed as a safer general election candidate. Democrat James Talarico won comfortably on Tuesday night, securing a seat Democrats had not held since 1988.

In Michigan, former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers, Trump’s preferred pick, trailed Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in an uncalled race. If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim Senator.

According to Reuters/Ipsos polls, these losses occurred as Trump's popularity dropped lower ahead of Tuesday's vote than it was following the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. This drop intensified concerns among Republicans that the president was weighing down the party he reshaped.

“This is a Trump Quake,” said veteran Republican strategist Doug Heye, pointing to voter frustration over high prices stemming from tariffs and the war in Iran. "Trump spent the year telling voters what was important to him, not to them."

As election returns came in, Trump maintained a defiant posture.

"I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!" Trump wrote on social media Tuesday night.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one White House official stated that Trump “did a better job promoting many of the candidates on the ballot than the candidates did themselves.”

A second senior White House official, also speaking anonymously, told Reuters that internal polling from six weeks prior showed Republicans losing both the House of Representatives and the Senate, prompting Trump to launch a month-long national tour to boost party prospects.

Gave that seat away

Independent analysts noted that the Senate defeats directly reflected Trump's influence. Thomas Kahn, a professor at American University, stated that the president's primary intervention in Texas cost the party a safe seat, arguing that a nomination for Senator John Cornyn "would have been a slam dunk for Republicans to win."

Kahn pointed to North Carolina as another clear example. Republican incumbent Senator Thom Tillis opted not to run for re-election last year following a public feud with Trump, who threatened a primary challenge after Tillis opposed Medicaid cuts in the administration's tax-and-spending bill.

"He essentially gave that seat away to Democrats," Kahn said. "Roy Cooper would not have run if Thom Tillis had run for re-election."

Former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, observed that Trump's primary interventions fractured the party across multiple states.

In South Carolina, McCrory noted, the president opposed two local congressmen, a move that "really divided the party" and illustrated how the president spent political capital against his own party members.

McCrory directed his sharpest critique toward Trump's relationship with his voter base.

"I think President Trump's greatest strength was he had a common touch with the working class people," McCrory said. "He lost that skill. He better regain that skill for the good of the country."