2026 Midterms: NYT Editorial Board Says It's Time to 'Feel Pride'

The New York Times editorial board said Americans should "feel pride" in Democrats' sweeping 2026 midterm election victories, framing the results as a repudiation of President Trump, according to a Fox News report on the op-ed. Fox's account, published Nov. 4, said the board pointed to Democratic gains across the House, Senate and several governor's races as evidence that voters had turned against the president.

Fox News did not publish the full text of the editorial, and the Times piece itself is not linked in Fox's report. What is documented is the newspaper's framing, as relayed by Fox: a victory lap for a party that, according to the triage of results cited in Fox's coverage, took back control of both chambers of Congress along with a string of governorships.

Which Races Actually Flipped To Democrats?

Democrats won control of the House, the Senate and key gubernatorial contests in the 2026 midterms, according to Fox News's coverage of the results. One of the most closely watched contests played out in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton, a candidate backed by Elon Musk, HTT News reported. The Texas result is notable because the seat had been considered a Republican stronghold heading into the cycle.

By the numbers

• 2 — chambers of Congress, the House and Senate, that Democrats regained control of in the 2026 midterms, per Fox News's report.
• 1 — U.S. Senate seat in Texas that flipped from Republican to Democrat, with Talarico defeating Paxton, according to HTT News.

How Did The White House Respond?

Fox News reported separately that Trump congratulated Democrats after the vote and said he looks forward to working with them. The statement came after the president had earlier touted what Fox described as the "ultimate power" of a veto if Democrats won control of the House and Senate — a contingency that, according to the midterm results, has now materialized.

What Are Democrats Saying Among Themselves?

The reaction inside the party was not uniformly celebratory. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Democrats could squander the midterm victory if they fail to stay focused after the election, Fox News reported. Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock also weighed in on the results, according to Fox's coverage, though the full context of his remarks was not detailed in the report.

Media figures aligned with the party struck a different tone. Hosts of the podcast "Pod Save America" called the wins "the end of the Trump era," according to Fox News, while late-night host Jimmy Kimmel "revels in Democrats' blue wave" on his program as the party took back control of Congress, Fox reported.

How Are Conservative Commentators Describing The Results?

On the right, the reaction documented by Fox News was markedly more somber. Conservative commentators described the outcome as a "catastrophic" midterm "blue tsunami," attributing the losses to Trump's handling of the Iran war and to high gas prices, according to Fox's report. Fox did not name the specific commentators making that assessment in the material reviewed for this story, and the Times editorial board's own explanation for the results — as characterized by Fox — centered on the vote as a broad rejection of the president rather than on any single policy.

The gap between the two framings — a Democratic repudiation of Trump versus a backlash rooted in war policy and gas prices — illustrates how differently the same election night is being read across media outlets, even where the underlying result, control of Congress changing hands, is not in dispute.

What To Watch Next

• Whether Trump's stated willingness to work with the new Democratic majorities produces actual negotiations on budget or energy policy in the weeks ahead.
• Whether Hillary Clinton's warning about staying focused shapes how Democratic leadership approaches its new majorities in the House and Senate.
• Whether conservative commentators' emphasis on the Iran war and gas prices becomes the dominant Republican explanation for the losses, or whether other factors emerge in post-election analysis.
• How other outlets' editorial boards characterize the same results in the coming days, given the divide already visible between Fox News's coverage and the Times's own framing.