I don't like the result. But I have to accept it. More than that, the most important thing—for me, for everyone on our side, and especially for the Republicans in Congress—is that the why needs to be fully understood.
And don't get me wrong—the Democrats need to understand that why just as much. This wasn't a mandate for them to play politics as usual. It wasn't a green light to charge ahead with investigations, retaliation, or impeachment hearings.
This was swing voters saying loud and clear: we have issues, the Republicans didn't solve them, so now it's your turn to do what they couldn't—or wouldn't.
Will the Democrats actually work on those issues? I have serious doubts. I also have serious doubts we've solved anything by handing the reins to the other side of the aisle. We have to remember that most of the problems people are worried about right now were set in motion by Democrats in the first place.
A lot of this election came down to the economy and how Americans feel about it. We've been hit with high prices on everything, skyrocketing energy bills, people racking up credit card debt just to cover basic living expenses, and brutal prices at the pump.
But a lot of that traces back to Biden's inflation. If that hadn't happened, affordability wouldn't even have been a talking point. The problem is people have short attention spans. They don't care what happened then. They care about what's happening now. Republicans had two years to change how Americans felt about their wallets, and they didn't do it.
And to be fair, you can only point backward for so long before people start treating it as an excuse instead of a solution. Inflation may have been Biden's fault, but by the midterms it was the Republicans' problem. It was theirs to solve.
There were other factors, too. The Iran War is unpopular and has dragged on. Some of the deportation efforts didn't sit well with a lot of people. And to some degree—and this is just me being fair again—I don't think many people appreciated the pettiness of things like changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America or Lake Ontario to Lake America.
When your wallet's wheezing, you really don't care what a lake or a gulf gets called. It raises the question, where are the priorities?
Not passing the SAVE America Act played a role as well, especially with the swing voters who handed this election to the Democrats. It had the support of 80% of the country, and the Republicans basically sat on it, offering excuse after excuse for why they couldn't round up the votes or change the rules to get it passed.
And let's face it—the bill was stuffed, like most bills are, with things that had nothing to do with voter integrity. That made it harder for Democrats to support it. I actually think that was done on purpose, and a lot of people saw it that way.
The American people wanted the bill to pass. For whatever reason the Republicans made it nearly impossible, and voters noticed.
The bottom line is that the Democrats won and the Republicans lost. Now the Democrats need to deliver the real solutions they convinced people they have.
Trump needs to work with the Democrats. The Democrats need to work with Trump. Both sides need to work with each other. It's time to stop the partisan games and get things done. It's time to stop pointing fingers and start finding compromises that actually work.
Because if all we get is more of the same, we're just kicking the can, and the American people will be once again left holding the bag.
I want the Democrats to succeed. Success in politics is what helps the country succeed. So, I wish them well. And going back to the why I mentioned earlier, I hope Trump gets it. I hope the Republicans get it.
The American people want progress. They want policies that actually work and get things done. We're tired of being pawns, and this election made that clear.
© 2026 Jim Bauer/The Springboard. All rights reserved.
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