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The Six Lessons of the 2026 Midterms
Ten years after Donald Trump stunned the world by winning the 2016 election, his political movement may be approaching its end. Tuesday’s midterms delivered a historic rebuke to the Republican Party, with Democrats making astonishing gains in states Trump carried comfortably just two years ago. So … how did we get here? And is the Trump era really over for good?
Today, in conversation with New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn, Derek goes over the six biggest lessons from the midterms: the pendulum swings of the youth vote, the death of the Trump coalition, the revival of the swing voter, the identity death of the Republican Party, the limits of money in politics, and, finally, the historical analogies over the last 100 years that should shape our understanding of what happens next.
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Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Nate Cohn
Producer: Devon Baroldi
Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
This episode is brought to you by Jira by Atlassian.
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