The 2026 primary season featured the rise of democratic socialist and anti-Israel candidates on the left, a host of incumbents losing primaries, President Donald Trump getting revenge but also seeing his hold on his base waver, and a bare-knuckle redistricting push by Republicans that could reverberate for years to come.
All of it set the stage for a midterm election in which Democrats seem to have a chance to flip both the House (which appears likely) and the Senate (which appears possible), thanks to Trump’s historic unpopularity.
But before we turn completely to that, let’s reflect on some takeaways from the past six and a half months of nominating contests, which culminated in the Delaware primary Tuesday night, and what they could tell us about what’s to come.
Here’s what we learned.
Trump’s standing with his base is weaker than ever right now, and it showed.
In total, 10 Trump-backed candidates lost GOP nominating contests for Congress or statewide office – including five candidates for governor and six candidates in the month of August alone.
The 10 losses is equal to the combined total defeats of Trump-backed candidates across the 2018, 2020 and 2024 elections, per a CNN review of Ballotpedia data, though it was slightly less than in 2022 (12). Of course, back in 2022 there was some question about whether Trump could make a political comeback.
Trump’s overall endorsement record is strong, and virtually any candidate would want his backing in a primary. But it was far from a silver bullet. And that reinforces the idea that voters on the right aren’t taking their cues from him as much as they used to.
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While some Trump-backed candidates lost, he generally did well when he really went after people in high-profile ways.
He ousted Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky after the congressman spearheaded the push to release the Epstein files and broke with him on several other issues. He knocked off Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, one of seven Republicans to vote to convict him at his second impeachment trial. He took down 6 of 8 Indiana GOP state senators who killed a redistricting map he really wanted. And he ousted Sen. John Cornyn of Texas in a very high-profile primary runoff.
Self-described democratic socialists are still a small proportion of the candidates Democrats nominated – less than 1%, per a Brookings Institution study. But they’re winning nominations in bigger and bigger races.
After New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s wins in 2025, democratic socialists defeated three House incumbents and are on course for their largest congressional contingent ever – possibly in the double-digits.
And while they largely only won nominations in heavily blue districts, they were nominated in a swing congressional district in Michigan and for Senate in Florida. That doesn’t even include Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who shares some of the movement’s sensibilities but doesn’t call himself a democratic socialist.
Democratic socialists are also expected to win the Washington, DC, mayor’s race and could win in Los Angeles too.
They did come up short in a much-watched primary for Wisconsin governor, where state Assemblywoman Francesca Hong lost after the Democratic establishment fought hard to prevent her nomination – and showed it still had some influence. But the fact that Hong got that close to victory was pretty remarkable, in and of itself.
Despite Republicans lifting socialism up as their big 2026 boogeyman, the results and recent polling suggest Americans aren’t terribly worried about electing the right kinds of democratic socialists.
In fact, recent polls have shown voters are actually more concerned about electing MAGA candidates than ones who identify with socialism. And a New York Times/Siena College poll this week showed just 30% of likely voters said they would prefer not to vote for a democratic socialist.
While there has been lots of focus democratic socialists and El-Sayed possibly costing Democrats important races, he’s very much the exception. By and large, Democrats appear to have recruited and nominated candidates who fit their areas well and appeal to voters personally – including Senate candidates like Josh Turek in Iowa, former Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska and former Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina.
A recent CNN review showed the Democratic Senate nominee was more popular than the Republican in every top race except Michigan.
Future primaries are apparently going to be moving targets, thanks to Republicans’ move to start a redistricting arms race this election cycle.
While we had seen mid-decade redistricting before, Republicans ramped it up in a way we simply haven’t seen in modern history – all to draw just a handful of additional seats that favor their side. That caused Democrats to respond in kind where they could try to offset those GOP gains.
All told, Republicans netted as many as nine seats that are now favorable to them – which could matter in a close battle for the House majority. (If Democrats have a good year, though, they could win a number of those seats.)
The Supreme Court also ruled in a way that makes it easier for Republicans to eliminate majority-Black districts in the South, which launched another wave of redistricting efforts and could significantly reduce Black representation in Congress.
What this likely means is that, absent some kind of agreement between the parties or legislation, the two sides are just going to keep redrawing these maps whenever they can and whenever there is an advantage to be gleaned. That will likely lead to more upheaval and fewer competitive races in the years to come.
The Democratic base has spent the last couple years adopting a sharply critical view of Israel, and that figured significantly in some high-profile 2026 Democratic primaries.
Israel supporters didn’t lose all the races, but the issue emerged as a major one in a number of races, including El-Sayed’s narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s win in the Democratic Senate primary, and the primary upsets of Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman of New York and Shri Thanedar of Michigan, among others.
Even in races where the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) helped a victorious candidate, its advertisements tellingly didn’t focus on the Middle East.
Trump has spent years seeing scandals bounce off him like he’s made of Teflon. But the 2026 primary season suggested he’s still unusual in that regard.
On the Democratic side, California governor candidate Eric Swalwell and Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner both dropped out in the face of sexual assault allegations that they denied. Across the aisle, Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales dropped out of his primary runoff amid revelations of an affair with a staffer who died by suicide, and Reps. Andy Ogles of Tennessee and Cory Mills of Florida lost primaries in part thanks to personal baggage.
But Rep. Max Miller of Ohio remains on the ballot, despite ugly allegations from his ex-wife that emerged after he won his primary. And Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Cornyn in a primary runoff despite his own extensive baggage, including past criminal charges and an impeachment.
All have denied wrongdoing.
No fewer than 13 incumbents lost primaries for reelection to Congress – an unusually high number, historically speaking. They lost due to a variety of reasons, including anti-Israel sentiment, Trump’s revenge tour and districts being redrawn in ways that made it more difficult for incumbents.
But this dynamic also arguably showed up in statewide races, where voters didn’t seem to have much interest in elevating members of Congress. Most of those who sought promotions lost in those primaries, too.
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