After a historic night for Democrats, the party has taken control of the U.S. House and Senate and delivered a trifecta of Democratic power in the Pennsylvania state legislature by taking majority control in the state Senate.
Voters delivered decisive victories to Democrats even in highly contested races across the Lehigh Valley. Democratic challenger Bob Brooks ousted Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie by more than a 13 point margin, and Democrats also unseated several state senators and representatives, some of whom had been in office for upwards of a decade.
At the polls, voters blamed persistently high costs, the war in Iran and a sense of general dissatisfaction with the status quo under Republican President Donald Trump as they cast their votes in favor of Democrats.
“[Republicans] promised things would go down in price, but everything has gone way up,” said Hughes Cherisme, an Allentown resident who cast a ballot at the Ag Hall precinct Tuesday morning.
Cherisme’s story is emblematic of the struggles many Americans said they are facing under Donald Trump’s second term — Cherisme, formerly a diesel truck driver, lost his job this year, which he attributed to the skyrocketing cost of diesel brought on by the ongoing war in Iran.
Cherisme is now working as a mechanic, but is having trouble making ends meet.
“Some truck drivers, some families want to stay silent, but a lot of drivers just can’t afford the cost of living,” Cherisme said, who added that he is casting his vote “like our lives depend on it.”
Democrats can now boast historic margins of victory not just in Pennsylvania but all across the United States, taking back control of the House and Senate via both competitive swing states and previously ruby red states like Texas and Kansas.
Here is how and why Democrats pulled off such decisive wins, and what they plan to do with their newfound power.
Blue swings in ‘every corner of the district’
Brooks upended the trend of razor-thin margins in the Lehigh Valley’s congressional district. By contrast, in 2024, Mackenzie ousted incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Susan Wild by only 4,000 votes, or just one percentage point; in 2022, Wild defeated her Republican opponent, Lisa Scheller, by just two percentage points.
A 2024 Morning Call analysis found that the most decisive swings in Mackenzie’s favor were in traditionally blue and heavily Latino parts of Allentown, where voters swung to the right by up to 14 points compared to 2022. Even though the GOP voters in these areas are still a minority, the size of that shift was enough to help push the race in Mackenzie’s favor when tacked onto his advantage in rural areas.
By contrast, the voters that handed Brooks his 2026 victory were in every corner of the 7th District.
A Morning Call analysis found that Mackenzie received a smaller share of votes in every corner of the district compared to 2024. For example, he received just under half of the vote share in Northampton County in 2024, but only 43% in 2026, a 15-point swing in the opposite direction.
Even in deeply Republican Carbon County, where Mackenzie took 60% of the vote this year, his share of the vote declined compared to 2024, when he took 66% of the share.
According to an analysis of voter data in 2024 and 2026, although both candidates received fewer votes in 2026 than their respective parties did in 2024 — due to the lower turnout traditionally seen in midterm elections compared to presidential — Mackenzie’s total declined at a considerably faster rate.
Mackenzie defeated Wild by 4,062 votes in 2024, but Brooks led Mackenzie by 35,358 votes in the unofficial 2026 returns, a 39,420-vote reversal in the Democratic margin. Mackenzie’s share of the two-party congressional vote fell from 50.5% to 44%, a decline of 6.6 percentage points.
An analysis of Lehigh County data found that the most decisive swings against Mackenzie came from the same voters that handed him his victory in 2024.
Precincts in center city Allentown where the majority of voters are Hispanic swung right, like the first and sixth ward, saw more voters support Brooks, by up to a 24 point margin compared to two years ago.
Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, who spent Tuesday canvassing across the city in favor of Democrats, said he heard from Latino voters across the city who were frustrated with Trump’s leadership.
“I’ve been surprised by how many people I have seen, spending time in a few different parts of the city, that are frustrated with Trump’s policies,” Tuerk said. “It’s the foreign wars that are hurting our prices.”
The blue wave did not spare several sitting Republican state legislators in the Lehigh Valley either. In state Senate District 16, Democrat Mark Pinsley, Lehigh County controller, unseated Republican incumbent Sen. Jarrett Coleman, in a rematch of the 2022 race in the same district. The race is part of what handed Democrats a trifecta of power in Harrisburg for the first time since 1993.
Democrats also expanded their majority in the state house via several races in the Lehigh Valley.
In Northampton County, Democrat Jeff Warren defeated state Rep. Joe Emrick, who served the 137th House District for eight terms before his defeat this year. Rachel Cuevas, a former human resources employee and political newcomer, ousted longtime state Rep. Gary Day in the 187th district — a seat once held by Mackenzie — and in the 131st district, Meriam Sabih, a freelance journalist, beat longtime state Rep. Milou Mackenzie, Ryan Mackenzie’s mother.
How Democrats won
Voters pointed to their dissatisfaction with current economic conditions and Trump’s leadership as a primary driver for their blue votes.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the consumer price index rose 0.6% in September and 3.7% year-over-year. The rise in the index largely came from a major spike in gasoline costs, 9.1%. Experts attribute the rising cost of fuel to the ongoing Iran war, which has stymied the flow of oil into the United States.
A recent Harris poll found that over 60% of voters believe that the U.S. economy is in a recession, including 72% of Democrats, 61% of independents and 50% of Republicans. Voters ranked gas prices, grocery prices, living expenses and healthcare costs as their top concerns heading into the midterms.
Trump, on the other hand, dismissed voters’ concerns about affordability throughout the past year, calling affordability a “hoax” and a “fake narrative,” even though he campaigned on the promise of bringing costs down.
Many voters said they felt betrayed and even angry at what they saw as “broken promises” from Trump. Even though the president was not on the ballot in the midterm elections, most Republicans running for re-election largely supported his agenda, and the president was clearly on the mind of many voters as they cast their ballots.
Steven Reiser, an Allentown resident who said he once considered himself a “die-hard Republican,” now opposes Trump and voted for Democrats on Tuesday.
“Broken promises, the economy, the safety of the country,” Reiser said, listing the reasons he cast his ballot for Brooks and other Democrats.
“We need a change,” said Roberto Serra, another voter in Allentown. “Everything is too expensive.”
Serra retired in August from his job at UPS, but picked up a part-time job at Home Depot to cover his costs — his Social Security alone is not enough to pay the bills, he said.
“I do it because I can’t keep up,” Serra said of his part-time job. “You work all your life, but you still can’t keep up.”
Democrats like Brooks centered their campaign around bringing down costs by ending the war in Iran, curbing tariffs and re-implementing health care subsidies.
Brooks in particular touted his own working class background — he grew up with a single mom relying on food stamps and public housing — to make the case that he understands what it means to struggle financially, and would address those problems while in office.
Democratic leaders who spent the last few weeks relentlessly canvassing and campaigning for their party’s candidates even said that they were surprised by their margins of victory, but attributed it to a sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo under Trump, whose approval rating has cratered to just 34%.
“I expected some good turnout, I didn’t expect the turnout to be as great as it was, and I honestly believe that it’s a reflection of, these were anti-Trump votes. It may not necessarily have been pro-Democrat, but it was definitely anti-Trump,” said Lori McFarland, chair of the Lehigh County Democrats. “People are tired of the corruption, the grift, the cruelty, the tariffs, the war, they’re tired of all of it, and everybody is struggling, while he is living his best life.”
Republican blame game
On the other hand, Republicans are split on who to blame for their party’s losses. Pollsters, Democrats and many voters who swung blue will tell you that their anger at Trump fueled their vote, but not all Republicans believe Trump’s policies are the problem.
“Quite frankly, I don’t think it was the president’s policies, because the president’s policies closed off border to illegal immigration, cut taxes, reduced crime,” said Glenn Geissinger, chair of the Northampton County Republican Party. “Republicans did a lot of things right over the last two years.”
Geissenger said independent voters who were more swayed by current economic conditions than a coherent political ideology fueled Republican losses. Had Republicans been able to more effectively communicate their legislative wins, things could have gone differently, he believes.
Asked about perceived missteps like the war in Iran, Geissenger, an Army veteran, said he trusts that President Trump entered the conflict “in the best interest of the security of western civilization.”
On the other hand, Sam Chen, a Republican political strategist, believes that Trump has run his course as the leader of the GOP.
Voters felt betrayed by Trump’s 2024 promises to lower prices and end foreign wars, neither of which were fulfilled as the country entered a war in Iran and prices remained stubbornly high, Chen said.
“I think this administration does not govern well,” Chen said. “I don’t think they’re conservative, they’re populist. A lot of their proposals are closer to socialism than what we’ve gotten from the Democrats. I think it’s been long due to break from the president and to get back to governing.”
A look at campaign spending
In the 7th District, Brooks overcame a mountain of attacks from his opponent and allies against his character and background — Mackenzie publicly called Brooks a “con man” and “nut job,” citing a now-settled lawsuit between his former in-laws and other reports in right-wing news outlets that accuse the Democrat of violating laws via his former business ventures, which Brooks has denied.
“Tonight, the people of the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos looked at all the negativity and the hate and said ‘pound sand,’” Brooks joked during his victory speech Tuesday night.
The attacks evidently did not make a difference for a critical mass of voters, despite upwards of $10 million in spending on attack ads against Brooks from outside groups alone (Democrats, for their part, spent a similar amount on attacks against Mackenzie).
Chen, the Republican strategist, called Brooks’ dropping out of a debate between the candidates a “bad look,” but he credited the Democrat for staying “on message” and continuing to focus on voter concerns like the economy rather than addressing Mackenzie’s attacks.
“There are legitimate issues with some of the things Brooks was saying but Brooks didn’t really bite back; he didn’t take the bait,” Chen said. “He stayed on Ryan Mackenzie, kept tying Mackenzie back to the Trump administration — that was really the attack line he took and he stayed on message.”
Many voters at the polls Tuesday, asked about their thoughts on the barrage of attack ads against both candidates, said they cared more about what the candidates had to say than the attacks featured in ads and mailers.
Vince Bruneo of Bethlehem Township, who is a retired police officer, said he identified as a Republican until the riot at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. He chose to vote for Democrats in 2026, including Brooks, despite some of the criticisms Mackenzie waged against him.
“I understand [Brooks] has some issues, but there’s just as many issues on the right,” Bruneo said. “Somebody’s got to take care of us. We’re just working people.”
A 2024 study reported by Politico found no concrete patterns that predict which political ads are effective at swaying voters: so, in a sense, any messaging or strategy a candidate chooses to reach voters is something of a shot in the dark.
If anything though, the ads are a reminder that the election is happening — their relentlessness makes it hard to miss.
Mario Lopez, an independent who voted for Democrats on Tuesday, said he found the ads more annoying than influential, but figured he received enough ads and mailers that he “might as well perform that duty” to show up and vote.
What comes next
In some ways, Democrats now face an even bigger challenge — delivering on the promises they made to voters during the campaign trail.
When he enters the U.S. House of Representatives in January, Brooks said he has four key legislative priorities: banning congressional stock trading, stopping corporate PAC money, implementing term limits and releasing the full Epstein files.
“If we’re going to fix D.C., we’ve got to put the fire out first,” Brooks said Tuesday.
Still, Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate will have obstacles to overcome: primarily, that Trump is still president for the next two years and has the power to veto legislation that he opposes. Congress is also limited in how much it can do to immediately lower costs of every day goods.
In the Pennsylvania State House, where Democrats will hold a trifecta of power, leaders like Gov. Josh Shapiro have already laid out some of their key priorities including raising the minimum wage, funding public transportation and enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.
Freelance data reporter Chris Ullery, and staff writers Evan Jones, Elizabeth DeOrnellas and Graysen Golter, contributed to this report.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.