The man Fox News leans on to explain politics looked at the returns rolling in and told viewers the president’s clock had already run out.
Brit Hume, Fox News’ chief political analyst, called President Donald Trump a lame-duck president live on air late Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, as returns showed Democrats headed toward control of Congress.
“And Trump is going to be a lame duck,” Hume said as the numbers came in. “I mean, because he’s only got two more years to go. So people are going to say, ‘OK, Democrats, what you got?’ And it’s going to be an interesting question what it is.”
By Wednesday, Nov. 4, Democrats had flipped both the House and the Senate.
A Warning Aimed at the Winners
Hume framed the moment as a warning for the winners, with scrutiny swinging to Democrats after their years in the minority. Democrats ran their midterm campaign largely on opposition to Trump and on his war with Iran, he argued, and he suggested that message has a ceiling.
He predicted a fractious coalition arriving in Washington, with newly elected democratic socialists pulling the party leftward. Some Democrats are pushing to get a few things accomplished, Hume said, though he doubted that impulse gets far. The hatred inside the Democratic Party’s constituency, he said, is so intense and so enduring that even a lame-duck president might not pull the party off it.
A 2:14 clip titled “Brit Hume has a warning for Democrats” went up on Fox News on Nov. 4, taking in who controls the House and Senate, the meaning of that for the party, and the new status Trump now holds. Earlier on Election Day, with the results still hours away, “The Story” hosted Hume for a look at the midterm push Trump had mounted, the issues moving voters and how far the president’s influence reached into key races. A 39-second hit on “FOX News Democracy 26” followed that night, in which he weighed whether the high-profile rally blitz Trump ran had energized the GOP base or inadvertently driven Democrats to vote.
A War With the Network
Trump spent part of the same night attacking the network on social media as the results arrived. In a Nov. 3 post about Fox ratings, he wrote: “FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they’re spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!”
Trump told an election-night interviewer he has “total veto power, so they have to come to us.” He also said he would accept the results and work with the new Democratic Congress.
In that same election-night interview, Trump said he had no regrets about endorsing losing Senate candidates Darline Graham of South Carolina and Ken Paxton of Texas, and he stood by the Iran war. “I don’t regret that decision at all,” he said. He has warned he would finish the job in Iran if the regime does not behave. Iran’s ayatollah projected defiance after the U.S. election results.
At 10:37 p.m. on Nov. 3, Trump posted on Truth Social about the ballot itself: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”
Texas Falls, Florida Holds
Paxton, the state attorney general, lost to Democrat James Talarico, who became the first Democrat in decades to win a Texas Senate seat, according to Nov. 3 results. Incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott was defeated by Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa.
Iowa and Kansas also delivered wins for Democrats. In Florida, Republicans hung on narrowly to a Senate seat and to the governor’s mansion, which Byron Donalds took in the gubernatorial race before crediting God and family.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) expanded their influence within the Democratic Party this cycle, with far-left members positioned to reshape the incoming Congress. Abdul El-Sayed won a Senate race. Rep. Ilhan Omar won reelection despite fraud investigations.
“Decoy Dan” and an Uncalled Seat
The strangest result of the night came out of Alaska, where the Senate race was marked by an alleged ballot plot and a candidate known as “Decoy Dan.” Thousands of votes went to that candidate, and Sen. Dan Sullivan called out Democrats over the episode in a speech to his supporters.
Sullivan trailed Democrat Mary Peltola narrowly, 47.9% to 48.2%, with the race uncalled as of Saturday, Nov. 7. Ranked-choice tabulation follows Nov. 18 should no candidate win a majority.
Four Reasons and a 2028 Question
A fight over leadership broke out among Republicans within hours of the chambers flipping. On X on Wednesday, Nov. 4, Vice President JD Vance posted four reasons voters had not backed the GOP: the war in Iran, living costs, not putting “America First,” and the U.S. relationship with Israel. “Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats,” he wrote.
As of Nov. 6, Vance was reported to be distancing himself from Trump after the midterm defeat, blaming the Iran war for Republican losses, acknowledging failures in the party’s economic messaging, questioning Washington’s relationship with Israel and suggesting changes to immigration enforcement. He has avoided open confrontation with Trump, and speculation has turned to a 2028 run.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was blunter, describing the results as “close to an extinction-level event” for Republicans. At a press conference on Nov. 4, he turned to the map: “In January, when everyone in office leaves who are either term-limited or got voted out, of the 10 largest states in this union, only one state will have Republican control … the state of Florida.”
Without Texas, DeSantis said, the GOP is “not going to be viable nationally going forward.” He added: “We knew it could be worse, but I don’t think most of us thought it would be quite this bad.”
