News & Brews November 4, 2026
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A Democrat trifecta
For the first time in decades, Democrats have gained trifecta control in Harrisburg and will head into next year holding the state House, state Senate, and governor’s office. In an easy win, Gov. Shapiro cruised to re-election. Meanwhile, Democrats expanded their House majority to 112-91 (up from 103-100 pre-election) by our latest count. And they won their greatest prize: Control of the state Senate. Heading into yesterday, Republicans held 27-23 control in the upper chamber, but Democrats successfully flipped enough seats to gain a 26-24 majority.
PennLive reports, “The political trifecta was Shapiro’s top priority this election but it … could … be dangerous, particularly for Shapiro who is widely viewed as a presidential hopeful in 2028…. [W]hen all lawmakers are in the same party and something goes wrong, there’s only one party to blame.”
Democrats flip four Pa. congressional seats
Continuing their sweep yesterday, Democrats flipped all four closely watched congressional seats in Pennsylvania. Republicans Scott Perry lost to Janelle Stelson; Rob Bresnahan lost to Paige Cognetti, Ryan Mackenzie lost to Bob Brooks, and Brian Fitzpatrick lost to Bob Harvie. The Wall Street Journal reports, “The wins mark a stark turnaround after narrow victories in the state helped carry President Trump into the White House twice. Two years ago, Republicans flipped two House seats in the state. On Tuesday, they turned blue again.”
These Pa. seats flipped blue to red
Amid the blue deluge yesterday, one Republican state Senate candidate in Pennsylvania successfully flipped a seat from blue to red. Republican Rep. Tom Jones unseated Democrat state Sen. James Malone in Lancaster County. Malone had won a special election in the district last year. WGAL reports that Jones “campaigned on … a ‘taxpayer-first’ approach to government. His campaign says he supported balanced state budgets that did not raise taxes and backed property, sales and income tax relief. He opposed new energy taxes and utility rate increases. He also turned down the taxpayer-funded pension that state lawmakers can receive.” This was one of just two legislative seats to flip from blue to red in Pennsylvania. The other was in Butler County, where GOP House candidate Scott Timko defeated incumbent Democrat Brandon Dukes, who had won a special election earlier this year.
Some national perspective on the GOP’s bad night
Our friends at Ballotpedia have a great overview of yesterday’s results from across the country, giving context (as of this morning) to Democrats’ historic victories. For example, “Democrats won Senate races in seven states that President Donald Trump (R) won in 2024. Four Republican Senators lost re-election. Republicans’ loss of seven Senate seats puts the 2026 elections in the top 20% of election years in terms of seat swings against a president’s party — a threshold we’ve previously defined as a wave election.” Meanwhile, in the House, “Fourteen Republicans and no Democrats lost their re-election bids for the U.S. House. Since 2014, 85 U.S. House incumbents have lost re-election in general elections. That’s an average of 14 incumbents per election cycle. The highest number of incumbent losses during that period was in 2018 when 30 Republicans lost re-election.”
‘Will Democrats misread their victory?’
Democrats won big yesterday. That’s a fact. But not because voters love Democrat policies. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes, “The first essential lesson is that voters are handing Democrats power because they wanted to rebuke President Trump. They think he failed to deliver on his promise to lower prices, and they don’t like his excesses on the rule of law, tariffs, mass deportation, and crony cashing in. Voters weren’t endorsing the Democratic Party, which stands at 29% approval in the latest NBC poll, below even the 38% for the Republican Party. Voters also weren’t embracing a Democratic policy agenda, since the party didn’t offer one. Candidates chanted ‘Trump’ like an incantation and then talked about costs and corruption. They offered little specificity about how to reduce costs.” And now that Democrats hold power, “The political danger is that Democrats won’t be able to control themselves.”
