MAGA activist Laura Loomer predicted Republicans will take a shellacking in next year’s midterms following Miami’s mayoral election last night, which saw a Democrat claim victory for the first time in nearly 30 years.
“A bright red city in a bright red state just went blue tonight,” Loomer wrote on X on Tuesday night. “Midterms will be a bloodbath.”
She described Miami’s mayoral-elect, Eileen Higgins, as a socialist, adding, “President Trump’s Presidential library will now be constructed under the control of a rabidly anti-Trump Democrat who supports soft on crime policies.”
Higgins, an ex-county commissioner, defeated Republican Emilio González, a former city manager endorsed by Trump, in a run-off election. With nearly all the ballots counted on Tuesday, she led him by a comfortable margin of about 19 percentage points. She will be the first woman ever to lead the city, the largest in the state where Trump’s resides.
A Spanish speaker, Higgins presented herself to voters as “La Gringa,” a term to describe white Americans. She largely focused her campaign on immigration, positioning the election as a referendum on Trump’s hardline policies.
“[Trump] and I have very different points of view on how we should treat our residents, many of whom are immigrants,” Higgins told El País in an interview this week. “That is the strength of this community. We are an immigrant-based place. That’s our uniqueness. That’s what makes us special.”
Higgins also hammered the issue of affordability, promising to build thousands of new affordable housing units and invest in small businesses.
Loomer, a close ally of Trump’s, previously called on Miami residents to vote for González, writing on X, “Don’t let the radical left take over Miami, Florida.”
Last night also saw another Democratic victory in neighboring Georgia, with affordability proving to be a key issue again.
In an upset, Democrat Eric Gisler won a special election in a historically Republican state House district, narrowly beating Republican candidate Mack “Dutch” Guest by around 200 votes.
“I think we had the right message for the time,” Gisler told The Associated Press. “A lot of what I would call traditional conservatives held their nose and voted Republican last year on the promise of low prices and whatever else they were selling…But they hadn’t received that.”
The twin Democratic victories add to the party’s string of successes across the U.S. in recent months — including in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City. In these races, Democrats largely focused on affordability amidst growing economic anxiety.
The trend has caused consternation among some Republicans ahead of next year’s midterm elections, which historically see the president’s party lose seats in Congress. Currently, the GOP holds a razor-thin majority in both chambers.
Last week, veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove warned that the Republican Party could be in “deep trouble” in 2026.
In an interview with Fox News, Rove claimed that the damage caused by the government shutdown and muted benefits of the Big, Beautiful Bill have left Congressional Republicans “scared to death of the midterm election.”
“Republicans are concerned, and they need to have an agenda going into the 2026 midterms,” he added. “And they don’t have a forward-looking agenda at this moment.”
Michael DuHaime, a former Republican National Committee official, echoed this sentiment following Democratic victories in November.
“There is no sugarcoating these results. They’re really bad for the party,” DuHaime told The Wall Street Journal. He added: “Republicans would be smart to heed the warning signs of this election.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, downplayed the recent GOP losses, telling reporters in November that “Off-year elections are not indicative of what’s to come.”
