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By Andrew Stanton
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Republicans faced the “worst-case scenario” in Tuesday's midterm elections, when Democrats rode a blue tsunami to flip control of the House and Senate amid challenging headwinds propelled by President Donald Trump’s approval rating.
Republicans were dealt a major blow in the midterms, losing numerous seats that Trump won by double digits in the 2024 election. Democrats were poised to flip at least seven seats in the Senate and more than 25 seats in the House, penetrating deep into conservative territory in a stunning defeat for the GOP.
DeSantis, who has been mentioned as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, addressed the losses during a press conference Wednesday morning as Republicans grappled with the election results.
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“This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans, in many parts of the country, as we have seen probably in the last hundred years,” he said.
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In a post on X, he warned that Republicans are going to have a difficult time recovering their majorities in Congress.
“Dems will get 55 Senate seats and 250+ House seats," he wrote. "Looking at the Senate map and considering such a massive House margin, it is very unlikely Republicans will recapture the Congress in 2028. Might not have a shot at Senate control until 2032.”
DeSantis pointed to losses in Texas as especially painful for the GOP as Democrats swept statewide offices, including the Senate and governor races, despite the state’s longtime reputation as a conservative stronghold.
“That's something that can reverberate for the next decade or more, and if the Republican Party doesn't have Texas as an anchor, then we are not going to be viable nationally going forward,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to the Republican National Committee for comment via email.
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Republicans Dealt Midterm Losses
Democrats flipped Republican-held Senate seats in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas. GOP-held seats in Alaska and Mississippi have not been called. In the House, Democrats flipped at least 25 seats, with some races too close to call.
Data from The New York Times indicates that Democrats were on track to post a 13-point victory in the national popular vote, though there were still many votes left to count. That would mark a notable polling miss in favor of the Democrats. As of Tuesday, RealClearPolitics' polling aggregate showed Democrats up 8.8 points.
The blue tsunami, however, wasn’t quite big enough for Democrats to flip Florida, a former battleground that has shifted rightward over the past few decades. Republicans narrowly held on in the Senate and governor’s race, both of which were quite close.
The GOP leads in all of the House seats they hold in the state, but it is unclear as of Wednesday morning if they will flip any Democratic seats despite redistricting that put several Democratic incumbents in tougher districts.
Shawn Donahue, professor of political science at the University at Buffalo, told Newsweek that an influx of more conservative residents under the DeSantis administration is a reason why Florida may not have moved as much as other states.
“It seemed to have maybe given them enough of a cushion to withstand the blue tsunami,” he said.
The results could be an argument in favor of DeSantis if he decides to run for president in 2028, he said.
“One of the selling points that he could have is: ‘This was a really bad election, yet we still reelected our senator that I appointed*,’*'’ Donahue said.
The 2028 Senate Map
As of Wednesday morning, Democrats were poised to hold 54 seats to Republicans’ 44.
In 2028, there are expected to be several competitive Senate races, including some Republicans will have a chance to flip. But Republicans are going to need a big election to flip enough seats to make up for their losses this year.
There are Democratic-held seats for grabs in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania that are likely to be Republican targets. Democrats, meanwhile, will be targeting GOP-held seats in North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Republicans may also look at a Democratic-held New Hampshire seat, while Democrats could target GOP-held seats in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina.
DeSantis’ post-midterm comments could be an “acknowledgement that maybe 2028 is not going to be that great of a year for Republicans,” Donahue said. “If you look at the seats that are up in 2028, I think that this was going to be a problem, let's say, if Democrats had only gained one or two seats. Democrats clearly have good targets in North Carolina and Wisconsin.”
Republicans Respond to Midterms
Top Republicans lamented the outcome of the midterms. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that there is going to be “a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened.” A GOP pollster told him that Trump voters were angry over the Iran war, the cost of living, and the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, he wrote.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote. “If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.”
Former Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X that the GOP will “have to kick Donald Trump out of the party” to have any chance of winning in the future.
“He has absolutely destroyed it and the current state of the GOP is warmongering, corrupt, corporate focused, entity that does not at all reflect the conservative values of its voters,” she wrote.
Representative Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, slammed GOP leadership.
"You have been embarrassingly weak and more afraid of governing conservatively than of disappointing the voters who put us in office," he wrote. "Instead of standing firm on our principles, you have governed out of fear, continually knelt to the moderates in our conference (who all got crushed last night anyway), and discarded conservatives like me who warned of last night’s results."
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Dave Siminoff.
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