Though the last races have yet to be officially called, it is obvious that last Tuesday’s US midterm elections were a bloodbath for the Republican Party. The Democrats have won, or are likely to win, in places they previously squeaked victories (Georgia, North Carolina), had nearly given up on (Ohio, Iowa), long dreamed of breaking (Texas, Alaska) and scarcely dared to hope (South Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi).

Aside from the obvious reasons for a wave election, from unpopular Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids to the war in Iran and its attendant effect on prices, a key ingredient in their victory was candidate quality. With notable exceptions, the party and its voters did a good job in matching candidates to races.

But rather than a bland slate of centrist career politicians, the new class of Democratic senators and congresspeople are as heterogeneous as we have seen in years. Maine elected a left-wing former logger, New Hampshire the country’s first openly gay senator. After a bitter race in Michigan marked by enormous spending from outside groups like AIPAC, and rank Islamophobia, Abdul El-Sayed won a stunning victory to become the first Muslim ever elected to the Senate. Our conception of what a Democratic politician looks like will have to change.

Since 2016, the party has seemed locked in battle between the centrist and centre-right establishment once represented by Hillary Clinton, and an insurgent left that grew out of Bernie Sanders’s two campaigns. The size of this victory made it difficult for either side to claim full vindication. Democrats won where they ran open socialists and they won where they ran former republicans. Such was the unpopularity of the opposition that they won........

© The Irish Times