Propelled by an unprecedented surge of rank-and-file enthusiasm and a widespread suburban dissatisfaction with the GOP, Democrats were on track to win control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 2011 and could even gain more seats than in 2006, the year they delivered what President George W. Bush described as a “thumping.”  

Yet with victories in Tennessee, Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri and Texas, Donald Trump’s Republican Party preserved and likely extended its majority in the U.S. Senate, capitalizing on a lopsided battlefield that forced Democrats to defend 10 seats in states Trump won in 2016.

The outcome is largely a repudiation of President Trump, who told a rally last month in Mississippi to “pretend I’m on the ballot” — and a partial vindication.

It all depends which side of widening gap between Red America and Blue America you stand on.

On Tuesday voters turned out in record numbers to deliver a verdict on Trump after two years in which he has monopolized the media, polarized the electorate and dominated American political life like no president since Franklin Roosevelt — or arguably ever.

As the last ballots trickled in, it became clear that America’s verdict wasn’t mixed so much as divided. The red, rural parts of the country voted heavily Republican. The blue, urban parts voted heavily Democrat. And the purple, suburban areas leaned leftward — far enough to flip dozens of suburban GOP House districts but not far enough to overcome Republicans’ statewide margins in conservative strongholds such as Missouri and Indiana and save moderate Democratic senators such as Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly. 

Winning the Senate was always a long shot. Still, the party was depending on Joe Donnelly to hold his seat and hoping that Phil Bredesen, a popular and moderate former governor, could eke out a win against GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn. In Texas, Beto O’Rourke was a folk hero for liberals who thought he might defy gravity and defeat Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican.

It was not to be.

Democrats faced serious hurdles this cycle. Republicans largely oversaw the last round of redistricting, redrawing the congressional map in ways that force Democrats to win the nationwide popular vote by seven or more percentage points just to secure a bare House majority. On the Senate side, Democrats were defending 26 seats to the GOP’s nine — by far the most difficult map either party has faced in decades. Republicans in some red states passed a set of restrictive voting laws that disproportionately handicap Democratic constituencies. Finally, the economy is humming and unemployment has fallen to a 48-year low — factors that traditionally boost the party in power.

None of that, however, prevented Democrats from heading toward victory in the House. In suburban, GOP-held districts that voted for Clinton in 2016, Democrats performed well: Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Miami, a moderate who co-founded the House climate change caucus, lost to his Democratic challenger, as did Northern Virginia’s Barbara Comstock, New Jersey’s Leonard Lance, Dallas’s Pete Sessions and Colorado’s Mike Coffman. And strong showings in Richmond and Oklahoma City, where GOP incumbents Dave Brat and Steve Russell went down in defeat, suggested Democrats could continue to pick off some Trump districts and cushion their potential victory.  

A Democratic victory in the House will provide a crucial check on GOP rule and usher in a class of lawmakers in both Washington, D.C. and state capitals across America that will be younger, more female, more diverse and more progressive than any in U.S. history, including the first two Muslim women in Congress, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Illhan Omar of Minnesota; Jared Polis of Colorado, the first openly gay man to be elected governor of any state; and Sharice David of Kansas, the first Native American woman in Congress as well as the Sunflower State’s first openly gay representative.

The contours of a Democratic House victory took shape early on. In previous cycles, Democrats had failed to field challengers in tons of politically promising districts, conceding hundreds of seats up and down the ballot to uncontested GOP incumbents.