Durham, North Carolina. The US mid-term elections ended in a clear defeat for the Republicans and for Donald Trump. The Democrats secured a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, with significant net gains and several surprises in traditionally Republican states.
In particular, the election victory of the ‘woke’ extremist James Talarico over the Republican Ken Paxton in the Republican stronghold of Texas, and the victory of the radical Muslim Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan, stand out as harbingers of a shift in the voter demographic.
The outcome was widely interpreted as a reaction to the high cost of living and dissatisfaction with the direction taken under the Trump administration. Exit polls showed that the economy and purchasing power dominated voters’ concerns. And many were disappointed by Trump’s inability to deliver on his 2024 election promises.
Same causes, opposite outcome.
The 2024 presidential election resulted in a victory for Trump, primarily as a consequence of previous administrations’ persistent globalisation policies over several decades. The export of industry and jobs to low-cost countries, the lack of real wage growth, weakened purchasing power and open borders created widespread discontent. Trump represented hope for better times and an alternative to donor-driven politicians on both sides of Congress.
Now, two years on, in 2026, the situation is not much better – at least not for the average American living outside the major cities on the east and west coasts. Although growth has picked up in the US (3.5 per cent in the third quarter), and is far stronger than in Europe (0.4 per cent) and Norway (0.3 per cent), inflation remains high. Real wage growth for many groups in sectors exposed to competition remains low. Mortgage rates continue to rise. Petrol and diesel prices are at record highs.
Furthermore, Trump has broken his 2024 election campaign pledge of ‘No More Wars’. The war with Iran, the harsh rhetoric directed at friends as well as enemies, and several other foreign policy moves have contributed to dividing the MAGA movement. Trump’s controversial remarks about Canada and Greenland have little support amongst the electorate.
Taken together, this has created a political climate in which economic frustrations, combined with American voters’ war-weariness following years of failed wars in the Middle East, have outweighed the long-term ambitions to ‘Make America Great Again’.
For that, of course, cannot be achieved overnight. Comprehensive structural reforms of economic policy take time. It takes time to move businesses and jobs back to the US from China and other low-cost countries, even though this is actually happening at a surprisingly rapid pace. The Trump administration has not been good at communicating this. Its management of expectations has been weak. This is hardly surprising in a country where the media is at least as narrative-driven as in Norway.
The result was many disappointed voters who found themselves facing even higher food prices, even higher petrol prices and even higher mortgage rates now in 2026, despite the fact that the economy has grown overall, and despite the fact that Wall Street is booming.
Demographic shifts
Exit polls and voter surveys (including the AP Voter Poll/SSRS and CIRCLE) showed clear shifts towards the Democrats in voter groups that had previously leaned towards the Republicans. Among young voters, those aged 18–29 and mainly Gen Z, 72 per cent voted for Democratic candidates. Young men and white young people also shifted significantly towards the Democrats.
Support for the Republicans among Hispanic voters fell from nearly 40 per cent in the 2024 presidential election to around a third in this by-election. There was also a shift towards the Democrats amongst Black voters (particularly men), sections of the working-class electorate, and amongst independents and former Trump supporters. Millennials (aged around 30–45) also leaned predominantly towards the Democrats, albeit less strongly than the youngest Generation Z cohort. Older voters (particularly those aged 65 and over) were more divided or slightly more inclined towards the Republicans.
Generation Z is a generation of more radical voters. They have not experienced the Cold War, the threat from the communist Soviet Union, the repressive regimes in Eastern Europe, the Cultural Revolution in China or the mass killings in Cambodia. At the same time, the barrier to their entry into the labour and housing markets has become considerably higher than was the case for their parents. They have experienced Covid and freedom from clocking in and out. They have witnessed the expansion of welfare systems and realised that it is possible to benefit from them through state-controlled transfer and redistribution policies. They lean towards the radical socialist wing of the Democratic Party.
At the same time, and just as in Norway and the rest of the West, the non-Western immigrant population is now making its presence felt ever more strongly in American politics. Ilhan Omar, a Member of Congress for Minnesota since 2019, Abdul El-Sayed – the first Muslim senator in history – and Zoran Mamdami, the Mayor of New York, are among the most high-profile figures, but there are many more non-Western immigrants who are now making their mark in American politics at federal, state and local levels.
History is repeating itself
The coalition between radical Islam and Generation Z’s far left is gaining ground in the US in the same way as in Norway and the rest of Europe. These are new voter groups that the established parties are courting with radical tax and redistribution policies, expansionary fiscal policy interspersed with a significant dose of climate, woke– and identity politics. In the US two-party system, this works to the Democrats’ advantage. In Norway, both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party – as well as everyone to the left of the Labour Party – are attempting to capitalise on this shift in the voter demographic.
A key element is the perennial conflict surrounding private property rights, between those who have created and worked to build up wealth, and those who have not. The majority can use their democratic clout – one man, one vote – to expropriate wealth from the few who have it and redistribute it to the many who do not, or who do not have as much.
This is the core idea of democratic socialism, as they call it here in the US. It differs from Marxism in that the redistribution of wealth no longer takes place through revolution and the direct seizure of the means of production, but through democratically adopted and highly progressive tax regimes and through the welfare state’s generous transfers and redistribution of wealth. This is the same phenomenon we see in Norway and across Europe, which we have now finally witnessed play out during the US mid-term elections.
The lawlessness of postmodernism has paved the way for ‘woke’ and identity politics, and serves as a legitimisation and ideological framework for the confiscation and redistribution of property and wealth. It sets aside the right to private property and the Seventh Commandment – ‘Thou shalt not steal’ – in favour of the maxim that everything is common property and should be shared. In the postmodern world, what others have acquired through hard work does not primarily belong to the individual. It should be freely available for the community to use.
The context
The Democrats’ victory in the mid-term elections therefore reflects both the voters’ dissatisfaction and impatience with the fact that it takes time to restructure the economy so that it benefits the wider population. At the same time, it reflects a demographic shift in which the radical left-wing Generation Z is beginning to make its presence felt in politics, alongside non-Western immigrant groups.
Both voter groups embrace expansionary fiscal policy, growth in public spending and progressive tax and redistribution policies in response to economic pressures. The older and more traditional Republican voter groups remained more stable, although food prices, petrol prices and borrowing rates naturally also weigh heavily on them.
This is an alarming development. Immigration policy has already profoundly altered the voter demographics in both the US and Europe, and it continues to do so. And for Generation Z and the generations that follow – who lack the historical context or do not understand basic economic principles, such as the fact that money has to come from somewhere – redistribution policies are, of course, a tempting alternative to working and contributing themselves.
Will the MAGA movement be able to stage a comeback in American politics? Or will pressure from the left simply increase in the years to come? Is it true, as Margaret Thatcher said, that ‘Socialists carry on until they run out of other people’s money.’
I believe both are true. The widespread popular revolt against donor-driven and corrupt politicians, against globalisation and immigration policies, and against ‘woke’ madness and lawless identity politics will only grow in the US, as in the rest of the Western world. The MAGA movement has an unstoppable force.
But at the same time, pressure from the left and the growing immigrant population will only increase unless immigration is reversed and the teaching of economic and political history is reinstated at universities and educational institutions. That is where the battle will be fought – on the border with Mexico and along the Schengen Area’s external border.
