Republicans Lost Even Texas: DeSantis Talks of a "Meteor Strike", Cruz of a Watergate-Level Defeat

When even Ron DeSantis says his party has suffered an "extinction-level event", it is no longer the opponent's spin. The governor of Florida, one of the loudest Republicans in the US, openly attacked his own party's leadership after the heavy defeat in the congressional elections. The Democrats won both chambers, and according to DeSantis they go into January with as many as 56 seats in the Senate and up to 258 members in the House of Representatives.

"Calling this just a blue wave wouldn't be quite accurate. This is the political equivalent of a meteor strike that hit all of America - blue states, red states and everything in between," DeSantis said. The only state that, in his words, held the line was Florida: of the ten largest American states, from January it alone will remain under Republican control.

Texas - the fortress that fell

The biggest proof of the collapse, DeSantis says, is Texas - a state that for decades was the impregnable foundation of Republican power. "Texas was the crown jewel of Republican politics. There we didn't just lose the much-publicised Senate seat - we lost everything: the governor, the attorney general, the other statewide offices, even four Republican justices on the Texas Supreme Court, and maybe the legislature itself. If the Republican Party doesn't have Texas as an anchor, we are no longer viable at the national level," he warned.

His list of culprits is long and uncomfortable for Washington. First of all, the vote against releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files - even though that is exactly what voters were promised two years ago, and then attorney general Pam Bondi claimed the list was sitting on her desk. "That was very bad," DeSantis said. Then, the members of Congress who refused to ban themselves from trading stocks while in office. And a campaign that, instead of the economy, jobs and the war with Iran, talked obsessively about transgender people - a topic that, he says, voters didn't feel at all. "Republicans were really fighting yesterday's battles," concluded the governor, whose term ends in January.

Cruz: "Life is too expensive"

Texas senator Ted Cruz called the result a "Watergate-level" repudiation and a "blue tsunami". On his podcast he admitted that "people were angry for a reason", because Republicans hadn't done enough about their real problems. Tariffs pushed up the cost of living, and the war in Iran has gone on "too long". "Groceries are too expensive, gas is too expensive, diesel is too expensive, insurance is too expensive - life is too expensive," Cruz said. The exit polls bear him out: over 80 percent of voters said they were worried about the prices of fuel, food, utilities and healthcare.

Cruz congratulated his new colleague, Democratic senator-elect James Talarico, but didn't drop the fighting tone: "Texas will be red again. We didn't suddenly become a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing liberals."

Moscow laughs, Kyiv hopes

The defeat was watched closely outside America too. The Kremlin's chief propagandist, TV host Vladimir Solovyov, called it an "unheard-of fiasco" and pointed out that in Texas a Democrat won for the first time in 38 years, and in Kansas a Democrat entered the Senate for the first time in 94 years. His diagnosis sounds almost the same as Cruz's - fuel and the war with Iran. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said he hopes a Democratic Congress will bring stronger support for Ukraine, which would also have an effect on Putin.

When a Russian propagandist and a Republican senator agree on the diagnosis, it tells you how obvious the numbers at the gas pump are. The American voter showed that they punish quickly and without sentiment, even in a state considered eternally red. Will Balkan governments ever start fearing their voters like this?