The midterms, for all their horrors, left the Republican Party bloodied, but that is far from broken.
COTTO'S DATA-DRIVEN FLORIDA FORECAST FOR THE MIDTERMS
— Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto (@JosephFordCotto) October 29, 2026
I’m a Florida native and resident. I’ve spent years writing books about this state’s history—"Runaway Masters" regarding the Seminoles and "Eye for an Eye" on the founding of St. Augustine—so I know the ground under my feet.… pic.twitter.com/IAuEbsIcgA
That outcome matched the registration-and-historical-turnout model I published late last month. I foretold that, in Florida, there would be no Ron DeSantis-style blowout victory, yet no blue wave, either. I saw real Democrat openings only in newly drawn congressional seats and in selected state legislative races. Those results arrived after a bruising cycle.
The temptation now is to treat stomach-churning GOP losses, from sea to shining sea, as proof that the party must move past Donald Trump. That reading is wrong. It dangerously confuses impermanent setbacks with permanent voter rejection.
No matter how the midterms go, Donald Trump is the backbone of the Republican Party.
— Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto (@JosephFordCotto) November 4, 2026
Why?
Check out this poll I collaborated on with @PatrickBashamDI.
It's from today. pic.twitter.com/QwSlKRHQuN
No matter how the midterms go, Donald Trump is the backbone of the Republican Party.
— Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto (@JosephFordCotto) November 4, 2026
Why?
Check out this poll I collaborated on with @PatrickBashamDI.
It's from today. pic.twitter.com/q2p9kk38EK
No matter how the midterms go, Donald Trump is the backbone of the Republican Party.
— Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto (@JosephFordCotto) November 4, 2026
Why?
Check out this poll I collaborated on with @PatrickBashamDI.
It's from today. pic.twitter.com/FFCJZxZB8y
Patrick Basham's Democracy Institute, which correctly called the 2016 Brexit referendum and Trump's 2016 Electoral College victory, executed this exit poll. I wrote its questions. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points. The direction of its results is unambiguous.
Two years ago, I issued the Five-Point Forecast that correctly predicted Trump's national victory and the outcome in every swing state. That model relied on lived economic sentiment, employment conditions, energy prices, perceptions of government response, and the reliability of accurate polling, rather than frozen historical checklists. This year, I used a radically different approach, applying it solely to Florida, and it nonetheless produced statewide calls that held.
Therefore, when I say the Republicans cannot afford to turn on Trump, the claim rests on that record, not on social media sophistry or sound-bite "journalism."
Turning on Trump after these repulsive midterms would mean turning on the resilient voters who just showed up for the party. The 82 percent who feel more supportive of the GOP are not a fringe. They are the bulk of the Republican electorate that casts ballots, come hell or high water.
A party that discards its leader in the name of "moving on" would be discarding the people who still identify with that leader. The resulting split would not be a healthy primary debate. It would be a fracture that hands the next cycle to Democrats who no longer resemble the party of the 1990s, or even the Barack Obama era.
A recent CNN/SSRS poll found that about 34 percent of Democrat and Democrat-leaning adults identify as democratic socialists, with that share rising to 59 percent among those under 45. That self-identification tracks with electoral gains by Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates. The rising blue tide wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, end most deportations, and force structural changes. These include eliminating the Senate and packing the Supreme Court.
A September 2026 Centre of Heterodox Social Science report was based on a survey that heavily sampled liberals and Muslims. It documented a substantial constituency that applies an oppressor-versus-oppressed lens to both domestic and international questions. Roughly one-quarter of American liberals in the extreme segment of that survey held correlated attitudes favoring socialism, criticism of the West, and alignment with (disproportionately immigrant) Global South groups.
The report linked those patterns to candidates such as Zohran Mamdani, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Abdul El-Sayed. I say these patterns amount to the scourge of third-world supremacy, which threatens the livelihood of every sane American.
Radicals are not marginal voices inside a still-moderate party. They are the ascendant wing that wins primaries and shapes the Democrat future. When Republicans urge their party to distance itself from Trump, they are effectively inviting the most motivated, and inherently extreme, Democrats to fill the void.
A fractured Republican Party cannot block the toxic policy sewage that flows from blue third-worldism. The result is not a normal alternation of power. It is the transfer of governing authority to a coalition whose dominant youth cohort has already rejected the Western civilization that earlier Democrat majorities accepted.
The exit-poll majorities make the practical choice clear. Republican voters have already decided that Trump's second term strengthened their attachment to the party. They have already indicated that his endorsement will matter in 2028. They have already shown willingness to stay with Republicans after he leaves office. A leadership class that treats those findings as negligible is not adapting to new realities. It is ignoring the electorate that remains tied to the party.
Unity behind Trump does not require silence on reasonable policy differences or automatic endorsement of his every decision. It requires recognition that the alternative, open internal war, is the outcome Democrats want. This is also the outcome which the exit poll shows Republican voters will not reward.
The midterms showed that Democrats can still win newly drawn seats and legislative majorities when Republicans are divided, demoralized, or detached from the reality that red seats can flip blue. The same midterms showed that a statewide Republican lean can hold when the GOP's registration advantage and voting patterns are allowed to synchronize in real time. Preserving that lean into the next cycle depends on keeping Republican voters inside the coalition rather than driving them out.
I am not offering this assessment as a partisan slogan. I am offering it as the analyst whose Florida turnout model accurately predicted a series of tough elections and whose earlier Five-Point Forecast matched the 2024 presidential map.
Data from the Democracy Institute poll of Republican voters point in one direction: the party's remaining strength is tied to voters who continue to stand with Trump. Abandoning that link after a savage midterm is not sound strategy. It is the path that leaves the American political arena open to nation-wrecking Democrats. Their younger ranks have already moved past the fringes of earlier eras. Ignoring reality will not make it go away. The ignorant only deepen their delusions.
America stands on far too dangerous ground for Republicans to turn on each other. Now is the time to unify, and Donald Trump must be the focal point of that unity.
Image created using AI.
Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto is the creator, host, and producer of News Sight, delivering sharp insights on the key events that shape our lives. He publishes Dr. Cotto's Digest, sharing how business and the economy really impact us all. During the 2024 presidential race, he developed the Five-Point Forecast, which accurately predicted Donald Trump's national victory and correctly called every swing state. Cotto holds a doctorate in business administration and is a Lean Six Sigma Certified Black Belt.
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