Over the last two years, as I reported this series we named “Road Trip,” I found that nearly everyone I met — local party leaders, elected officials and voters, Democrats or Republicans or independents — was in a dreary mood. As the election neared, their outlook darkened: They were fearful about a 50-50 election and what, if their side lost, was coming next.
Now that we know what’s coming, I went back to some of them to figure out how they were feeling after the election and heading into a new year. Yes, public sentiment has shifted following Donald Trump’s victory. Republicans are suddenly feeling better about the economy and elections. Democrats, unsurprisingly, are in the dumps.
But members of both parties are still deeply apprehensive about what’s just over the horizon. For Republicans, it’s the fear that Democrats or “RINOs” will subvert Trump’s agenda — or that there will be excesses and the GOP will pay a price in the midterms in 2026. For Democrats, it’s the prospect of Trump accomplishing even a fraction of what he’s said he wants to do.
“Nothing coming down the pike is going to be good, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it,” Dave Nagle, a former representative from Iowa, told me when I reached him one recent morning at his law office in Waterloo.
However, he said, “The positive is [that] in a democracy, you have the right to challenge conventional wisdom.” Trump is going to be in charge, MAGA is ascendant, and “the way we think government should be conducted is going to be radically changed.” Now, he said, “we’re going to find out whether they’re right or not.”
If Republicans have anything to say about it, it will be a sea change. They see a president-elect with a popular vote mandate and, with one term under his belt, a more sophisticated approach to bending Washington to his will.
“The MAGA movement, Trump and the conservatives are so much better off today, now, than had he actually won in 2020,” Bill Bailey, who sells Trump merchandise at rallies across the country, told me. “I think he’s better poised now to accomplish some very good things.”
The idea of “Road Trip” has always been and will continue next year to be a look at American politics from the ground up — how parties and voters are feeling and acting and evolving at the local level, outside of Washington. It was there, after all — in seven swing states — that Trump found his path back to power. And it’s there that America will decide what comes next, during Trump’s new term and beyond. As Nagle said before we hung up, “Let’s find out.”
Albert Lea, Minnesota
Bill Salier, a conservative who spoke with me in Albert Lea, Minnesota, and who called the state’s governor, Tim Walz, a “phony”:
“I’m optimistic that there’s been kind of an awakening since Covid. It might have been slow, but I think people are becoming more aware that government is not the solution, but is the cause of many of our problems.”
Tempe, Arizona
Bill Bailey, who sells Trump merchandise across the country and who, when I met him outside a Trump rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, said he worried about the MAGA movement fracturing after Trump:
“The MAGA movement, Trump and the conservatives are so much better off today, now, than had he actually won in 2020 … He had a lot of RINOs he was dealing with after the midterms in ‘18, had a lot of RINOs after he had lost the election in 2020 … I think he’s better poised now to accomplish some very good things.”
El Paso, Texas
“My people put Trump in office, man. The Latinos came out strong for him … Because people are frustrated, people are tired. The Democratic Party failed us.”
“The Democratic Party in particular has a long look in the mirror that’s forthcoming when it relates to how Hispanics are treated … They are losing voters at a record pace.”
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and longtime party strategist who told me when we met in Denver that if the surge in unaffiliated voters continues, parties might become “bit players” in the political landscape:
“When he won, I think it kind of set the stage for what’s going to be another bad midterm for Republicans. I hate to say it, but I think that’s the case.”
Omaha, Nebraska
“My reaction to trauma is just to dig in and control the things I can control. So Omaha worked really hard on turnout, we actually did deliver the blue dot for Kamala. What I’ve been telling everyone that has asked is, ‘OK, we’re going to put a little blue dome over our blue dot, and we’re going to wait for the storm to pass. We’re going to be really aggressive about taking control of our local offices in Omaha, so that there’s a safe haven between Chicago and Denver, and we’re going to do everything we can to protect the folks who are here until the sun starts shining again. It’s the only thing we can do, and it’s our best defense.”
Waterloo, Iowa
“Nothing coming down the pike is going to be good, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it … Conventional wisdom, the way we think government should be conducted, is going to be radically changed, and then we’re going to find out whether they’re right or not … We think it’ll be a disaster, of course, but democracy puts that challenge right in front of you.”
Las Vegas, Nevada
Danielle Gallant, a Republican state assemblymember from Henderson, Nevada, who told me when we met there that Republicans “need to start engaging people back in the process”:
“The left was very successful the last four years in bringing a negative connotation to MAGA, and I think they lost that battle the day that Elon Musk came out in support [of Trump], because now all of a sudden it just became punk rock to be Republican.”
Columbia, South Carolina
Marcurius Byrd, a Democratic strategist who founded the Young Democrats of the Central Midlands and who, when I met him, said he was “fucking glad” that Joe Biden was running for reelection:
“Democrats have found more ways to ostracize people out of being Democrats than welcoming people in … That’s something we’ve got to adjust strategies for, especially in some of our redder states … I was prepared, but I am a Democrat who actually has Republican friends.”
San Francisco, California
Mary Carter, a progressive activist who I met at a meet-and-greet for Rep. Barbara Lee in California’s Orange County:
“I want to be able to listen to people that voted another way, even though I find this very difficult. I would really like to know because I don’t associate with anyone who voted the other way. So I need to listen, and I am trying to listen carefully to people.”
Ripon, Wisconsin
Timothy Bachleitner, a Republican Party leader in Ripon, Wisconsin, who told me when we met there that he worried about a “moral identity crisis in the Republican Party”:
“The overarching picture of right versus left and liberal versus conservative, super excited about that … [But] he’s gained so much support from different groups of people he no longer needs the conservative Christians to do what he needs to do, so they’ve been thrown under the bus. He’s got the RFK, and he’s got the Tulsi Gabbard and Elon Musk and Joe Rogan — and that whole kind of independent individual has become full steam to allow him to say I no longer need to cater to a big part of my base, and I happen to be in that portion. So that breaks my heart.”
Phoenix, Arizona
Mac Rojo, a retired sheriff’s detective who told me, when I met him at an Arizona Republican Party convention in Phoenix, that Republicans shouldn’t moderate their politics:
“(Trump) will be a good start. But you’ve got the RINOs that are trying to subvert him and go against him.”
“I just don’t think the Democrats are through giving him a hard time, and I think that’ll go on for the next four years. Who knows what the Democrats will try to do ... it’s scary. We pray for him all the time that he is safe.”
Concord, New Hampshire
Arnie Arnesen, a liberal radio host and former New Hampshire state legislator, who told me the problem with government in New Hampshire involved the decline of local media, political literacy and civic engagement:
“Nobody has courage anymore ... I feel like people have been broken by Donald Trump, and I’m angry. I’m angry. I want them to find their spine.”