The 2026 midterms handed Democrats a majority, but conservatives quietly scored critical victories that deserve far more attention than they're getting. Voters may have punished the GOP at the ballot box because of high gas prices caused by the war in Iran, but they still sent a clear message that the conservative agenda is popular enough to survive a blue wave election.
That should energize Republicans. If the party builds its comeback around the issues that won even on a bad night, it has a real path back to the majority.
Two issues stand out as particularly strong for Republicans: election integrity and transgender ideology.
Start with elections. According to AP results as of Thursday, citizenship-only voting and most voter ID ballot measures passed easily, defying the blue wave.
Let’s look at the noncitizen voting bans. Every single one on the ballot passed by a wide margin. West Virginia Amendment 1 won with 80%. Alaska Measure 3 and Arkansas Issue 1 each got 69%. Kansas Amendment 1 earned 64%, and South Dakota Amendment J pulled 62%. Those numbers come from red states and purple-leaning electorates alike, showing broad consensus that only citizens should decide American elections.
Voter ID did nearly as well. Ohio Issue 3 passed with 65%. It requires government-issued photo ID to vote in person, with a religious exemption and a photo ID or government ID number for other methods. Nevada, a genuine swing state, approved Question 7 with 62%, requiring photo ID at the polls or the last four digits of a government ID number for mail-in voting. North Carolina went further. Its constitutional amendment, SB 921, passed with 60% and extends the photo ID requirement to every voting method.
To be clear, there were exceptions. California Proposition 39 collapsed with just 39% support, roughly 4.79 million "yes" votes to 7.35 million "no" votes, with about 91% counted. Arizona Proposition 144 failed 46.7% to 53.3%.
It’s worth noting that Arizona's measure bundled a noncitizen voting ban and an ID requirement with a ban on foreign election spending. Combining several changes in one measure gives voters more reasons to vote no, and that matters when you're reading the results.
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Transgender ideology took an even bigger beating despite the blue wave. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, and Washington approved all four measures covering girls' sports, locker rooms, legal definitions of sex, and surgeries on minors.
Arizona’s Prop 318 passed 59% to 41%. It expands the state’s ban on male athletes competing on female school teams, adds locker room protections, and defines sex by the birth certificate. Meanwhile, the deep-blue state of Washington passed Measure 638 by 56% to 44%. It prohibits biological males from competing in girls’ school sports and requires a medical provider to sign a statement confirming a student's biological sex.
Here's the thing about Colorado: Democrats dominate that state, and voters still passed Proposition 134, which bars biological males from female school teams, 52% to 48%. They also approved Proposition 135, which bans gender transition surgeries on minors and state funding for them, 52% to 48%.
The lone setback came in Missouri, where Amendment 3 failed 45% to 55%. But there’s a likely explanation. It paired a ban on gender-transition treatments for minors with strict abortion limits, which makes it hard to read as a verdict on the trans ideology issue.
Once again, the bundled measure stumbled where the clean ones sailed through.
These results point to something Republicans should take seriously.
When a commonsense issue is put directly to voters, the conservative position wins, even in states that just sent Democrats to Washington. Make no mistake about it: common sense is a winning agenda for the GOP.
