Has American democracy begun to turn a corner?

The recent midterm election was arguably the best news American democracy has had since 2016. Republicans underperformed spectacularly even though they seem headed toward a narrow House of Representatives majority. And Democrats might pull off the near miracle of not losing, or even gaining, seats in the Senate during the first midterm of a new presidency and under the current dire conditions.

But the key takeaway is that on aggregate, with some exceptions, Americans largely rejected the most dangerous forces in their midst: Donald Trump-inspired extremism in general and election denialism in particular.

This is specifically true in several key swing states where Republicans supporting the former president were attempting to win offices that oversee elections and adjudicate results. These candidates insist that the 2020 election was somehow stolen, Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, and claim that state officials, agencies or legislatures can overrule the voters and determine the outcome of elections no matter the actual result (we shall return to this idea below).

Ali Alexander, a leader of the 2020 insurrection, explained it bluntly: “Any election I don't like is stolen. If I like it, it's not stolen.” This unconditionally self-serving attitude was also articulated by Donald Trump, saying if the candidates he backed in the midterms "win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all".

It’s the ethos of heads I win, tails you lose.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump, but very fortunately for the country, many of the worst midterm candidates embracing this sensibility he foisted on the Republican Party were trounced, while other Republicans had a much better night.

Among his more significant failures was the defeat of celebrity physician Mehmet Oz by Pennsylvania Lt Gov John Fetterman, which flipped a vital Senate seat to the Democrats. Dr Oz would have been the first Muslim-American senator, and to their credit neither Donald Fetterman nor other Democrats engaged in Islamophobic bashing (though they challenged his patriotism by noting that he served in the Turkish military and voted in its elections).

Former football star Herschel Walker failed to win in traditionally Republican Georgia, and faces a Senate run-off in December against a well-positioned incumbent Rafael Warnock. Depending on other outcomes, that might maintain the 50-50 Senate and, with the vice-presidential tiebreaker, Democratic control. Blake Masters appears set to lose to Mark Kelly in the Arizona Senate contest. Tudor Dixon and Kristina Karamo lost in Michigan for governor and secretary of state respectively, which will have a unified Democratic state government for the first time in 40 years.

Democrats also performed strongly in state elections in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts and, at time of writing, it would appear also in Arizona and Nevada, which are still tabulating results. Kari Lake, a former newsreader who has been widely likened to a female version of Donald Trump, is surprisingly still trailing her strikingly lacklustre opponent, Katie Hobbs, for Arizona governor.

So, under near-perfect conditions when historical patterns, the worst inflation since the 1970s, a potential recession, rising crime rates and an unpopular president all pointed to overwhelming Republican success, Donald Trump's wing of the party, with its open opposition to democratic elections, largely could not deliver. JD Vance, a former Trump critic-turned-loyal follower, was elected to the Senate in Ohio, and some other Trump acolytes won, but many more were soundly rejected by voters.

The National