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November 5, 2026: From My Inbox

midterm senate trump democrats iran losses house war data fell results democratic seats president texas center largest israel coalition congress

Canadian News

The Toronto Star’s First Up newsletter linked the United States midterm results to Canadian policy, and covered two domestic stories.

  • Analysts told the Star that the Democratic takeover of Congress may limit Trump’s room to raise tariffs further, though he retains broad executive authority over trade. Prime Minister Mark Carney released his federal budget on Thursday, expected to address affordability.
  • Ontario Premier Doug Ford reacted to the Republican losses. A court ruling would permit Russia to rejoin international hockey competitions; Carney said Canada will not host such games.
  • A separate Star edition reported that Ontario canceled a planned one dollar per hour raise for child care workers set for 2027, despite the national child care plan. The paper also noted Toronto homicides are at a 50 year low even though public perception of safety has not changed, a gap it linked partly to visible disorder such as homelessness and open drug use rather than crime statistics.

US News

Nearly every newsletter in this digest covered the same story. Democrats won control of both the House and Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections, by the widest popular vote margin in roughly 50 years. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Punchbowl News, Status, Tina Brown’s Substack, David R. Henderson’s Substack and Tara Palmeri’s Substack all led with it.

  • NYT’s The Morning reported Democrats won more than 228 House seats and flipped the Senate, producing several firsts, including the first Muslim senator and the first openly gay male senator. Trump said he would accept the results and work with Democrats.
  • The Washington Post’s Early Brief said the Senate Majority PAC spent more than 550 million dollars to flip seven Senate seats, against roughly 810 million dollars spent by the Republican Senate Leadership Fund. It also reported historic Democratic gains in state legislatures, and a party debate over impeachment, which Rahm Emanuel opposes in favor of ethics reform, versus a focus on affordability championed by Zohran Mamdani and Senator Mark Kelly.
  • Punchbowl News reported that incoming Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, who would be the first Black Speaker of the House, had not yet spoken with Trump or outgoing Speaker Johnson, and laid out priorities including reversing Medicaid cuts, ending funding tied to the Iran war, and a stock trading ban for members of Congress.
  • NYT’s Opinion Today and The Morning, together with David R. Henderson’s Substack, framed the result as a rebuke of Trump’s own conduct, including the Iran war, tariffs and immigration enforcement, rather than simple political cycling.
  • The New Yorker’s Daily newsletter reported that Vice President JD Vance has begun distancing himself from Trump over the Iran war, and that speculation is building over possible Supreme Court retirements by Justices Alito and Thomas. It also noted that Texas is now being treated as a possible swing state for 2028.
  • Tara Palmeri’s Substack reported that Trump is privately searching for people to blame for the losses while publicly saying Republicans lost because he was not on the ballot, and that Republicans are increasingly willing to distance themselves from him.
  • Tina Brown’s Substack noted Democrats flipped seven Senate seats and gained 29 House seats, discussing the results with Anthony Scaramucci and Christiane Amanpour.
  • David R. Henderson’s Substack flagged a near tied Mississippi Senate race in which Democrat Scott Colom led incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by 65 votes, and welcomed the defeat of a California billionaire tax ballot measure.
  • The Guardian’s newsletter framed the result as a rebuke of Trump, but said he retains sweeping presidential power and is unlikely to moderate his approach.

Finance and Markets

Markets rallied on the prospect of divided government, and the midterm results reshaped several corporate stories.

  • The Daily Upside reported the Dow closed up 3 percent on Wednesday, its best post midterm rally since 1982, as investors read divided government as reducing policy risk. The New York Times’ DealBook newsletter similarly reported the S&P 500 had its best day in three months, with oil prices and the 10 year Treasury yield falling.
  • Texas governor elect Gina Hinojosa’s pledge to pause new AI data center approvals threatens a buildout that had been projected to make Texas the world’s largest data center market by 2030, according to both the Daily Upside and DealBook. Voters also rejected data center ballot measures in 40 of 41 localities, DealBook reported, which hit neocloud stocks such as CoreWeave.
  • CVS Health will split into two public companies, separating its 9,000 retail pharmacies from Aetna and Caremark, the Daily Upside reported, following a stretch in which rising medical costs ate into Aetna’s margins.
  • AMD’s data center revenue nearly doubled year over year to a record 8.5 billion dollars in the third quarter, the Daily Upside reported, easing fears about AI spending after rival Intel’s stock fell 29 percent in a day on a weak forecast. Disney is planning what could be its largest round of layoffs yet, with managers told to find 20 percent in annual cost savings. Shopify shares fell 8.7 percent after missing revenue expectations for the first time in four years, with executives citing rising AI investment costs.
  • Binance disclosed that North Korean hackers used a fake job interview to steal 6.3 billion dollars in cryptocurrency, DealBook and The Economist both reported, among the largest financial thefts on record.
  • Elon Musk spent a record 474 million dollars on the midterms, including 224 million dollars in Texas, with little success, DealBook reported. Tesla and SpaceX shares fell afterward, Status reported.
  • The WSJ’s CEO Brief reported that Sequoia Capital is restructuring, closing its London office and ending its seed stage accelerator, and that Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick said no single executive should be indispensable ahead of Grand Theft Auto VI’s release.
  • The restaurant chain Cerca Trova, the largest Outback Steakhouse franchisee with 61 locations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 2, the Substack newsletter PETITION reported.
  • Healthcare and medical device stocks, including Zimmer Biomet, rose on bets tied to Medicare exposure, the Wall Street Journal’s 10-Point reported, which also attributed the midterm losses partly to a 40 percent spike in gas prices linked to the Iran war.

International News

  • Wesley Wark’s Substack reported that espionage charges against Canadian Forces Master Warrant Officer Matthew Robar have been reduced to lesser National Defence Act charges ahead of a December 9 court martial, with no reference to sharing classified information in the new charges.
  • In a separate edition, Wark predicted that the Democratic takeover of Congress will increase oversight of US intelligence agencies, with pressure on FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over Iran and Ukraine policy.
  • Amit Segal’s Substack reported that Trump’s announced end to 4 billion dollars in annual US aid to Israel is likely to proceed, though military cooperation may continue through other channels, and that a growing anti Israel wing within the Democratic Party is offset by pro Israel Democrats retaining committee posts.
  • Segal also reported on Israeli coalition politics, including Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bloc falling short of a majority, and Shin Bet chief David Zini’s probe into alleged foreign funding of Arab party politicians, which Israel’s Attorney General has opposed as politically motivated.
  • The Economist’s World in Brief reported that Vice President JD Vance blamed the Iran war for the midterm losses and said voters want to change the US-Israel relationship, while oil and stocks rallied modestly on hopes of de-escalation. It also reported that Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong was sentenced to 10 more years under the national security law, and that Israeli President Isaac Herzog began coalition talks after no bloc won a majority in Israel’s election.
  • NYT’s Spanish language newsletter, El Times, reported that El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele sent more than 2,000 troops to Haiti, and that the United States reportedly assisted Venezuela in a lethal strike against the ELN guerrilla group.
  • El Patio Político’s Substack compared Spain’s newly formed left wing coalition, named Frente Amplio, unfavorably to Uruguay’s decades old coalition of the same name, arguing the Spanish version skipped the internal negotiation that gave the original its durability.
  • Pulsar.UBA’s Substack reported survey data showing Brazil has overtaken the United States as Argentines’ preferred country to align with, 22 percent to 15 percent, while favorability toward the United States fell from 59 percent to 34 percent over the past year. China’s favorability held steady around 58 percent.

Media News

  • Status, a media industry newsletter, reported that several right wing media figures, including Clay Travis, Mark Levin and Tucker Carlson, are publicly blaming each other and increasingly Trump for the midterm losses, while Trump has blamed Fox News. NBC led election night television ratings with 6.8 million primetime viewers.
  • Status also reported that The New York Times Company added 420,000 subscribers after the election, Snap shares fell 11 percent on weak user growth, and Anthropic signed a content licensing deal with the Associated Press.
  • The Columbia Journalism Review reported that Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s leading independent newspaper, will shut down on November 9 after three decades of reporting under censorship and the killing of six of its journalists. A nonprofit called Kronika, founded by PEN America and Bard College, has digitized its full archive.
  • Nieman Lab reported that the environmental news outlet Mongabay is shifting toward reporter led content after posts about unusual animals outperformed on Instagram, amid broader audience fatigue with climate coverage.
  • The newsletter Press Publish reported that comedian Druski signed a multi year deal with Netflix for a scripted comedy series, and that the podcast Giggly Squad signed a four year deal with SiriusXM reported to be worth 160 million dollars.
  • The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today reported that Starbucks launched a holiday campaign built on hand drawn animation, part of a wider trend of brands favoring handcrafted creative over AI generated content, and that newly empowered House Democrats plan to call AI executives to testify under oath.

Health and Wellness

  • NYT’s Spanish language newsletter, El Times, reported that a young engineer with epilepsy in Seattle consulted ChatGPT about adjusting her medication dosage, and the change had fatal consequences. Her family is pursuing legal action against OpenAI.

Other

  • Joanna Stern’s newsletter, The New Things, compared Anthropic’s new Claude Duet agent with Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s Dot and a tool called Instinct, reporting that Duet focused on professional task management by drawing on Google Drive and Calendar.
  • Ashlee Vance’s Substack, Core Memory, profiled Naman Pushp, the 21 year old founder of Indian aerospace startup Airbound, which builds lightweight carbon fiber cargo aircraft.

Sources

Publications and Substacks used to build this digest:

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