Politics changes fast. This year shows it.
Triumphant Republicans thundered into 2025 rolling over opposition, passing their sweeping tax cuts and spending reductions in July. President Donald Trump looked unstoppable.
But Democrats rebounded late in the year. They scored major election victories and grabbed control of the national debate, steering it toward health care as the GOP sputtered and Trump’s polling plunged.
The wild ups and downs complicate this list of winners and losers in Congress. But looking ahead to 2026, these ratings lean on recent events as harbingers of what’s next.
Winners
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) successfully navigated his first year in leadership.
Photographer: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images.
John Thune (R-S.D.): The new Senate majority leader kept his conference largely united, confirmed Trump’s nominees with little fuss — a tough task considering the baggage some carried — and did it while keeping his vow to preserve Senate traditions like the filibuster. He also built an improved relationship with the volatile president, avoiding blow ups after crossing him in the past.
Look ahead: If Republicans lose the House next year but keep the Senate, Thune will become even more critical to the GOP as a bulwark in Congress.
Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.): It took the House minority leader time to find his footing as a foil to an opposing president, but he learned on the job. While stiff at times, Jeffries set Democrats’ shutdown strategy in motion and drove attention to health care, a Democratic sweet spot. The strategy culminated in a successful push to force a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies giving the minority a rare moment of power and assuring the issue stays in the spotlight in January.
Look ahead: The biggest test is whether Jeffries can win the House majority in 2026 and become speaker. He ends 2025 closer to that goal than he began it.
Rep.Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.): Long seen as a Trump-loving gadfly, Greene broke out of that box by defying the president on some issues and voicing frustrations with him and House leaders that few Republicans dared to say out loud. She helped force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, got a moment on The View, and even got engaged. Critics say she lost because she’s quitting Congress early. Some of her colleagues, however, would probably like to join her.
Look ahead: Whether it’s a TV gig, a run for another office, or something else, Greene is unlikely to go quiet.
Rep.Thomas Massie (R-Ky.): Antagonized his own party. Got away with it. “I’m winning. He’s losing,” Massie said of Trump after triumphing on the Epstein files.
Look ahead: Trump has vowed to punish Massie by defeating him in a primary. If he fails, it would be another blow to the president’s image of power.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.): Forming an unlikely partnership with Massie and Greene on the Epstein files, the progressive Khanna beat Trump at his own game, stirring populist anger and portraying the president as defending the rich and powerful. It chipped Trump’s aura, the first of a string of late-year defeats afflicting the president.
Look ahead: Expect to see more of Khanna. He makes no secret of his national ambitions.
Young Democrats: Without an obvious national leader, a host of rising voices in Congress gained prominence. Among them: Sens. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), and Andy Kim (N.J.).
Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) broke the filibuster record, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) won plaudits for her sharp response to the president’s March national address.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) drew massive crowds with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as the heir-apparent to his movement. Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii) laid the groundwork to become the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, likely adding a fresh voice to leadership, and Rep. Robert Garcia (Calif.) won a key slot as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, giving him a prominent role in any investigations if Democrats win back the House.
Look ahead: These lawmakers, among others, will help reshape the party’s message and battered image heading toward the 2028 presidential election — when some of them may aim to be the nominee.
Losers
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was hurt by backing a deal to end a shutdown in the spring.
Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg
Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.): The Senate minority leader, along with Jeffries, used the recent shutdown to strong political effect. But Schumer still carries the stain of a March fiasco when he entered a government funding fight with no plan and folded, sacrificing a rare moment of Democratic leverage. Party activists haven’t trusted him since.
Look ahead: If he can pull off a near-miracle and win back the Senate, Schumer will earn big plaudits. But as Democrats seek generational change, his long congressional career is likely nearing its end. He’s up for reelection in 2028.
Mike Johnson (R-La.): Give the House speaker credit for muscling through the massive tax and spending package over the summer despite a perilously thin majority. But it’s gone sharply downhill since. Republicans chafed when Johnson kept the House out of session for more than a month during the fall government shutdown, and 2025 ended in chaos as rank-and-file lawmakers overrode him with discharge petitions. It got so bad Johnson had to declare he had, in fact, not lost control. It’s never a good sign when a leader has to clarify that.
Look ahead: It doesn’t look much brighter. The GOP majority isn’t going to get much bigger.
Congress: The institution hemorrhaged power it may never reclaim. Trump crushed whole agencies, cut spending, fired federal workers, set off trade wars, and launched military strikes without approval from Congress. Lawmakers dramatically lowered the bar for qualifications for Cabinet posts, and for personal conduct among both the president and his officials. Cabinet secretaries rewarded Congress by at times stonewalling and reversing themselves on past promises.
Look ahead: Expect the next president to claim the same power now that Congress has ceded new ground.
