Election Day 2025 was, without a doubt, the most important day for the Democrats since 2018. The news was filled with articles celebrating the achievements of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D-NYC), Governors-elect Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ). While their victories were outstanding, the real story was found in smaller elections: mayors, school boards, judges, city councils, and regulatory commissions. What do these local elections spell for a Democratic Party embroiled in what looks more and more like a civil war? While some have met this election day with unbridled optimism, we must be cautious of jumping the gun before the midterms next year. It is clear: Americans want change, and fast, but will the Democrats meet them where they stand or continue to cave to the barrage of immaturity thrown out by the Republican Party? If the party chooses to support more progressive candidates, Nov. 4 will not be an isolated episode.
Our first example of what has been called a “blue wave” came out of South Carolina in June. Keishan Scott, a 24-year-old minister and paralegal, won the largely rural State House District 50 by 41 points. In the district’s most recent prior competitive election in 2022, the previous winner had won by 20 points, about half of Scott’s margin of victory. What is even more impressive is that, in 2024, Kamala Harris only won the district by five points. Scott’s victory shows that young, progressive voices inspire voters to turn out, even in an off-year election in early June.
The state that might’ve experienced the blue wave the most is Pennsylvania. President Trump famously rode Pennsylvania to victory in both 2016 and 2024, but the pendulum seems to be swinging in the Keystone State. Pennsylvanians voted in staggering numbers to retain three justices on the state supreme court, electing each with 61 percent of the vote. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has been a thorn in the Trump administration’s side, voting to maintain abortion access and weakening gerrymandering’s hold on Pennsylvania’s congressional maps. On top of that, Democrats flipped the Bucks County District Attorney seat for the first time since the 1800s. They also flipped the Bucks County Sheriff, Erie County Executive, four Luzerne County Council seats, and more. Bucks, Luzerne, and Erie Counties all swung for Trump in 2024. This overhaul could spell bad news in these counties for the vulnerable Republican Congresspeople up for election in these areas in 2026.
Lastly, in Georgia, two Democrats upset incumbent Republicans on the state’s Public Service Commission. According to the Georgia Recorder, “This marks the first time Democrats have held state-wide constitutional office in the state since 2006.” These seats were key to energy prices in Georgia, which were projected to skyrocket if the incumbents held their seats. Something particularly interesting about these elections is where they were: the South in Georgia and South Carolina, and the Rust Belt in Pennsylvania. The Rust Belt and the South have been both Democratic strongholds and magnificent cultivators of candidates in the past, but the Democrats seem to have left that behind. The only successful Democratic presidential candidates of the last 40 years have been from the Rust Belt and the South — Joe Biden grew up in Scranton, PA, Barack Obama was a senator in Illinois, and Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. If this article is anything, it’s a plea to the Democratic Party to rise to the occasion, to remember the base, and to meet the people where they stand. Americans are clearly fed up with the past decade of politics in this country and have shown the Democrats who they want to vote for. While I’d love for my opinion to be that this past Election Day guarantees momentum that’ll spell a similar victory in 2026, the task is now on the American people to continue to push the Democrats in the direction of the future and fight for our democracy.
