We Did It! And We'll Do It Again!
The stakes couldn’t have been higher in this election. Across the country election deniers ran for key offices that would have positioned them to subvert the election results in all subsequent elections. After the Dobbs ruling, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, Republicans everywhere promised more stringent abortion bans and harsher penalties for people who want autonomy over their bodies. Book bans, anti-queer laws, climate change, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - it was all on the ballot. This election was about more than just Republicans versus Democrats, it was about the preservation of our democracy, our commitment to building a more just and equitable world for all of us, and protecting our ability to live on this planet.
And here’s the thing - we did it.
It’s been a pretty good week, watching election results come in. John Fetterman is headed to the U.S. Senate. Mark Kelly, Catherine Cortez-Mastro, and Maggie Hassan were all re-elected. While it looks like Republicans will take the House, it will be by the smallest margin in similar midterms in decades. And perhaps even more importantly, this is the first time since 1934 that the party in power hasn’t given up a single state legislative chamber in a midterm election. In fact, Democrats not only preserved those majorities, we even gained four new trifectas in state governments. When you consider that Democrats lost nearly a thousand state legislative seats last time we were in power at the Federal level, this is extraordinary.
And these were close races, coming down to a percentage point or two, which means that our work and our votes really, really mattered. And it means that we can make a difference, which is good news because we’re not done yet.
The Georgia Senate race is headed to a runoff. And while Democrats have already secured a technical Senate majority with 50 Senators plus the Vice President’s vote, (as we’ve had for the past two years) re-electing Senator Warnock and gaining a full 51 seat majority in the Senate would be a game changer. Democrats would have the majority on committees and would be able to move legislation and confirmations much faster. They’d have subpoena power for investigations. Instead of worrying about Sinema and Manchin, we’d only have to worry about Sinema OR Manchin. And Georgians would be represented by an exceptional Senator dedicated to fighting for them instead of a man who once held a gun to his partner’s head.
Of course, the work goes on in other ways too. Just this week Tennessee state Republicans introduced a law to criminalize some drag shows. The Virginia Department of Education is revising standards for teaching history to reflect Ronald Reagan’s “Shining city on a hill” speech - full of biased language, coded racism, and subjective paeans to American moralism. 37 Senate Republicans just voted against the Respect for Marriage Act which would ensure marriages performed in one state would be recognized in others. And while our victories are important and will make a huge difference in lives all over the country for the next few years, they weren’t by very decisive margins. We still have a lot of conversations to have over the next few years, a lot of legislation to fight for, a lot of books and schools and kids to protect.
The hardest part of democracy is that we’re never quite done. We are always responsible for shaping the world we want to live in, and we share that responsibility with over 300 million other people. But the best part is that we have chances like this - to fight for and with each other, and to win.
So take a deep breath, and a little break. And then, let’s get back to work.
And if you can, this week:
Sign up for a phone bank, or a text bank, or write letters.