Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.
It was an injection of life into a depleted, depressed Democratic Party that had been cast into the political wilderness by Donald Trump’s decisive victory a year ago. Democrats, locked out of power in Washington, have spent the last year soul-searching and data-digging, as their brand sagged to historic lows.
But they also started to overperform in special elections, hinting that the tide was turning. And on Tuesday, their first big electoral test of the second Trump era, they didn’t just match the wins from eight years ago that had been a harbinger of a blue wave in the 2018 midterms — in several key races, they exceeded them.
