Hi John,
Tuesday was an amazing night for Democrats, and there’s a ton to celebrate. After a year of devastation and loss on so many fronts, we gained significant state-level power in the fight against Trump—and a big mood boost. Again, we have some real hope!
But this doesn’t automatically mean Democrats will flip the House in next year’s midterms or the presidency in 2028. Far from it. We’ll need to work, in the right ways, to win in the right places, and not take our foot off the gas.
If there’s one thing I know about people in the Swing Left community, it’s that for us, hope isn’t a feeling. It’s a verb. Each one of us can be an agent of change, and you put in the work.
That’s clear from Tuesday’s results: Democrats won 100% of the races Swing Left supported. These weren’t easy wins, but competitive swing races that will impact the national balance of power.
Now it’s time to turn all our collective resources to flipping the House in next year’s midterms—which is achievable, and essential, but where Democrats still face a number of challenges. To do it, we’ll need to be smart about directing our time, attention, energy, and money to the most impactful races and tactics. And we’ll need to innovate how we do things to meet the moment, because Democrats still have a long way to go to rebuild trust with voters. (We have a plan to do that, called Ground Truth.)
To win back a lever of control in 2026, Democrats will need to replicate the results of Tuesday’s elections at scale, across many states and districts. That’ll be much harder to do across a broader swath of the country. Right now, anti-Republican enthusiasm is strong, but pro-Democrat enthusiasm is still weak.
With a year until the midterms, here’s what else we know from this week’s election results about what we need to do to win:
1) For Democrats to beat Republicans, it isn’t about ideology or investing in one “type” of candidate.
In diverse races across the country, populists and moderates won. Good communicators and bad communicators won. Incumbents and insurgents won. What connected these victories wasn’t a unified worldview or uniquely charismatic talent that’s tough to replicate everywhere. The candidates who won each listened closely to voters about the hyperspecific challenges faced in their respective communities, like those related to the cost of living. What’s more: they showed they’re ready to fight to fix specific things for the people they represent.
Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger knew that it’s important not just to show up, but to show that you’re showing up. Her first ad of the 2025 race was called “Listen,” a theme that also ran through her previous campaigns.
And Jessica Anderson, who was just elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, described to me a Facebook message she received from a “very conservative” Republican voter—who ultimately cast his ballot for her despite differences of opinion—because she showed up at his door repeatedly to listen.
One last note on the topic of candidates: One of this year’s most consequential and hard-fought races was Jay Jones for Virginia Attorney General, which he won despite strong blowback for text messages sent in 2022 that drew sharp criticism. His win is key to pushing back on Trump’s actions because of the role state AGs play in critical litigation fights. And also because, like California, Virginia announced plans to redraw their congressional maps. When AG-elect Jones takes office, he can ensure this redistricting process is defended in court—which can continue moving forward because Virginians also voted to expand Democratic control of their House of Delegates. (AG-elect Jones asked us to thank you directly because, according to him, he would not have won without the Swing Left community.)
This drives home a lesson Democrats should carry into 2026: the high stakes of this moment demand ruthless pragmatism about what—and who—it takes to win the races that will materially change people’s lives. Serious times call for a serious commitment to winning.
2) To flip the House in the midterms, we’ll still need to persuade lots of people to vote for Democrats who didn’t last cycle. That will require finding ways to connect more deeply with all voters.
We saw from Tuesday’s results that Democrats have an opportunity to make up ground with demographic groups they lost in 2024 and flip Trump supporters. But we can’t take it for granted that’ll happen on its own—especially as the midterm map is still challenging for Democrats, the state-by-state redistricting fight continues, and Trump himself continues doing everything possible to give Republicans an unfair advantage in the midterms.
Which is why a "talk to everyone, and listen to what they say" approach is so important. And it’s why Swing Left is going all-in on Ground Truth, a radically new approach to canvassing based on a simple idea: before we can persuade, we have to listen.
To carry Tuesday’s momentum into 2026 and 2028, Democrats need to understand much more about who these people are who swung our way this week—or who have the potential to swing our way in the future. Ground Truth is designed to find these voters and help candidates understand and engage them.
Voters are people, and not easy to categorize broadly (as so much political data attempts to do). Human behavior can be fluid and idiosyncratic, i.e. a voter who voted for Trump may still be persuadable.
This is why listening to communities matters. As we saw on Tuesday, candidates who understand who they are talking to, and tailor their messaging to their community, perform better.
We’ll be announcing how we’re expanding Ground Truth in key swing districts, and ways to get involved, very soon.
3) Building power is a long game that requires a strategic and consistent effort focused on winning.
This is something Republicans have known and acted on for decades. I know our political environment can feel like cycle-to-cyle whiplash right now, with Democrats in control one term and Republicans the next. Our side needs to invest in long-term strategy and infrastructure like the other side has.
There is something we can do about it: year after year, focus our efforts on helping Democratic candidates beat Republicans in the most competitive races.
Those efforts pay off. Case in point: Newly elected governors Mikie Sherrill (New Jersey) and Abigail Spanberger (Virginia), both Swing Left alums. These leaders ran for the U.S. House for the first time in 2018, when you organized to help get them elected. And continued to do, year after year, to ensure they kept winning.
All in all, there will always be things we can control, and things we can’t. There’s a path to reversing Democrats’ losses from 2024, as we saw this week. But winning in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential is still going to take hard, consistent work—coupled with some big changes in how Democrats across the board rebuild trust with voters.
This time next year, after the midterms, I’d like to be able to look back and say: I did everything I could to win, in the ways I can control, in collaboration with this powerful, inspiring community.
Are you in?
Yasmin Radjy
Executive Director
Swing Left
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Since 2017, Swing Left has channeled the energy of grassroots volunteers and donors to elect Democrats, up and down the ballot, focusing on the most competitive races that can swing the national balance of power. Right now, Swing Left is investing in early grassroots organizing in key swing districts and initiatives across the country to lay the foundation to win back the House in 2026. If you’d like to help support our work, you can make a donation using this link. |
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