The Democrats’ stunning victories across the nation on Tuesday night won’t just change the balance of power in Congress and in statehouses across the country. They will also change the Democratic Party itself.
Voters from South Carolina to Ohio to Texas have elevated a new class of potential Democratic stars who could not be more different from one another. They are ideologically diverse, including progressives intent on reshaping the party’s approach to Israel and health care and moderates who spent months persuading Republicans to join their cause. Some eschew the virality of the social media era, others are a product of it. There’s a pediatrician, a pastor, a Paralympianand a former Navy helicopter pilot.
They will also change the face of power. The nation is getting its first Black female governor as well as the first openly gay man to serve in the Senate, and the first Gen Z woman in Congress.
Meet some of the party’s new rising stars.
U.S. SENATE
James Talarico — Texas
A state legislator and former middle-school teacher, James Talarico conquered hundreds of millions of dollars in Republican spending — including at least $158 million from Elon Musk — to become the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate race in more than a generation. At 37, he will be the youngest member of the Senate once he is sworn in.
Mr. Talarico rocketed to prominence last year in part because of a stunt, becoming an often-viral messenger about Texas Democrats’ effort to flee the state to block Republican gerrymandering efforts. A Christian seminary student who quotes Scripture on the campaign trail, he parlayed his fame into a Senate campaign in which he likened himself to David running against President Trump’s handpicked Goliath, Ken Paxton. “You,” he told voters across the state, “are my slingshot.”
Listen: Mr. Talarico was recently interviewed on “The Daily.”
Adam Hamilton — Kansas
At the beginning of 2026, Adam Hamilton wasn’t even a Democrat. He was a registered Republican and the pastor of the largest United Methodist congregation in the country.
He is now the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat in the state since 1932. Mr. Hamilton, 62, campaigned openly on his faith, and worked hard to distance himself from the national party as he sought to persuade moderates in his deep red state to chose him over the unpopular incumbent, Senator Roger Marshall. His was a conciliatory pitch: “If I’m elected, as a moderate or independent-minded Democrat, I’m going to work across the aisle,” he said on the debate stage in October.
Read: How Mr. Hamilton turned deep red Kansas into a tossup.
Annie Andrews — South Carolina
Dr. Annie Andrews, a 46-year-old-pediatrician, began a long-shot campaign against the long-serving Senator Lindsey Graham back in May 2025. Her focus was on somebody who would never appear on the ballot: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump’s controversial secretary of health and human services. Dr. Andrews vowed to impeach Mr. Kennedy and blamed the Trump administration for a 2025 measles outbreak that sickened 1,000 children in her state.
Her campaign seemed like a little less of a long shot when Mr. Graham died suddenly in July and was replaced on the ballot by his sister, Darline Graham. Dr. Andrews portrayed Ms. Graham, accurately, as someone handpicked by Mr. Trump, and pitched herself as the change candidate.
Read: A campaign dispatch from last month.
Chris Pappas — New Hampshire
There were moments this year when Chris Pappas’s assiduously low-key political style made some in his party nervous, but he insisted it was right for his low-key state. On Tuesday night, he easily dispatched an opponent with the most famous family name in New Hampshire Republican politics, John E. Sununu. Now, Mr. Pappas is set to become the first openly gay man in the U.S. Senate.
That wasn’t a major theme of his campaign, but Mr. Pappas, 46, reflected on it in a recent interview with The New York Times. “The fact is, I’m living a reality today that I didn’t think was possible when I was growing up just a few decades ago,” he said. “My state, our country, has come a long way.”
Read our recent profile.
Josh Turek — Iowa
Josh Turek was seen in Washington as the ideal recruit in solid red Iowa: a two-time Paralympic gold medalist (in wheelchair basketball) who voted for George W. Bush. He campaigned hard against Mr. Trump’s tariffs as a “prairie populist” and attacked his opponent, Representative Ashley Hinson, over the war in Iran.
In an election where voters expressed deep economic discomfort, Mr. Turek made Ms. Hinson’s personal wealth an issue, contrasting it with his own working-class upbringing. He promised in one ad that he would not be another millionaire in the U.S. Senate. “It’s families like mine who pay the price for Trump’s health care cuts,” Mr. Turek said.
Read our profile.
GOVERNORS
Gina Hinojosa — Texas
For 12 years, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has had an iron grip on power in Texas, and a record fourth term seemed all but assured. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic state lawmaker nominated to challenge him, was seen as little more than a sacrificial lamb.
Then she started hammering Mr. Abbott over data centers, and he halted new permits for them. Ms. Hinojosa, who is 52, also turned a wrenching personal story — her decision, as a Catholic, to carry a high-risk pregnancy to term — into an emotional campaign ad. In another spot, she invoked something many in her party have avoided: pronouns.
“I’m Gina Hinojosa,” she said. “My pronouns are Mom, Texan and, soon to be, governor.”
Watch: Ms. Hinojosa was on a recent episode of “The Interview.
Keisha Lance Bottoms — Georgia
When she entered this race, Keisha Lance Bottoms’s first task was overcoming her own party’s doubts after crime rose — and her popularity plummeted — during her tenure as mayor of Atlanta. But she managed to break away from a crowded field in the primary and cast herself as a foil to Mr. Trump in a state where he carries heavy political baggage, blaming the president for rising fuel prices and health care costs.
Now, at 56, she will be the nation’s first Black female governor, after beating the businessman Rick Jackson, who poured more than $100 million of his own money into the campaign.
Read our profile.
Amy Acton — Ohio
Dr. Amy Acton was once her state’s chief public health officer, and she made health care a centerpiece of her campaign against Vivek Ramaswamy. Dr. Acton’s traumatic childhood also became a focus of the campaign in its final weeks, when Mr. Ramaswamy ran an ad in which her long-estranged mother — who supported the stepfather accused of raping Amy when she was a child — called her daughter a liar.
Dr. Acton, 60, called the ad “despicable” and said in an interview with CNN that she had spoken publicly about her childhood because that “it might give other people hope that you can, you know, get out of circumstances.”
Read: How that ad divided Republicans.
Rob Sand — Iowa
Long before any talk of a blue wave, long before murmurs about Democrats reclaiming control of the Senate, many saw a glimmer of hope for the party in deep red Iowa: Rob Sand.
He was the state auditor. He was popular. He was a former model (though he certainly didn’t talk about that). And he was running for the open governor’s seat, asking voters if Republican dominance had really been good for their state.
Mr. Sand, 44, made the state’s high rate of cancer a centerpiece of his campaign, and promised to be a governor for all. His campaign slogan: “Not redder or bluer, but better and truer.”
Read: Our profile from early in the campaign.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
It’s much more difficult to become a star as a newcomer in the larger House . Here are a few names to know:
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Rebecca Bennett (New Jersey’s Seventh District) is a former Navy helicopter pilot and health care executive. She unseated Representative Tom Kean Jr., scion of a prominent family in the state.
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Melat Kiros (Colorado’s First District), who is 29, will become the first Gen Z woman in Congress.She ran under the Democratic Socialists of America banner.
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Bobby Pulido (Texas) is a Tejano singer with two Latin Grammy Awards. He performed for free at more than 70 quinceañeras and weddings as part of his campaign.
The post These Wins Could Mint a New Generation of Democratic Stars appeared first on New York Times.
