The scale of Democrats’ wins in last week’s midterm elections is still coming into focus. This week, after the final ballots were counted, a Democrat was elected senator to in Mississippi. Scott Colom will be the first Democrat elected U.S. senator in Mississippi since 1982, and the first Black man elected statewide in Mississippi since Reconstruction, after the Civil War.
Colom’s win is just one of several that have been hard for Democrats to process. “Going into the election, I was one of the more optimistic Democrats,” said Jim Kessler, with the center-left think tank Third Way. “I thought we’d take the Senate. I didn’t think that would include Mississippi and South Carolina.”
“It was such a big wave that nobody really anticipated,” said Debbie Cox Bultan, who heads NewDeal, a coalition of center-left state and local lawmakers. “I’ve been talking to people who said ‘We picked up every conceivable seat that we thought we might win, and then some that weren’t even on our radar screens.’”
Here’s more about how far and wide Democrats’ wins extended and what they plan to do with their power.
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Democrats’ wide-ranging wins in North Carolina are equally stunning
Democrats are on the brink of taking full control of governing in North Carolina, which is one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation in favor of Republicans. They easily won the U.S. Senate seat, the governor’s mansion and then shocked even themselves by taking control of the state House. Democrats are one seat away from winning the majority in the state Senate too.
“There’s no universe where I think anybody can say they expected what happened,” state Rep. Robert Reives (D), who is poised to become speaker when his party takes control next year, told my Washington Post colleagues.
The South seems to be where so many of Democrats’ surprises happened. Democrats now control the governor’s mansion and at least one state legislative chamber in two of the biggest states in the South: Texas and Georgia.
Democrats in the South argue that if the party had invested more, they could have won even more races.
“I believed then, and I believe now, that all roads to the White House are through the South,” Louisiana Rep. Troy A. Carter (D) toldmy Washington Post colleague.
What Democrats in the states are planning
Democrats at the state level have more power than ever in the Trump era, and they will be able to move quickly than Democrats in Congress to change or stop Republican policies.
My Washington Post colleagues looked at some of the major changes Democrats are planning.
In Texas, for instance, incoming Democratic governor Gina Hinojosa has proposed ending a Republicans’ school voucher program, which allows parents to use public funds to pay for private schools. The program has turned out to be unpopular in many red, rural communities.
In Michigan, Democrats want to reduce prescription drug costs. In Wisconsin, Democrats want to revive a long-standing proposal to legalize recreational cannabis.
And advocates are pushing Democratic-run states to make abortion care more available.
Equally interesting are the states in which Democrats don’t control state government but won enough seats to block Republicans for the first time in years. Those include Florida, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska. Republicans will no longer be able to push through conservative policies.
“For the last several years we’ve been in the superminority,” said Christine Hunschofsky, the incoming Democratic leader in Florida’s state House. “We’ve been virtually ignored on many of the big issues, nobody needed to bring us to the table, nobody needed to listen to us, and so now things have changed.”
In Ohio, Republicans also expect the the state’s school voucher program to be reduced.
In Kansas, which will continue to have a Democratic governor and where Democrats broke Republicans’ supermajority, expanding Medicaid is now on the table.
Republicans are warning that Democrats have yet to say how they’ll make life more affordable and could turn off voters by pushing liberal policies in purple and red states.
“Democrats are at risk of over interpreting and overreacting to their wins,” Ohio state Rep. Gary Click (R) told my Washington Post colleagues. “It will be a contest over the next two years to see who best interprets the results.”
Why pollsters underestimated Democratic strength
As Democratic party leaders and strategists still sort through their wins — and why they won — pollsters have some ideasabout what they missed about this election. Overall they underestimated Democrats’ performance.
Some pollsters told The Washington Post’s Pollwatcher newsletterthey overestimated Republican turnout and didn’t realize how many minority voters and young voters would turn out for Democrats. Infrequent voters are also hard to reach, and they have swung wildly in elections, from going for President Donald Trump two years ago to Democrats now.
Amber Phillips writes The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a quick analysis of the day’s biggest political news. Send her an email here, or ask a question that could be featured in an upcoming newsletter.
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