State Democrats’ 2025 election wins build momentum ahead of 2026 midterms
WASHINGTON — Coverage of state Democrats’ monumental victories is dominating the airwaves after voters held Republicans accountable for their chaotic and disastrous leadership and backed state Democrats in last week’s elections. From PoliticsNation to The Weeknight to The Briefing with Jen Psaki, everyone is talking about the historic victories clinched by state Democrats and what it means for the midterms and the Democratic Party’s path forward.
DLCC President Heather Williams on PoliticsNation
- “When you’ve got great candidates who can deliver a strong, disciplined message about what the voters care about, you can win in red states and blue states, and purple states. […] Our candidates at the state legislative level are in the district, and they live there, they work there, they go to the grocery store, the gas station, amongst their constituents and voters every single day, and they never lost sight of what voters cared about most.”
- “This is an incredibly important ballot level. This is the ballot level that determines our voting laws. It determines our congressional districts. It secures the path to the presidency, and, of course, it allows us to legislate on the things that Democrats care about, because it is in states where we have power.”
- “Before we get to the midterms next November, we’re going to have a bunch of special elections across the country in all of these similar communities, red, blue, purple. And we’re going to continue our disciplined strategy, talking to voters about affordability, around health care, around housing, around energy, and we’re going to keep winning, and that is going to set the tone and the stage for the ‘26 midterms.”
Virginia House Speaker Don Scott on The Weeknight
- “We flipped five Republican-held seats. We flipped the other eight seats that Kamala Harris had won. We flipped every single targeted seat that we had targeted. We even outperformed the top of the ticket in some of those districts. That is how frustrated people are with what’s happening in this country. We’re at 64 seats. This is the largest Democratic majority in three decades. The country is pissed off. They are ready to win. They’re ready to move in a different direction, and they’re trying to send a message to Republicans that it’s okay right now to stand up to Donald Trump.”
- “At the end of the day, Trump lied to these folks. He told them he would lower the price of beef, he would lower the price of groceries, he would lower the price of child care and health care. And not only was he wrong about lowering those prices, everything went up. And then we begin to strategize and come up with a movement, a movement and a tactical strategy to recruit a candidate to run in all 100 seats. We hadn’t done that in a generation. We recruited specifically people who were connected to their communities.”
- “If you look at the data tonight, every single county in Virginia moved further towards the Democratic Party than they did towards the Republicans. We’re gaining trust again, and it’s our job right now to continue to grow that trust.”
Jen Psaki on The Briefing with Jen Psaki
- “[Democrats] also won back more than a dozen state seats in the [Virginia] state legislature, which is huge, because that’s going to be a very big deal when it comes to trying to do redistricting, which is something they’re very focused on in that state. It’s giving them their biggest majority in the state legislature in quite some time, actually, nearly 40 years.”
- “New Jersey Democrats also expanded their majority in the state legislature and could end up flipping even more Republican seats when all the counting is finished.”
- “Pennsylvania voted to protect the Democratic majority in the state supreme court, beating back a well-funded campaign from a Republican mega-donor who is kind of like the Elon Musk of Pennsylvania.”
- “The big ballot win of the night was over in California, where millions of voters turned out to vote in support of California Democrats’ plan to redraw their congressional maps, in order to counter Trump’s efforts to force red states like Texas to gerrymander their maps, so that he can of course try to hold onto the House.”
- “Tired of winning yet? I’m not […] In Mississippi, Democrats flipped three state legislative seats, breaking Republicans’ supermajority in the state.”
- “At the very tippy-top of New York state, […] Democrats won a hotly contested special election for New York state Assembly by less than 2,000 votes.”
- “Basically, everywhere you look across the country, Democrats won last night. […] It was one of the best nights Democrats have had in a very, very long time.”
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) is the campaign arm of Democratic state legislatures and leads the national strategy for building power and winning new majorities. Over the last three decades, we have strategized cycle over cycle to win majorities and lead the effort to bring national attention and investment to our ballot level, winning nearly a dozen new chamber majorities over the last decade. Our work has ensured that nearly half of Americans are represented by at least one Democratic majority in their statehouse. State legislatures are the building blocks of our democracy and have the closest connections to Americans’ day-to-day lives. From protecting fundamental freedoms and voting rights to growing the middle class and advancing opportunity, the DLCC and state legislators are moving the Democratic agenda forward and shaping the future of this country.
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