We Did It... we brought on the BLUE WAVE!

Although our nation is still in turmoil and rough seas clearly lie ahead, let’s take a moment to rejoice together and enjoy the successes of last week’s elections. The November 4 election results have resurrected a sense of optimism among Democrats. Perhaps democracy has not yet been fully squashed. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! to everyone who canvassed, made phone calls, wrote checks, put out yard signs, talked to neighbors, manned the polls, and more. When We Fight, We Win! And, thankfully, last week, victories were plentiful.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! to GOVERNOR-elect ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, the first woman elected governor in Virginia!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! to LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR-elect GHAZALA HASHMI, the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office anywhere in the U.S.!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! to ATTORNEY GENERAL-elect JAY JONES, the first Black elected Attorney General in Virginia. Jones deserves credit for sticking it out through the tougher moments of this election, knowing he was the better candidate for Virginia. And, while Jones won with the smallest margin of the Virginia executive office wins, he still won by a significant margin.

Democrats were victorious, as well, in the House of Delegates races. We headed into last Tuesday’s elections with a slim 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates, but we came out of election night with a 64-36 majority. WOW! Very nicely done, with a huge blue shift across the entire state.

Just before the November 4 elections, the House of Delegates met in a special session. It passed a Constitutional amendment that will allow the General Assembly to revise Virginia’s redistricting process and redraw Congressional Districts next year, just in time for the 2026 midterm elections. Our Senate also passed the measure. With this essential first step complete, the recent big wins in the House of Delegates all but ensures success in the next step toward enacting this amendment; the General Assembly will support this amendment a second time during next year’s legislative session. Only after a successful second vote, can the amendment be put before Virginia voters as a ballot measure to help protect the integrity of Congress from GOP gerrymandering plans in other states.

There was plenty of good news beyond Virginia, too. California passed its ballot measure, “Prop 50”, which initiated the state’s plan to even the redistricting playing field in response to the GOP’s gerrymandering plot, already begun in Texas. Moving Prop 50 forward in California will help preserve our democracy through the 2026 Midterm elections by protecting the possibility of fair representation for Democrats in the House of Representatives.

CONGRATULATIONS! also to our Democratic friends in New Jersey, where voters bucked the historic trend by electing a Democratic governor, Mikie Sherrill, in a year that would typically have flipped to a Republican governor had historic patterns held. Not since 1961 have New Jersey voters elected a governor of the same party in three consecutive terms. Nicely done, New Jersey!

And CONGRATULATIONS! to NYC’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist who, despite being labeled a communist by some, apparently secured his victory by winning over younger voters with his focus on affordability in the city. NYC experienced the highest voter turnout for a non-presidential election year in the city’s history. Turnout was four times higher than in the 2021 mayoral race, and younger voters were responsible for more than half of the early ballots in this year’s mayoral race.

And we can celebrate several victories in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention elections. There were three Democratic Court seats up for retention in PA, and all three were retained not only by Democrats but also by wide margins. Retaining these Court seats on the PA Supreme Court will protect the rule of law in that state and may also prove extremely important for the entire nation following the 2028 Presidential elections.

And in Maine, “Prop 1” was defeated, protecting voting access in future elections as Maine voters rejected additional ID requirements and greater limits on absentee voting.

For election geeks who want to delve even further into some of the very interesting November 4, 2025, outcomes across the nation, including school board races, here is more:

• Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson won the two open seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, flipping both from GOP control in what was termed a key “bellwether” election ahead of the 2026 midterms. The Tuesday election marks the first time since 2000 that a Democrat has won a Public Service Commission race in Georgia.

• In the general election for Philadelphia district attorney, incumbent Lawrence Krasner (D) defeated Patrick F. Dugan (R). Interestingly, the winner, Krasner, had defeated candidate Dugan 64% to 36% in the Democratic primary on May 20, 2025, but then Dugan announced on August 9, 2025, that he would run as the Republican nominee. Yet, still, he lost.

• In King County, Washington, Girmay Zahilay will be the next Executive of King County. This is significant; Zahilay was born in a refugee settlement in Sudan and raised in public housing before he went to Stanford and then Penn State, followed by an internship in the Obama White House. He will lead America’s 12th-largest county at a time when the federal government has never been more hostile to the refugees and immigrants who walk in his footsteps. On top of that, the 38-year-old Zahilay is the youngest-ever King County executive and the first immigrant or refugee to hold the job.

School Board Races across the country:

• According to unofficial results from the Mentor Exempted Village School District in Lake County, Ohio, progressive candidates Maggie Cook, Robert Haag, and Daniel Hardesty won all three open seats on the school board, defeating a conservative slate that sought to reshape the board around culture war issues including book bans and gender policies.

• Camille Peterson, Chelsea Alkire, and Kelly Dillon won the nonpartisan general election for three at-large seats on the five-member South-Western City Schools Board of Education in Franklin County, Ohio. Although the board is officially nonpartisan, the governing control of the board was at stake, and the Franklin County Democratic Party had endorsed the winning slate. These wins will protect one more school board from the Republican, conservative cultural ideology.

• An ideologically diverse group of candidates won seats on the Lakota Local Schools Board in Butler County, Ohio. According to the final, but still unofficial, count as of November 10, incumbent Kelly Casper and Alexander Argo, whom the local Democratic Party had endorsed, won two seats on the board. However, the third seat went to 18-year old Benjamin Nguyen, the youngest member ever elected to the Lakota School Board. Nguyen describes himself as a Republican and talked of bringing a conservative ideology to the Board. Lakota’s enrollment of more than 17,000 students makes it the largest public school district in Butler County and the largest suburban school system in southwest Ohio.

• For the Seattle Public School Board in King County, Washington, incumbent Joe Mizrahi and new-to-the-Board candidates Vivian Song and Jen LaVallee have earned confirmed wins. The District 2 seat had not yet been called on November 10, and incumbent candidate Sarah Clark was running behind Kathleen Smith, who was listed in the “Progressive Voters Guide." The three confirmed winners had expressed a shared priority of ensuring all buildings in the Seattle Public Schools system remain open and amply funded during a time of controversial school closures in Seattle.

For those readers following mayoral elections around the country, here is a sample of “battleground” election results:

• In Cincinnati, Ohio, Mayor Aftab Pureval (D) handily defeated Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother, pastor and coffee shop owner Cory Bowman (R). Pureval won with over a 50% margin, earning 78.2% of the votes to Bowman’s 21.8%.

• In Albuquerque, New Mexico, candidates must receive over 50% of the votes to be declared the winner. None of the six candidates running for mayor of Albuquerque received a majority of the votes cast; thus, the top two vote earners, incumbent Tim Keller (D) and Darren White (R), will have to run again on December 9, 2025, in a runoff election.

• In Detroit, Michigan, Mary Sheffield defeated Solomon Kinloch to become the first woman mayor of Detroit in the city’s 324-year history. Sheffield ran a campaign calling for more affordable housing, economic equity, and government transparency, and pledged to prioritize neighborhoods left behind by downtown development. She also called for strengthening police accountability and improving city services. Her opponent, Kinloch, campaigned on his faith-based leadership.

• In Miami, Florida, another mayoral race is headed to a runoff election. Eileen Higgins (D) and DeSantis-endorsed all-out MAGA candidate Emilio Gonzalez (R) advanced from the officially nonpartisan election in Miami, Florida. They will meet again on December 9, 2025, to see who is elected mayor. Should Higgins (D) win in December, this would be the first Democratic mayor elected in Miami in 28 years!

• The mayoral race in Minneapolis, Minnesota broke records for voter turnout. After two rounds of tabulation, incumbent Jacob Frey (D) was declared the winner over the more progressive candidate, Omar Fateh (D).

• The race for mayor of Seattle, Washington was still too close to call as of November 10. When all the mail-in votes have been counted, either Bruce Harrell (D) or the new-to-politics, more progressive candidate, Katie Wilson (D), will become mayor of Seattle. As we go to print, Harrell leads Wilson by nearly 2%.

But wait, there’s more! Below are summaries of some of the more significant ballot measures considered this election cycle.

• In the redistricting fight, California Proposition 50 passed with a huge margin. The state will now be allowed to use a new, legislature-drawn congressional district map for 2026 through 2030.

• Maine Question 1 was voted down. Voters will not have to present photo ID, and no changes will be made to absentee voting or ballot drop box rules.

• Maine Question 2, a “Red Flag Law” passed. The measure will make it easier for family members to remove guns from someone considered to be a threat to themselves or others.

• Colorado Propositions LL and MM passed. Both are related to the state's Healthy School Meals for All Program (HSMA), which reimburses public schools for providing free breakfast and lunch to students. Voters agreed to raise taxes on higher-income earners in order to fund free school meals for all K-12 public school students.

Texas voters approved 17 Propositions. Highlights include:

• Texas Proposition 3 will require judges or magistrates to deny bail to individuals accused of certain violent or sexual offenses that are punishable as a felony if it is demonstrated after a hearing through a preponderance of the evidence that the accused will likely not willfully appear in court or by clear and convincing evidence that the accused is a danger to the community or victim.

• Texas Proposition 15 provides that parents have the right “to exercise, custody, and control of the parent's child, including the right to make decisions concerning the child's upbringing” and the responsibility "to nurture and protect the parent's child."

• Texas Proposition 16 would provide that "persons who are not citizens of the United States" cannot vote in the state. This position was approved, but it is completely redundant, as non-citizens have long been banned from voting. Notably, 14 states have voted on similar constitutional amendments.

• Texas Propositions 2, 6, and 8 would prohibit several types of taxes, adding layers of protection against taxation for residents with investments of all kinds.

  • Prop 2 prohibits the state legislature from enacting a tax on realized or unrealized capital gains of an individual, family, estate, or trust, including a tax on the sale or transfer of a capital asset.

  • Prop 6 prohibits laws that impose an occupation tax on a registered securities market operator or a securities transaction tax.

  • Prop 8 amends the state constitution to prohibit the state legislature from imposing a tax on a decedent’s property or the transfer of an estate, inheritance, legacy, succession, or gift.

Virginia’s support for Democratic candidates increased significantly during the November 4, 2025, elections. This is exactly what we wanted to see, and we hope to expand this trend even further during the November 2026 Midterm elections.

Even following momentous election wins like those we saw last week, there is, unfortunately, no rest for the weary. We are not finished yet. We need to continue to support Democratic candidates throughout Virginia and across the U.S. as we prepare for the November 2026 midterm elections. In times like these, every single election is critical.

So, as we pause to enjoy family and friends over the upcoming holidays, resting our bodies and replenishing our spirits, remember this as we get ready to hit the ground running again in January at our DWCNV Annual Meeting.