BY NOW, everyone knows the basic takeaway of last week's midterm elections. Call it a Bluenami, Blupocalypse, Blue Wave, Bluemageddon, whatever you like.
Democrats, simply put, won a historic midterm victory that hasn't been seen in almost anyone's living memory.
They will now hold at least 260 seats in the U.S. House and at least 57 seats in the U.S. Senate, sinking a stake into the dark heart of the MAGA agenda.
1946 was the last time the party in the White House was annihilated this badly. Only then it was Democrat Harry Truman facing historic losses.
This time, the election results signal the end of the MAGA movement and the rise of a new kind of progressivism. Not only did Democratics win big, it was the type of Democrats.
Candidates fielded by or endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America won all across the country, well outside deep blue areas.
There are now more avowed Socialists in the U.S. Congress and members of Socialist-affiliated parties than at any time in the nation's history, including the time of Eugene V. Debs in the 1920s.
There's so much to say and analyze about these elections. But here's my list of big takeaways that impact Savannahians at the state and local levels:
I WANT to start with the most groundbreaking state result that has barely been commented on: Democrats took control of the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) for the first time in 30 years.
It is hard to overstate how seismic this is, or how perfect the timing. The PSC is the agency at the very nexus and chokepoint of the AI/data center debate at the state level.
With the election Shelia Edwards and the reelection of Peter Hubbard, starting in January there will be a 3/2 Democratic majority on the PSC, as they join current Dem incumbent Alicia Johnson.
While the PSC doesn’t determine policy or placement of data centers, it helps determine how data centers can get electricity.
As many citizens have pointed out, largely in vain, this amounts to essentially veto power. If a data center can’t get power, all other questions are moot.
This Dem takeover literally couldn’t come at a better time for those concerned about the rapid expansion of data centers (which is almost everyone at this point).
Significantly, PSC Commissioners serve staggered six-year terms. So Hubbard and Edwards will be on the PSC during the most crucial period of public scrutiny for the entire AI/data center experiment.
Alicia Johnson is herself not up for reelection until 2030, so the Dem majority seems baked in for at least that long.
Another core job of the PSC is to regulate Georgia Power for all customers, residential and commercial. There is currently a rate freeze for Georgia Power customers through 2028, at which time almost certainly the company will petition for another rate hike.
The PSC exists through appropriations from the Georgia General Assembly, i.e. the state legislature. This is another reason the Democratic takeover of the Governor’s office and the State House are important.
THE KEY NEWS at the state level, which everyone knows about by now, is the revolutionary election of Keisha Lance Bottoms to the office of Governor – the first Democrat to hold the office in almost a quarter century.
She is the first Black woman ever elected Governor in U.S. history, a fact obviously important and groundbreaking enough to celebrate on its own. But this is actually the first time in U.S. history there will be multiple Black governors serving simultaneously.
That’s right: America has had only 3 Black governors before, all men, all Democrats. But not until now will there be more than one Black governor serving at a time. Crazy to think about, but true.
Bottoms will join four other victorious Black gubernatorial candidates taking office this January. (Not all are Dems – Byron Donalds of Florida is a Republican).
I never bought the mainstream political analysis that Georgia voters would split their tickets, and elect Democrat Jon Ossoff overwhelmingly to the Senate while also sending MAGA Republican Rick Jackson to the Governor’s Mansion.
I figured the math was simply inexorable, that there was no way the pro-Ossoff and anti-Trump wave wouldn’t carry Bottoms over the finish line.
But where I was wrong was her margin of victory: Bottoms didn’t just eke out a win, she thoroughly thrashed Jackson by nearly ten points. It was never even close.
Significantly, Bottoms represents a different kind of Democratic Governor of Georgia. All previous Democrats have been white men of the so-called “Blue Dog” variety, i.e. socially conservative and on most issues indistinguishable from a mainstream Republican.
On the surface, you have to conclude that Bottoms certainly represents a more progressive stance for a Georgia Democrat, especially on women’s rights and reproductive freedom, and on expanding healthcare access.
Her defeated opponent, Rick Jackson, attempted to portray her as a soft-on-crime Democrat. Ironically, longtime observers of Atlanta politics know Bottoms as a key supporter of the controversial Cop City project in Atlanta – virtually a right-wing wet dream straight out of Project 2025.
And Atlanta itself – the headquarters of Flock -- is literally the most-surveilled city in the United States, with one camera for every 8 residents, and specifically one Flock camera for every thousand residents.
This is the style of politics that folks in ATL know very well, now coming to a county near you: very progressive and representational on the surface, but still very much influenced by big corporate money and police/surveillance state authoritarianism when it matters.
Representation is obviously very important. But policy matters too, and people should keep in mind that Bottoms is as subject to the U.S. corporate oligarchy as any other American politician.
For me, the first test will be to see how seriously she sticks to her campaign promise to institute a statewide moratorium on additional Flock cameras.
SPEAKING OF GOVERNORS: in 2027 Democrats will be a majority of state governors for the first time in 17 years, since the Republican “Tea Party” revolution in 2010.
Of particular note is the amount of Democratic “trifectas,” i.e. total control of a state’s Governor’s office, Senate, and House of Representatives.
In January nearly half of all states, 23, will have Dem trifectas, up from 16 prior.
Georgia will not be one of those trifectas. Republicans will retain control of our State Senate by two votes. Not a typo – 2 votes.
The Democratic takeover of the Georgia State House combined with Bottoms’ win for governor isn’t total control, but it will signify an end to further extreme right-wing policies on abortion and guns.
Hopefully, a few crossover votes in the State Senate can provide relief from the upcoming crushing cuts to the healthcare and social safety net as a result of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” most of which will begin taking effect in 2027.
RIDING THE WAVE of anti-data center activism at its Ground Zero in Effingham County was 24-year-old David Dillie, who becomes the first Democrat in 14 years to represent that Georgia House district in Effingham and West Chatham.
This is probably the race I was most struck by, as Effingham County is notoriously right-wing and very insular. That said, the anger that has spilled over there about the upcoming OpenAI Project Camellia was obviously enough for voters of all stripes to give a big middle finger to anyone even close to that project.
Dillie easily defeated his Republican incumbent, a Marine vet in his 70s who probably didn’t expect this result or even know what hit him.
As others have pointed out, the key for Dillie now is to engage with the steep learning curve of being an elected official at an extremely young age. Hopefully the young man has some good advisers who won’t steer him wrong.
Any time someone says they are too young to run for office, and there’s no way they can win, remember David Dillie.
EVERYONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT JON OSSOFF, but his reelection as U.S. Senator was by far the least surprising of any Democratic victory literally in the entire country.
The only question was how much his margin of victory would be, and it was indeed huge: 18 points.
Not a typo. Eighteen points.
The only conversation worth having about Ossoff is what this means for the Presidential race in 2028. Clearly he will be marketed as a leading candidate, and an example of how an occasionally self-labeled “progressive” can be successful in the deep South.
But how “progressive” is Ossoff? A casual glance at his stated policy positions shows almost no progressive stances at all.
He is openly against Medicare For All. He openly supports continuing military aid to Israel. He is openly against abolishing ICE. He cooperated with Republicans on the Laiken Riley Act.
These positions are usually rationalized by saying, “he has to appear moderate in order to win in the South.”
But does he though? Isn’t that the polar opposite of the big lesson we learned this election? That an outspoken progressive running on that label can not only win, but win big in the South?
Simply put, this election proved that Democrats no longer have to cosplay as Republican Lite to win outside of heavily blue areas.
They no longer have to be held hostage by the idea that “electability” revolves around compromising on core principles with Republicans who have no intention of compromising with Democrats on anything, ever.
It will be interesting to see how the national Democratic Party navigates through or around this essential truth in the years ahead.
A STRIKING THING about the Blue Wave of 2026 isn’t just the size of it, but the location.
The biggest and most historic victories were not in deep blue areas, but in the deepest, darkest heart of MAGA World.
Places like Texas, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, and the Carolinas all saw not only huge Dem wins, but huge progressive wins.
Outspoken progressive James Talarico won a Senate seat in Texas by so many votes that even if he didn’t receive a single vote on Election Day itself, he still would have won just from early voting and mail-in ballots.
Democrats will run the Texas State House for the first time in 20 years, and hold the Governor’s Mansion in Austin for the first time in over 30 years. And those elections were wipeouts for the most part.
(The MAGA ass-whipping was so brutal that Elon Musk – who set nearly half a billion dollars on fire trying to elect Republicans this election – actually stopped tweeting for a couple of days. Musk had moved himself and his companies to Texas specifically to get away from “woke” policies, not to mention state income tax, in California. The poetic justice is chef's-kiss.)
South Carolina has not only its first Democratic Senator in 22 years, but Annie Andrews is surprisingly progressive. North Carolina flipped its State House blue.
Democrats will control the Arizona state legislature for the first time in 60 years. Not a typo: Sixty years!
Mississippi will not only have its first Black Senator since Reconstruction, Scott Colom is an unabashed progressive.
The new Speaker of the State House in Wisconsin, Greta Neubauer, is not just that body’s first woman Speaker. She's a member of the leftist climate change activism group Sunrise Movement.
While Alabama is still deep red, they elected their first openly transgender State House member, Allison Montgomery. Madison County, Alabama, now has an openly gay Sheriff, former Navy SEAL Brett Jones.
Alabama, folks!
The lesson is clear: Times have changed, and the old tropes about “bicoastal liberal elites” are now past their expiration date. Progressives and Democratic Socialists can run and win, and win big, all over the United States.
Hopefully the leadership of the Democratic Party at the national level will take this lesson seriously.