5 reasons I think a Democratic wave is building for 2026 🌊
Reading the tea leaves 🍃
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On Tuesday night, Democrats flipped two Republican-held offices:
Eileen Higgins became the first Democrat to be elected mayor of Miami in 28 years. And not just that: She beat her Republican opponent by 19 points!
In Georgia’s 121st House district, which includes parts of the city of Athens, a Democrat named Eric Gisler won a Republican-held seat by a 51%-49% margin. The district had gone for Donald Trump in 2024 by 12 points.
In a vacuum, neither of these results mean all that much. We are talking about very low turnout elections — Gisler won with a total of 5,873 votes! — being held at a time when most people are focused on what they are giving (and getting) for Christmas.
But, if you take a step back, what you see is that time and time again when people across the country have voted this year, Democrats have either won or over-performed — or both.
When you combine that fact with the historical patterns of the party in power losing seats in midterm elections, I think you begin to see a Democratic wave forming ahead of 2026.
Let me make the case with the help of a few handy, dandy charts.
1. 25 to 0
According to The Downballot, the Georgia race on Tuesday is the 25th Republican-held state legislative seat that Democrats have flipped in 2025. How many Democratic-held seats have Republicans flipped this year? Zero.
