Texas Gov.-Elect Gina Hinojosa
After the midterms, Democrats are now in a much better position to protect voting rights and ensure fair elections in most of the states that are likely to decide the 2028 presidential election.
Republicans have spent years rewriting election laws in key presidential battleground states, making it harder to vote under the pretense of fighting “voter fraud” that has never been proven to actually exist.
In Georgia, Republicans shortened the window for requesting absentee ballots, imposed new voter ID requirements, restricted ballot drop-off sites, and infamously banned volunteers from distributing food and water to voters waiting in long lines.
In North Carolina, Republicans implemented voter ID requirements, eliminated the grace period for mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, and transferred control of state election administration from the Democratic governor to the Republican state auditor—the only statewide office still held by the GOP.
Arizona Republicans have also enacted restrictions on voting and election administration, while Wisconsin Republicans have fought to limit absentee voting and ballot drop boxes.Now Democrats have severely curtailed the GOP’s ability to create havoc in these key battlegrounds. But they’ll also have the power to do something even more important: reverse some of the damage.Here’s how:
Democrats have new trifectas
Democrats now have control of the governorship and both legislative chambers in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.That means that they can do more than block new GOP voting restrictions; they can begin dismantling existing barriers, expanding access to mail-in ballots, making ballot drop boxes more widely available, giving voters more opportunities to correct errors on their ballots, and making it easier to register and vote early.
In states like Wisconsin, where Democratic Gov. Tony Evers spent years vetoing Republican attempts to restrict voting, Democrats can finally go on offense.
Democrats swept statewide offices
Democrats won the electorally significant secretary of state and attorney general offices in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.Those offices matter.
In most states, secretaries of state play central roles in election administration, while attorneys general can defend voting rights and legitimate election results. Their specific powers vary by state, but Democrats will have considerably more influence over how elections are conducted and protected.
And while no election official can prevent President Donald Trump from making another unsuccessful phone call demanding someone “find 11,780 votes,” Democrats will have far more officials in place to resist efforts to overturn the will of voters.
However, Democrats did come up painfully short in two key states.
Georgia Democrats will be just one vote shy of a trifecta, with Republicans hanging on to a 29 to 27 state Senate majority.
And in North Carolina, Democrats won the state House, but control of the Senate hinges on the 24th District, where the Republican leads by just 268 votes, 50.24 percent to 49.76 percent, which is within the margin for an automatic recount.
But we can finish that job in 2028.
To recap, Republicans can’t enact any new voting restrictions across any of the traditional presidential battlegrounds. And in five of those states, Democrats can actually expand voting access ahead of 2028.
But hey, those are just the traditional battlegrounds. We’ve learned this week that Democrats can think much bigger.
Democrats won big in Texas
Yes, Texas.
The Democrats’ great white whale has finally been bested! After Tuesday, Democrats hold all statewide offices and the state House.But more importantly, Democrats have shown that they can win the state again.
Sure, Sen.-elect James Talarico won by more than 12 points, but the more impressive result was Gina Hinojosa’s seven-point victory in the governor’s race.
Texas’ GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton was uniquely flawed and odious—not even Trump could bring himself to say nice things about him without taking shots at how he dressed, looked, and acted.
But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was a conventional Republican with three terms under his belt and no comparable personal scandals to drag him down. Yet voters sent him packing too.
Texas has long had the demographics of a potentially competitive state. Now Democrats have demonstrated that they can actually assemble a winning statewide coalition.And while Republicans still control the state Senate, Democrats can use their newfound executive power to block additional voting restrictions in a state where the GOP has spent years making voting more difficult.
Texas is no longer merely a tantalizing Democratic fantasy; it’s a genuine presidential battleground.
And finally …
Democrats won in Kansas
Yes, Kansas.
The Sunflower State has been a bit of a political anomaly for some time. Of the 20 states with the highest percentage of college graduates, only two are currently Republican—Kansas (#20) and Utah (#15).
Educational attainment has become one of the strongest predictors of partisan affiliation. Voters with college degrees—particularly advanced degrees—have increasingly gravitated toward Democrats, while Republicans have consolidated their advantage among voters without degrees.The numbers from Tuesday tell the story.
In the national House exit poll, Republicans won voters with a high school education by 10 points, 54 percent to 44 percent. Meanwhile, Democrats won voters with bachelor’s degrees, 60 percent to 38 percent, and voters with graduate degrees, 68 percent to 31 percent.
Kansas has a relatively educated electorate, and its recent political history has offered hints of Democratic potential. Voters rejected an anti-abortion constitutional amendment in 2022, and they’ve now elected a Democratic governor three cycles in a row—despite the state’s strong Republican lean in presidential elections.
On Tuesday, Democrats kept the governorship and flipped the attorney general’s office, ousting the odious Kris Kobach.Does that make Kansas a top-tier presidential battleground? Not yet. But it’s another reminder that the electoral map isn’t necessarily as fixed as political conventional wisdom would have us believe.
Democrats didn’t just have a great election on Tuesday; they strengthened their position in the states most likely to decide the next presidential election, gained the power to protect and expand voting access in crucial battlegrounds, and demonstrated that the map itself may be much bigger than anyone expected.
Including Texas.
And there’s no Electoral College map in existence where Republicans can realistically win the White House without Texas.
Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos. Please consider subscribing or donating to Daily Kos here.
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