Recent political developments have greatly encouraged progressives in the US and struck fear into the hearts of the Democratic party leadership. That leadership is pro-corporate, pro-war, and reflexively pro-Israel, not willing to say anything critical even as Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Forces have gone on a genocidal rampage of unbelievable cruelty against Palestinians, committing war crimes left and right. It has come to a point where one does not need to dig up evidence of the crimes, each day’s news just provides yet more evidence.

The Democratic party leadership wants the energy and youthful passion of the progressives to campaign and vote for them but wants them to also then just shut up about the issues that they care about and let them govern. This was why Zohran Mamdani’s win was so remarkable. The corporate and Israel lobby threw everything at him while the Democratic party leadership either stayed silent on the sidelines or grudgingly supported him very late in the campaign or, in the case of senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, refused to even say whom he voted for, which clearly meant that he voted for the odious Cuomo against his own party’s nominee.

But Mamdani’s win was not the whole story even though it got the most attention. There was a blue wave all across the state.

A POLITICO review of results in 268 county, town and village executive branch races found an average 10 point increase in the Democratic margin.

Democrats made gains in at least 18 different county legislative bodies in November, flipping over 50 seats across the Empire State. They gained five seats in Oswego County, which Trump won by 27 points in 2024. They picked up five in Ulster by making inroads in towns that have been Republican for generations, winning their largest majority in county history. And they flipped five in Onondaga and gained their first majority there since the 1970s.
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Democratic performance in places that were once untouchable Republican strongholds is perhaps more notable when looking ahead to next year. Consider, for example, the Rochester suburbs: Penfield elected a Democratic supervisor for the first time in four decades, Greece for the first time in 120 years, and Perinton for the first time since the Civil War.

Democrats also flipped mayoral or supervisor offices in places like Tonawanda, Oneonta, Monroe, Rensselaer, Johnson City and Riverhead.

All told, there were 118 municipal executive races outside of New York City this year that were contested in either 2021 or 2023. The number of ballots cast for Democrats grew from 1.3 million to 1.6 million, a 22 percent increase. The number for Republicans grew 1 percent to 1.6 million.

The lesson being drawn from these results is that Democrats win when they run progressive campaigns on issues like the affordability.

According to economist Matthew Nestler, the care economy has become one of the stickiest sources of inflation in the United States. Prices for home and community-based care have increased more than three times the pace of overall inflation since January 2024. In nearly all states, the cost of caring for children has outpaced even housing and health care, placing immense strain on families and the fabric of our democracy. 

For working parents — and especially mothers — the impact is devastating. Polling from the Century Foundation shows women are having a harder time than men finding good-quality jobs, largely because of care responsibilities and unaffordable options. Too many families are trapped between impossible choices: Stay home and lose income, or work just to pay for care.
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Mamdani’s message to New Yorkers was simple: Care is a public good, not a do-it-yourself job. Across the river, Sherrill made the same case, showing that investing in care supports both families and the economy. In Virginia, where families pay an average of $30,000 a year for two children in child care, Spanberger tapped into bipartisan frustration over waitlists and unlivable costs.

Their victories demonstrate that care resonates because it shapes how families live, work and age. Child care enables parents to participate in the workforce and support their families. Paid leave gives workers and families the financial stability and time to lead healthy, flourishing lives. Home and community-based services allow older adults and people with disabilities to remain connected to their communities and live independently with dignity.

India Walton now regrets that she adopted the party’s conventional wisdom in her race for mayor of Buffalo. In 2021, she shocked the Democratic party establishment by defeating in the primary the centrist, party-backed incumbent mayor Byron Brown, by running on a progressive platform. But for the general election, she tacked to the center (really the right) because of the belief that that was what one had to do. But Brown mounted an independent campaign backed by establishment forces and defeated her. Walton feels that she lost because by changing course, she bled support from the very groups who had earlier actively supported her.

“Moderating is what got us here,” said Walton, now a senior strategist at RootsAction, referring to Donald Trump’s return to the White House. “I believe that moderating is what lost me ultimately the election in 2021.

“I pivoted fairly quickly … to try and integrate myself into the party, because I thought that was the way to build a broad-based coalition,” she reflected. “It sort of ate away from our message from the inside out.”

After initially opposing charter schools in the primary to win the Buffalo Teachers Federation endorsement, Walton later told business leaders she supported “school choice” – and lost the union’s backing for the general election as a result. She also distanced herself from the “defund the police” movement.

Shortly after Walton won the primary that year, the establishment and investor-aligned Brown mounted an unorthodox write-in campaign and won, even though his race was marked by possible campaign finance violations including receiving contributions from real estate corporations in defiance of election law. Brown, an ally of the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and a former New York Democratic party chair, would step down in 2024 to serve as president and CEO of a western New York off-track betting company.

These results have been replicated elsewhere.

In the run-up to last month’s mayoral election in Dayton, Ohio, candidate Shenise Turner-Sloss found herself up against it.

Her opponent, mayor Jeffrey Mims, was a 78-year-old local Democratic party doyen who had served on school boards and teachers’ unions in the city for decades. His campaign budget was three times hers and an incumbent hadn’t been unseated from the mayoral role in the city for over a decade.

But it wasn’t just money and status that stood in her way.

In 2021, when Turner-Sloss ran for a seat on the city commission as a Democrat, the Ohio Democratic party mailed out an attack ad against her and another candidate that included the text: “Don’t Trust Shenise Turner-Sloss.”

And yet, on 4 November, 44-year-old Turner-Sloss ousted Mims, marking a sea change in how local politics are run in the Ohio city.

“My candidacy was not in opposition to anyone. My candidacy was to usher in a new generation of leadership,” she says.
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From Detroit to Pennsylvania to Buffalo, New York, and here in Ohio, insurgent, progressive Democrats are defeating their long-established colleagues in dozens of school board, city council and mayoral races, throwing the already-divided national party into chaos, even as polls indicate it stands to potentially benefit at next year’s midterm elections due to the Trump administration’s divisive policies.

In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, one of seven swing states whose voters in recent years have decided the country’s presidential election, 37-year-old Jaime Arroyo was elected mayor on 4 November, becoming the first Latino mayor in the city’s 295-year history. In La Crosse, Wisconsin, another swing state, Shaundel Washington-Spivey, the city’s first Black and out gay mayor, beat a fellow Democratic party candidate with extensive local government experience last April.

The swing has been such that even in deep red Tennessee, Aftyn Behn, the Democratic candidate in a special election held today, lost by single digits, a margin of 54%-45%. At one point, the polls had her about two points behind her rival but she could not pull off what would have been a spectacular upset. Trump had won this state by 22 points just last year and Republicans had been concerned that even a single-digit win for their candidate spelled problems for the party.

It is time for the Democratic party leadership to read the writing on the wall. They represent the past and should give way to the next generation. But you can be sure that they will not give up easily. For them, they more want to keep the money coming in from their usual supporters than actually winning elections on progressive issues that they do not support.