The mid-term elections are over and we didn’t get everything we wanted. However, we had a number of notable victories across the state and the country.
- Charlotte County turned-out to vote in historic numbers for a mid-term election
- Sixty-six percent of Charlotte County Democrats voted in the mid-term election
- Democrat Nikki Fried became Florida’s agriculture commissioner defeating her Republican opponent by more than 2,800 votes
- Amendment 4 exceeded the required 60% of the Floridian vote to pass. Now those who have paid their dues to society can cast ballots in upcoming elections
- Amendment 9 passed, also receiving more than 60% of the required votes. The passage revises the state Constitution to prohibit offshore oil and gas drilling
- Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell flipped TWO congressional seats in Miami-Dade that can be leveraged to build lasting political change locally
- Democrat Margaret Good triumphed by 7 points in the Sarasota 72nddistrict, defeating Republican James Buchanan in an area that backed Trump in 2016 by more than 4 points
- Democrats won hotly contested mayoral races in St. Petersburg, FL and Charlotte, NC
- Democrat Phil Murphy took a New Jersey governor’s office that had been in Republican Chris Christie’s hands for eight years
- Danica Roem, Virginia, became the only openly transgender lawmaker in America. She beat the Republican incumbent who campaigned on restricting which bathrooms transgender people could use
- Planned Parenthood played an important role in Virginia by helping to defeat a Republican lieutenant governor whose campaign centered on women seeking abortions to undergo vaginal ultrasounds
- Democrats flipped more than 300 state legislative seats
- Democrats claimed a majority of the nation’s attorney general offices
- Democrats picked up 7 governorships
- One hundred women were elected to the U.S. House; 12 women to the U.S. Senate; and 9 women will serve as governor
- There were 43 women of color elected to the U.S. House; one to the U.S. Senate; and one will serve as governor
- Nationally voters under the age of 29 voted Democrat over Republican by 67% to 32%
- Democrats took back control of the U.S. House which will put an important check on the existential threat to democracy imposed by the Trump administration
And 2018 was notable for women behind the scenes with a surge of new activists and voters, particularly among Democrats, working to elect candidates and speaking out on issues like health care, immigration, and gun violence.
Further, polls have shown women shifting their party identification to the Democrats by wide margins.
And if anyone says that their vote doesn’t matter, inform them about what happened in Kentucky this year:
In District 96, the Democrat beat the Republican by 5 votes
In District 91, the Democrat beat the Republican by 7 votes
In District 13, Democrat Jim Glenn beat incumbent Republican DJ Johnson by 1 vote
We must not despair over our losses but instead channel our frustration into turning out voters in 2020, and proving to them that on the issues they care about the most, there is an alternative.
Our journey continues, so let’s get to work!
