Democrats’ sweeping midterm victories offer a powerful lesson: Lasting political change demands sustained investment in grassroots organizing and the activists who know their communities best.
The 2026 midterm elections revealed many things, including a lesson grassroots activists have understood for decades: Structural change cannot happen without sustained organizing.
I have been making this case for years, often drawing on my research in Latin America. After the 2024 election, I shifted my scholarly lens to the United States, interviewing activists who mobilized tirelessly during the 107 days of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. My forthcoming book, Joy Interrupted: The Movement for Kamala Harris, draws on their experiences.
The more interviews I conducted, the clearer it became that campaign professionals must listen to grassroots activists. The 2026 midterms reinforced many of the lessons these organizers shared with me. Grassroots activists should be running the show—or at least sitting side by side with paid politicos.
Here are five lessons from those conversations that resonate with the election results.
1. Activists know their communities.
I interviewed activists from across the country, representing a range of grassroots organizations. One of them was Norma Linda Del Bosque, founder of Latinas for Harris, about her organization’s approach to mobilizing Latina voters. She told me and my co-interviewer that organizers reached out to the matriarchs—the grandmothers—and urged them to consider what another Trump presidency could mean for their grandchildren. She described seeing conservative women, including some who rarely voted, respond to that message and support Harris.
Trump nevertheless made significant gains among Latino voters in 2024. Del Bosque predicted that his second administration would be a painful wake-up call for her community and that Republicans would struggle to retain those new supporters.
The 2026 midterms brought a significant shift in Latino voters’ support back toward Democrats. While many factors contributed to that shift, Del Bosque’s observations offer an important lesson: Organizers who understand their communities’ concerns, relationships and values are essential to building political coalitions.
2. Democrats need to take Texas seriously.
They See Blue is an organization that mobilizes South Asian Americans to elect Democrats. Almost a year before this month’s midterm elections, Swati Joshi, a Texas-based organizer with the group, told me she believed Texas had the potential to go blue and that the Democratic Party needed to stop treating the state as a lost cause.
The 2026 election certainly reinforced her point: Democrats won the governorship, a U.S. Senate seat and control of the state House. Gina Hinojosa became the first Latina elected governor of Texas, and James Talarico flipped a U.S. Senate seat long held by Republicans.
These victories don’t tell us what would have happened in 2024. But they underscore the importance of listening to organizers who recognize political possibilities that national party leaders may overlook.
3. Money alone cannot win elections.
The 2026 midterms set records for political spending. Republican megadonors poured extraordinary sums into competitive races, with Elon Musk spending more than $200 million in Texas alone. Yet many of the candidates they supported lost.
The lesson isn’t that money doesn’t matter—it’s that it cannot substitute for the relationships, trust and organizing infrastructure that grassroots activists build over time.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, grassroots organizations mobilized volunteers and raised substantial sums through virtual fundraising events and other efforts. What if more of that money had been invested directly in the organizations doing this work? Imagine the possibilities if grassroots groups had more resources to train volunteers, expand their networks, reach voters in their own communities and sustain their efforts between election cycles.
Campaign advertisements and paid staff have their place. But investing in the grassroots organizations that mobilize voters year-round would give campaigns something more durable to build upon. The midterms remind us that even extraordinary financial advantages cannot guarantee electoral success.
4. Reproductive justice wins elections.
Some of the most organized activists I interviewed while researching my book were those fighting for reproductive rights. These organizers advised the Harris campaign on how to communicate its message, mobilized supporters and helped raise funds. They understood that abortion rights were not simply another campaign issue, but a motivating force for voters whose lives and freedoms were directly affected.
The midterms reinforced the political importance of abortion rights. Voters in Virginia and Nevada approved constitutional protections for abortion, while Missouri voters rejected an attempt to repeal abortion-rights protections. Although an abortion-rights measure failed to pass in Idaho, the results still demonstrated the continued power of reproductive freedom as a political issue.
These victories did not emerge overnight. They reflect years of organizing, public education and advocacy by people who understood what was at stake long before Election Day.
5. New energy and ideas matter.
The midterms also ushered in a historic number of political firsts, as candidates broke barriers of race, gender, sexuality, age and religion. Many were younger than their predecessors, but youth is not the only source of new energy. Communities historically excluded from political power bring perspectives, experiences and ideas that have too often been overlooked.
My interviews with organizers supporting Harris revealed how powerful representation could be in mobilizing communities. An organizer with Caribbean Americans for Harris explained how meaningful Harris’ Jamaican heritage was to him and his colleagues. Members of They See Blue similarly felt connected to her South Asian roots. Black women, the backbone of the movement for Harris, saw the historic possibilities of her candidacy.
Those experiences reminded me that representation is not simply symbolic. It can inspire people to participate, organize and imagine themselves as part of the political process. The historic victories of 2026 suggest that the electorate is more open to change than political gatekeepers sometimes assume.
Georgia offers a particularly compelling example of what sustained grassroots organizing can accomplish. For years, activists worked to register voters, build political infrastructure and make the state competitive. This November, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state, a victory built in part on groundwork laid over many election cycles. As Bottoms herself acknowledged after her victory, the movement’s success reflects years of work by grassroots organizations and activists whose names rarely make national headlines.
What will it take for political leadership to embrace these lessons?
Patriarchy, racism, xenophobia and transphobia are structural problems that must be challenged from the bottom up, the top down and every direction in between. We need everything from small-scale, seemingly invisible community organizing to institutional power in all three branches of government. And we cannot accomplish this without listening to grassroots activists and allowing them to lead.
Yes, much of the 2026 Democratic victory represented a repudiation of Trump, Trumpism and the MAGA movement. But that wasn’t the whole story. Voters also supported candidates who represented their communities, understood their concerns and promised meaningful change.
If Democrats want to build on these victories, they must recognize that political power isn’t built only in the months leading up to an election. It takes years of relationship-building, community engagement and sustained grassroots activism. Those doing this work need more than praise after a victory. They need resources, investment and a meaningful role in shaping political strategy.
Trust the activists. And invest in the organizations that make their work possible.
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A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need.
Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. What’s your reproductive freedom story? Add your voice. Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.
