The Democratic Party’s new reality is here.
Last week’s victories have reordered both the political map, opening up a world of new possibilities in the next few years. They’ve also awakened much of the political press, where there is now new interest in the exact topics we’ve been covering in this newsletter all year: trifectas, the wielding of Democratic power in the states, and what a 2020s liberal agenda looks like in practice.
But how much came down to the unique 2026 environment? How replicable are these victories in the future? What do midterms, when the vast majority of governors and state legislators are elected, look like after Trump?
For those questions and more, I spoke with Meghan Meehan-Draper, the Executive Director of the Democratic Governors Association. We talked about what went right for her group this cycle, the late drama around Texas, and why Democrats could be well-positioned for a “generation.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s start off with a basic question here: besides the environment, what, if anything, distinguished the DGA strategy this cycle from previous cycles?
First, I just have to take a step back and say it is remarkable that we are going to have 30 Democratic governors who govern 75% of the American population. It has been many years since we've had this level of state power, and it has also been many, many years in the making. Waves come and go, but I think the DGA has been working to meet this milestone for the last decade.
I'll say a couple things. We made very strategic investments, going back years, to lay the foundation to make our map what it was going into 2026. That started with doing everything we could to promote and support our incumbents over the years, to then making sure we have a really solid grip on our open blue seats that were all very, very competitive — places like Wisconsin and Kansas — and then from there went on an offensive strategy to expand the map as much as possible with the limited resources we had. So a combination of years of strategy and work.
You talked a little bit about how much of a comeback this has been for Democrats over the past decade, and a lot of the reason it was such a comeback is because of Republicans' dominance in the 2010 and 2014 cycles. How do you think this stacks up relative to those cycles for Republicans? Is this a bigger deal than their victories in the 2010s?
I think it's a bigger deal because we overcame so much, and frankly, in a relatively short amount of time. When I started at the DGA in 2015, we only had 15 or 16 governors, only two of them were women, and frankly, there was not energy and excitement around electing Democratic governors and investing in the states at all. So it has been a massive education effort, a massive fundraising effort to get governors at the forefront of everybody's minds.
I used to talk a lot back in 2016, 2017 or so about Karl Rove's Operation REDMAP in 2010. President Obama won in 2008 and [Rove] kind of was like, "Hey, Democrats enjoy that. I'm going to totally decimate your power at the state level." And in all of my time at the DGA, my singular goal has been: I want 26 governors by the end of 2026, I want a majority, and I want to undo Karl Rove’s Operation REDMAP, and I think that our elections this year accomplished just that.
I don't have to tell you that there has been a lot of discourse about investments in states like Texas. But in the end, races in states like Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Alabama all ended up being closer. Did you learn lessons about the reliability of things like polling? Has it changed your calculations around recruitment in states like those moving forward?
I think with the national environment and the outcome of these races, we definitely saw that Democrats were competitive in places that many people did not expect. I've always been very clear that our math got way bigger than our budget ever did. Governors' races and the DGA have always been historically underfunded compared to federal counterparts, and that's always been a massive obstacle for us. I just had to stay focused on my north star, which was making as many races competitive as possible and winning as many races as possible with the limited resources we had. While also knowing that, first and foremost, I didn’t want to take any blue state that we currently have off the board, so I had to protect all my blue states and then expand from there. And I think we certainly accomplished that.
I also think that those close races are just more proof that it's important to continue investing in state-level races all over the country because they are historic, historically, chronically underfunded compared to their federal counterparts.
Is there anything else you want to add about your perspective on the Texas gubernatorial race, or about the cost of playing in these bigger states in general?
Gina Hinojosa is an outstanding candidate who ran a flawless campaign. We were excited to support her. You know, just like a handful of other states, it was a state that came on later for us. We launched “Expand the Map Fund” so we could try to raise more resources to send to more states, and we are over the moon delighted about her win. All the governors are so excited to welcome her to the caucus, and it was an example of our map getting bigger than our budget and us doing the best we could.
You mentioned starting in 2015, which is quite an 11-year stretch for you. Before this year, had you seen a change in donor attitude?
Oh yeah, we've been chipping away for the last decade on getting donors to pay more attention to governors' races. In 2018, we launched a program called Unrig the Map that was basically about how, ahead of the 2020 reapportionment, 35 governors had direct control around redistricting maps, whether it's through legislative negotiating power, veto-proof maps, vetoing bad maps, or appointing a special master. So we went to a bunch of federal donors and said, like, "Hey, you've been investing in a Democratic House majority. The best way to lock that in for the next decade is to elect governors in these states."
And that was a real game changer. When we started communicating to donors about the power of governors, aside from just ‘Democrats want to elect Democrats,’ it really was a game changer. Then, power happens in the states. When we go into January, every single presidential battleground will be governed by a Democratic governor. These are people who can ensure there's free and fair elections, that people have the right to vote, and that there's just strong democratic governing power in states. I said to a group of donors actually in August, we were having a little bit of a tussle about where to spend money on federal races or state races, and I said, imagine a world with 30 Democratic governors. That is population power. That's economic power. That's people power. That is Democratic power. Did I think at that time we'd end up with 30? No, but I'm very glad we did.
One of the things I've thought about and written about is what it means if Democrats are in charge of most of the country. I'm curious if that's something you've given thought to, and if that adds a layer of responsibility to a group like the DGA — that suddenly you are thrust into a position of being responsible for the day-to-day lives of most Americans.
It definitely adds to the weight of this work, but it's also the reason we do this work. When I think about the reasons that I'm a Democrat or why I wanted to become a Democratic operative, I thought about who is doing the things I care about, like protecting education, or raising the minimum wage, or creating jobs, or ending the death penalty, or fighting climate change. All of those things are only effectively happening in states led by Democratic governors, and so it's honestly rewarding to see that mission being carried forward, and also with 30 states.
Obviously, it's a fool's errand to predict anything being permanent — in the 2010s we had a sense of midterms being a permanent Republican advantage. But has it struck you that Democrats might just be really well positioned in governors' races as long as they have a midterm advantage?
Yes, it has. Now, we're going to have a ton of governors going in with the power of incumbency in the next midterms. That's a huge power. To me, this means we'll have a Democratic majority of governors for hopefully the next decade, but [potentially] a generation. The other thing that is exciting to me is that Democratic governors won, and the DGA spent in all this tough, Trump, red terrain. 85% of our political budget this year went to states that Trump had won just two years before: Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, you name it. But we were successful, and my hope is that this inspires donors to keep giving to governors' races in red terrain.
We have Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi governors' races coming up just right around the corner next year, and it's always, in my time at the DGA, been a fight to get people to care about those races in those states in the quote-unquote, ‘off year.’ But hopefully, donors and Democrats are inspired to say this is a way that we can go beyond 30 governors. We could, you know, in theory, pick up two and keep Kentucky.
Worthy reads
Louisa Jacobson has a wide-ranging rundown of Democrats’ down-ballot inroads over at Crystal Ball.
Unherd’s Shadi Hamid writes of the “post-woke left,” and calls for liberals to continue their move towards a center-left position on cultural issues.
The New Republic’s Alex Shepard makes the bull case for Democrats’ 2028 prospects.
In The Atlantic, Elizabeth Breunig argues against the emerging “Christian left.”
In MSNOW, Ja'han Jones looks at what may be the biggest point of unity for Democrats in red and purple states next year: arresting the rise of school voucher programs.
The New York Times’ Jess Bidgood examines a core question after Tuesday: What if we were all wrong about the map?
In The Guardian, Garrison Lovely predicts “anti-AI populism” will drive the 2028 election.
And The New Yorker has a collection of some bigwigs’ takeaways from the midterms, including Pete Buttigieg, Chuck Rocha, Sarah Longwell, and Karl Rove, some of which are genuinely interesting.
Got feedback on today’s newsletter? Email me [email protected]