I hope y’all are over your sore throats from shouting on Tuesday night. Bluenami, Orange Crush, whatever you choose to call it, it was glorious. We’re struggling to learn to live with that odd sensation of hope, of backing away from the edge of the cliff. Conversations with strangers take on a new twist. Cycling with a friend on Wednesday, a woman on foot responds to my comment about the beautiful day with an enthusiastic, “Gorgeous day! In every way!!” Standing in line at Natural Grocers, a woman with a No Kings button tells me how relieved she is for her friends’ children who are in their twenties.

There are plenty of people doing election analysis, so I’ll try to keep this short. Admittedly I do wonder how much of the results are people finally regaining their sanity (or compassion) and how much is simply high gas prices. A combination of both, I imagine. In any case, a few things are clear.

Musk spent $446 million dollars trying to buy himself politicians who won’t investigate his company or his actions. He failed. Paxton outspent Talarico by $333.6 million to $245.8 million. (May we just pause a moment to reflect on how outrageous these figures are.) Paxton lost by a whopping eight percentage points. I recall an election years ago in which every politician who spent more won. Those days are over. As Talarico put it in his acceptance speech, the many are more powerful than the money. We still need to get money out of politics (a shout out to our ISF colleagues at https://mopnm.org/). But what joy that sometimes, at least, money can’t buy office.

Ugly behavior was not rewarded.

AIPAC suffered at least one major loss. I don’t know the exact figures, but they spent more than $30 million just in the primaries just to defeat Abdul El-Sayed. Or as he put it in his acceptance speech, thank you AIPAC for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice. Trump’s disgusting Islamophobic remarks failed to land. The one-sided nature of the media berating El-Sayed for his friendship with Hasan Piker while ignoring the Muslim = terrorist remarks of politicians failed to shift the race. I, for one, am delighted that we will finally have a Muslim in the Senate. I’m also thrilled that Haley Stevens failed to have an impact—or only shifted the race further towards El-Sayed.

We all were delighted to see Vivek Ramaswamy’s vile attack on Amy Acton backfire. She beat him by 8%. His disgusting behavior failed to pay off. Are people finally fed up with the ugliness? And how glorious is it that a woman who is open about childhood rape and homelessness is now Governor?!!?? Imagine the impact on children struggling through their own dark and difficult times, just as Obama being president helped young Black people dream bigger dreams.

All $280 million of disgusting anti-trans ads failed. Are people finally waking up to the fact that the anti-trans hysteria is diversion from real issues? Could Democratic politicians learn the lesson and follow Andy Beshear’s lead and support rather than attack trans people?

For me, I confess, one of the most exciting victories (there were so many, I know!) was actually a loss…watching Susan Collins lose. Hurrah!!! When I last watched on Tuesday night, she was ahead by 400 votes. Troy Jackson won, 53.2% to 46.8%. Not even close! The good people of Maine finally saw fit to repudiate their hypocritical (but ever concerned) senator who helped take away abortion rights. Three cheers!!! I don’t know how much Collins’ elitist, snobby remarks at the end helped usher in her defeat, but they can’t have helped her.

Taking a step back, we had historic successes, putting Democrats in office in states that have been solidly Republican for decades. We have more women, more people of color, more trans and openly gay people in high office. Our elected officials are starting to look more like the people they are supposed to represent. And it feels like the shift towards more progressive politicians is still going strong. Georgia failed to elect Stacey Abrams; rather than assume that a Black woman couldn’t win, they elected Keisha Lance Bottoms. We in New Mexico worried about racism and sexism, yet Deb Haaland won a decisive victory.

Remember how concerned we were about the gerrymanders, then our hopes they would become dummymanders? Democrats won nearly every seat that Republicans gerrymandered. Remember when taking back the Senate seemed impossible? Now we even have a small margin to allow for the inevitable turncoat defections.

There are so many reasons to celebrate, I hope we continue to revel in the victory for a long while to come. I feel like many of us will look back and remember where we were on that Tuesday night in November 2026 when we saw the madness finally start to come to an end.

Of course there’s lots still to do. I’ve been writing blogs about issues that we need to address, including reducing poverty, stopping ICE, and dramatically reducing our prison population. We won’t get everything we wish for, and our politicians will no doubt disappoint us in various ways. The important thing is to remember that we have greater access to our elected officials than we would have had otherwise, and we must continue to apply pressure to ensure they act in the public interest, rather than to benefit their corporate sponsors.

Perhaps the first, most important action is to work on removing both Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries from their leadership positions. From what I understand, both are in their positions not because they possess any ability at framing issues, or standing up to Trump, or rallying their caucus. No, they are both in their positions because they raise so much money from corporations. We need our politicians to fight corruption, not to benefit from it. Schumer’s daughter is an AI lobbyist. Jeffries rakes in money (allegedly) from Palantir, crypto, and AIPAC. We need people who can raise money from individuals, not corporations, who can frame powerful messages, who will stand up to Trump, and who will push progressive policies.

So yeah, let’s continue to celebrate. Then let’s get back to work ensuring that our elected leaders work on sound policies and genuine accountability. If we can help them steer this country in a more humane and sensible direction, that will also be our best hope for another resounding victory in 2028. Which will, like this one, be well worth the effort!