Despite the Delay, Progressives Have Recorded Some Big Wins

Cori Bush celebrates at her campaign headquarters in St. Louis, Nov. 3, 2020 [Michael B. Thomas/AFP]

By Samantha Grasso

Following Tuesday’s election, the Trump campaign has legally contested votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania while demanding a recount in Wisconsin, and President Trump has falsely declared victory on Twitter. Meanwhile, House Democrats have failed to make significant gains this election cycle, and the Senate may remain Republican.

However, there are still 2020 outcomes worth celebrating, even as we wait for a presidential outcome. Here are some of Tuesday’s progressive wins, showing that, at least locally, change is possible:

Progressive candidates make it happen

• Cori Bush won House District 1 in Missouri

• Jamaal Bowman won House District 16 in New York

• José Garza won the district attorney race in Austin, Texas’s Travis County

• Monique Worrell won the state attorney race in Florida’s Orlando and Osceola counties

• Nithya Raman, endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America, won her Los Angeles city council seat against an establishment-backed incumbent

• Marie Newman won House District 3 in Illi­nois

• Teresa Leger Fernandez won House District 3 in New Mexico

Drugs and incarceration (and some labor wins) take the main stage

Voters continued to favor criminal justice reform in some states, as well as increased decriminalization of drugs. And even in states where many voters favored Trump, progressive economic policies often won out in referendums, and states removed racist language from their constitutions.

• California voted to expand voting rights to people who are on parole

• Nevada voted to remove a hurdle to receiving clemency

• New Jersey, Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota voted to legalize marijuana

• Oregon voted to decriminalize low-level drug possession

• Oregon and Washington DC voted to legalize and decriminalize mushrooms, respectively

• Florida voted to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour by 2026

• Colorado voted to entitle residents to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave

• Puerto Rico has again voted for statehood

• Mississippi voted to end a Jim Crow–era law that de facto blocked Black candidates from being elected to statewide offices, and to retire and replace their state flag, the last state flag with the Confederate emblem

• Utah and Nebraska voted to remove language from their state constitutions that allows slavery as a criminal punishment

• Alabama voted to remove white supremacist language from their state constitution that bans interracial marriage and allows school segregation and poll taxes

A night for more diverse representation

The success of these candidates made a powerful statement in an election cycle driven by battles over bigotry and white supremacy.

• Tennessee has elected Democrat Torrey Harris as one of the TN House of Representatives’ first openly-LGBTQ members and, at 29, its youngest.

• Mauree Turner, a 27-year-old Black, queer progressive, will become the first Muslim lawmaker in Oklahoma

• New York has elected Ritchie Torres and progressive Mondaire Jones to the House of Representatives, making them the first openly gay Black men in Congress.

• Delaware elected Sarah McBride as the first transgender state senator in the U.S.

• Wisconsin elected Francesca Hong as its first Asian American state legislator.

• New Mexico elected Yvette Herrell to the House of Representatives, making it the first state to be represented by two Indigenous women (the other is Rep. Deb Haaland). And with the election on Tuesday of Teresa Leger Fernandez, it’s also the first state to elect only women of color to the House.

• Hawaii elected Kaiali'i Kahele as the second Native Hawaiian to represent the state in Congress.

• Tarra Simmons, who was formerly incarcerated, was elected as state representative for Washington's Kitsap County.

In a historic win, Mauree Turner has been elected to Oklahoma's state House, becoming one of the first openly nonbinary state lawmakers in the U.S. and the first Muslim to serve in Oklahoma's state legislature. pic.twitter.com/jttbHiIMEE

— AJ+ (@ajplus) November 5, 2020

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