The Most Important Elections Last Night Weren’t in New York or New Jersey

I haven’t checked, but have the workers in New York seized the means of production yet? The Democrats had a big night on the big-ticket items. Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill are the new governors of Virginia and New Jersey. California is now free to use for good the power of the gerrymander. And Zohran Mamdani, who sounds less like Trotsky than he does a combination of Fiorello La Guardia on policy and Al Smith on the politics of joy, confounded a lot of Very Serious People and is now mayor-elect of New York City. All of these things are unquestionably good, but let’s go down to Mississippi for the real skinny on what happened Tuesday night. From Mississippi Free Press:

“Mississippi just broke the supermajority—and the people have taken back their power,” the Mississippi Democratic Party wrote in social media posts Tuesday night. “From the Delta to the Pine Belt, voters stood up for fair leadership and community progress: Better schools. Fairer representation. Expanded healthcare. Good-paying jobs.” ... When a party has supermajority status in the Mississippi Senate, it can more easily override a governor’s veto, propose constitutional amendments and execute certain procedural actions.

For the past 13 years, Republicans have wielded this power over the Mississippi senate. On Tuesday, the Democrats flipped two state senate seats, cutting the Republican majority from 36 down to 34, which breaks the supermajority and forces the Republican majority to behave as if the senate is an actual legislative body. One of the winners, Johnny DuPree, the politically eccentric former mayor of Hattiesburg and something of a perpetual candidate for anything, beat his Republican opponent with 71 percent of the vote. That is what political scientists refer to as a “serious ass-whupping.”

One of the political anomalies that I don’t really understand is how some states turn the management of certain government institutions and agencies into elected offices. I remember being at a Republican state convention in Iowa where all three candidates for state agriculture commissioner didn’t say a word about their positions on soybeans and tariffs, but all of them went out of their way to emphasize their anti-choice bona fides. I thought this was a little weird. Call me crazy, but I think a candidate for agriculture ought to talk about, you know, agriculture. However, on Tuesday, the elections for the public service commission in Georgia were signifying events. From the Georgia Recorder:

Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson have delivered an upset in Georgia’s off-year special election Tuesday, defeating two Republican incumbents on the state’s Public Service Commission. The double victory marks the first time the Democratic Party has won a statewide constitutional office in Georgia since 2006 and reshapes the political landscape ahead of the pivotal 2026 midterm elections. As of 10:15 p.m., Alicia Johnson led with about 60.5 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Georgia Secretary of State’s website, while Hubbard carried 60.7 percent of the vote.

Democrats won two statewide elections in Georgia, each of them with 60 percent of the vote. Yet another “serious ass-whupping,” as they say around Manuel’s Tavern, which may still have been largely intact on Wednesday morning, but reports are sketchy.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats maintained control of the state supreme court, which may not mean much to you now, but if and when the postelection finagling begins in 2026, it is going to command your attention.

These are the results closest to the bone. They are the fault lines in the national political geology, and the ground is creaking and moaning under the administration and all of its elected toadies in their castles built on sand.