Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Whooooo! It was a pretty phenomenal week!
I’ve done my best to summarize all the good things that happened, but because Substack does have a length limit for their emails—and because I have a bandwidth limit for my brain—I wasn’t able to include every single win Democrats had on Tuesday. But I got as many as I could. If you know of other notable victories that are missing from the list please drop them in the comments so we can keep this tally going!
Also, I remembered to “use the axes” this week (one of you actually messaged me to say that!) That means that below you’ll see an 🪓 next to every win that came about partially or entirely because of the work of people like you. This includes legislation enacted by lawmakers we helped elect!
Get ready for a lot of 🪓’s!
I’m sending so much love and gratitude for you all. This work is a slog, but isn’t it great to know we’re helping to move the needle the right way?
Read This! 📕
A few truly uplifting articles:
From Mother Jones: Tuesdays Elections Were a huge Win For Democracy.
From Run For Something: Feel-Good Update (11/8): Election Results! Absolutely thrilling.
From David Brooks: Democrats, you can chill out now!
Celebrate This!
Texas now has the most solar power installed on its power grid in the country, knocking California out of its longtime position in top place.
The Pennsylvania government is offering funds for residents and businesses to convert their lawns to meadows. 🪓
The Oregon Public Utilities Commission is cracking down on the state's second-largest utility, Avista.
Enbridge, which has operated an oil pipeline in Northern Minnesota for the past two years, will now be required to pay cleanup costs for the pipeline when it is decommissioned.
Lisa Franchetti is the new chief of naval operations in the U.S., becoming the first woman to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Portland, Oregon residents successfully protested and blocked the unannounced removal of a recently installed bike lane in their city. Protestors stood in front of a truck that was sent out to remove the bike lane. 🪓
President Biden announced $16.4 billion in new funding for passenger rail projects. 🪓
More than 50 local officials signed onto a letter calling on the EPA to help municipal governments cut food waste in their communities.
An innovative new company is rescuing the damaged land — and people — of Appalachia by planting lavender plants in abandoned strip mines. 🪓
The European Union, United States and the United Arab Emirates' COP28 climate summit hosts are rallying other governments to join a global deal to triple renewable energy this decade at the upcoming summit.
Colorado officials are confident they can slash power-sector emissions by 98.5 percent by 2040 compared to 2005 levels at no increased cost to consumers by relying on current policies.
The Interior Department approved plans for up to 176 wind turbines off the coast of Virginia, paving the way for the nation’s largest offshore wind project yet. 🪓
AZ Governor Katie Hobbs announced several executive orders intended to improve voting in Arizona by increasing poll worker training and recruitment, allowing the use of state facilities as voting locations and drop-off sites, and facilitating voter registration. 🪓
A federal court rejected a Republican lawsuit challenging North Dakota’s legislative districts. The court upheld four new subdistricts that were created to give Native American voters an equal opportunity to elect their candidates of choice.
The Biden administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up cases over transgender health care bans, arguing that Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Disneyland workers are primed for a big salary bump after winning a living-wage legal battle. 🪓
The U.S. General Services Administration announced a $2 billion investment for more than 150 construction projects that use cleaner construction materials.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed a bill into law that repeals a statute from 1891 that criminalized hiring transportation to bring voters to the polls. 🪓
The SAG AFTRA strike is over! 🪓
Ohio’s Issue 1 passed by wide margins! It also won outright in 18 counties Trump won in 2020. 🪓
Democrats not only held the State Senate in Virginia, but flipped the House of Delegates back to our side. As a result, Don Scott will become the first Black House speaker in Virginia history. 🪓
In Albemarle County, VA, Justice Scalia's daughter, Meg Scalia Bryce, was defeated in her bid for the local school district board. Her campaign was marked by opposition to transgender rights and anti-"CRT" rhetoric. 🪓
All Moms For Liberty candidates in Linn-Mar school district, Iowa, lost their races. This was a major site for anti-trans politics over the last two years. A progressive majority was also formed on Iowa’s Johnston Community School Board of Education. 🪓
Gabe Amo, a former aide to President Joe Biden, won a special Congressional election in Rhode Island. The son of Ghanaian and Liberian immigrants, he will be the first Black person to represent Rhode Island in Congress. 🪓
In Virginia, voters elected the South’s first transgender state senator—Danica Roem! 🪓
In Pella, Iowa, voters narrowly rejected a measure that would have given the City Council more control over the public library. This is a good thing. The library had resisted efforts to ban an L.G.B.T.Q. memoir. 🪓
Voters in Seattle, Boulder, and Santa Fe passed initiatives to fund affordable housing. 🪓
Ohio became the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana. Voters approved the initiative 57 percent to 43 percent. 🪓
St. Paul, MN elected its first ever all-female City Council. The incoming council will also be historic for its youth and racial diversity. All seven members will be younger than age 40—four of them were Run For Something candidates—and six will be women of color. 🪓
Democrats in New Jersey retained a comfortable majority in the General Assembly and the State Senate in Tuesday’s legislative races. They also flipped an Assembly seat in a deep-red district that has not elected a Democratic legislator in three decades. 🪓
In Pennsylvania, the number of absentee ballot returns for youth voters statewide more than doubled since 2021, campus precincts saw substantial increases in student turnout compared to 2021, and Philadelphia County far surpassed 2021 turnout. 🪓
In Kentucky, Andy Beshear won by solid margins! Daniel Cameron – who refused to denounce Donald Trump’s dangerous election denials – significantly underperformed candidates who strongly rejected stolen election conspiracies. 🪓
In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, an electoral bellwether, Democrats clinched every seat on the Central Bucks School Board election results. 🪓
Four climate champions defied the odds and won incredibly competitive elections to be elected to the Luzerne County Council in PA! 🪓
Cherelle Parker became the first woman elected mayor of Philadelphia this week. 🪓
RFS alum Sara Innamorato won her race for Allegheny County executive, a HUGE win for democracy, as the position oversees election administration. 🪓
In Mecklenburg County, NC Dems had a total sweep of all seven offices, including mayor, in suburban Huntersville - a 62,000 person town that had never had a full Democratic slate even compete before. The MeckDem-endorsed slate for all three county-wide school board races also swept those three offices, including the first Latina ever in a district that is 30% Latinx students. (If this makes you happy come to our Meck Dems fundraiser on December 5th!) 🪓
Dems flipped a ton of municipal seats in Connecticut. 🪓
Democratic candidate Judge Daniel McCaffrey won his race for Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Democrats now have a 5-2 majority on the court. Democrat Matt Wolf, a Philadelphia municipal judge, will fill an open seat on Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court. 🪓
Three SPLC Action Fund-endorsed candidates won their elections on Tuesday: in Georgia, Ollie Clemons, Mayor, City of Austell and Madelyn Orochena, City Council Post 1, City of Kennesaw. In Mississippi Marty Haug won Oktibbeha Justice Court Judge. 🪓
Three cities in Michigan — Kalamazoo, East Lansing, and Royal Oak — voted to adopt instant runoff voting on Tuesday. Easthampton, Mass voted to expand instant runoffs. And an effort to repeal instant runoff voting in Minnetonka, Minn. was resoundingly rejected for the second time in three years. 🪓
In New Jersey the entire "Parental rights" slate was defeated in Westwood. 🪓
In a special statehouse election on Tuesday in New Hampshire, Democrat Paige Beauchemin won, and in so doing pulled Dems within just 1 seat of erasing the GOP’s majority in the state House. Dems also won 2 of 3 school board election seats. 🪓
In Kansas Democratic-backed candidates were victorious in the Olathe and Blue Valley school board races. 🪓
In an Albuquerque, New Mexico school board race, ALL Moms for Liberty supported candidates lost. 🪓
Earlier this year, Popular Information reported that the Pennridge School Board in PA had hired Jordan Adams, a right-wing educational consultant, to assist in the development of curriculum and other issues. On Tuesday night in PA Democrats swept all five seats, beating their Republican opponents by a comfortable margin. They’ve promised to fire Adams. 🪓
The Canadian government says it's signed its first major nature agreement with a province and First Nations to mutually support protecting 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030.
Labor organizations and political-activist groups have formed a coalition called Battleground New York to carry out what they say is ‘the largest field campaign in New York history.’ Its aim is to claim five Republican-held House seats in congressional districts that Joe Biden won in 2020 and to hold on to another Democratic seat. 🪓
Supreme Court Justices seemed to agree that a federal statute preventing people under domestic-violence protective orders from possessing guns is constitutional.
Democrats are working to get more abortion-related measures on state-level ballots for next year, including in Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota. 🪓
Pregnant women across the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be offered free healthcare in an effort to cut the country’s high rates of maternal and neonatal deaths.
President Joe Biden hit a milestone on Tuesday: He’s put 150 people into lifetime federal judgeships – and of those, 100 are women and 98 are people of color. 🪓
Veterans’ care in the United States set all-time records in fiscal year 2023, “shattering” the agency’s performance in previous years, in large part because of an expansion of benefits under the Biden administration. 🪓
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) accepted new language for a ballot initiative to establish an independent redistricting commission in the state. 🪓
Michigan's Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a bill to allow individuals ages 16 to 17 and a half to pre-register to vote. The legislation heads to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) for her likely signature. 🪓
Seventy-one percent of Americans now approve of labor unions. This is the highest Gallup has recorded on this measure since 1965.
Britain is backing a moratorium on commercial deep-sea mining, after criticism from scientists, MPs and environmentalists of its previous stance in support of the emerging industry. 🪓
New York City passed the "Urban Forest Plan" to expand the city's tree canopy coverage from 22% up to 30% which will reduce heat islands, absorb stormwater, and clean the air. 🪓
Watch This!
I bawled. (Thanks to subscriber Janet for sending my way!!)
We had a minor ,albeit important, victory in a local city council race here in a heavily GOP leaning FL county.The incumbent Dem beat the younger,GOP candidate by just 14 votes. Boots on the ground helped clinch her narrow victory 🏃🏻♀️.Sad to admit I just don’t have the emotional energy to canvass this year so I’m driving 🚙 a local Dem warrior who loves to canvas .It’s a way to help the canvassing effort and make it safer and faster !
OMG!! The Patti Smith "People Have the Power" brought me to tears!!! After reading all of the wonderful things you listed that Dems were able to accomplish and then ending with that video, I am even more energized to continue fighting for our democracy. As Patti Smith said at the end of the video "USE YOUR VOICE!!!" Thank you, Jessica Craven, for helping to guide us in how to use our voices! Everybody keep up the good work!!!