Congratulations, Democrats, You Won! Now What?

Last night’s elections offered a winning five-point plan for Democrats to follow in 2020

The best election night party in Seattle last night was the Yes on 940 celebration in Columbia City.

Nobody is better at making a win sound like a loss than Democrats.

In last night’s midterm elections, Americans voted to send more than 100 women to Congress. Democrats sent the first Native American women and the first Muslim women to the House. Colorado elected the first openly gay governor in US history. As just about every single polling site predicted, Democrats flipped the House by a decisive margin and won governorships around the nation. Votes are still being counted, but the party picked up over 350 state legislature seats.

Back when Trump won the presidency in 2016, these gains would have been unimaginable for Democrats. In the darkest hours of that election night, these results would have buoyed our spirits and given us hope.

And yet.

When I opened Twitter this morning, all I saw from Democrats was despair and dread. People were sad that Democrats didn’t win the Senate—an achievement that none of the major polling sites predicted at any point during the election cycle. They were upset that a few star candidates, including Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum, and Stacey Abrams, didn’t win their races. They were frustrated that more Republicans didn’t stand up against the regressive hate of the Trump administration.

Listen: I understand that things are decidedly not great. I know that people are hurting. But we also have to celebrate our victories when they come, and last night was a win. With leadership of the House in hand, Democrats can now provide a vital check to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. That simply wasn’t true yesterday, but it’s true today.

More importantly, with a wide slate of governorships and state legislatures in hand, Democrats will be able to redistrict states more fairly for upcoming elections. What’s more, Democrats will be able to make the case that they are better legislators—more responsive, more active, more successful—than Republicans.

Additionally, in ruby-red states around the country, voters approved initiatives that sketched out a path forward for Democrats—an inclusive, popular commonsense agenda that appeals to more voters. These five issues are popular with Americans in urban and rural areas. They appeal to Democrats and Republicans. They benefit everyone, not just the privileged few. In no particular order, here they are:

1. Raise the minimum wage! An initiative to substantially raise the minimum wage won by over sixty percent in both Missouri and Arkansas. Louisiana is said to be considering a minimum-wage hike next. This is a settled issue: raising the minimum wage is good for everyone, because when more workers have more money, they spend that money locally. With the Senate and President Trump unlikely to raise the federal minimum wage over the next two years, local action is absolutely necessary. And if Democrats want to create economic growth for even more workers, they should promote an increased overtime threshold, too.
2. Stand up for gun responsibility! Last night, Washington state voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative that will raise the age requirement for purchasing assault weapons and promote safe firearm storage. Washington was the only state with a gun safety initiative on the ballot this year, but a mind-boggling 27 NRA-backed candidates were defeated around the country. This would have been unthinkable even a decade ago, but the people have spoken—and they demand sane gun laws.
3. Legalize marijuana! Last night, Michigan became the tenth state to approve the legal sale of recreational pot. Voters in Missouri and Utah(!) both passed medical marijuana laws, too. This is no longer a fringe issue: we know that legalized marijuana raises a ton of tax money. We know that weed is safer when it’s regulated. And we know that legalizing pot doesn’t increase marijuana use among teens. It also ends the unnecessary and devastating practice of locking up thousands of decent people for marijuana-related crimes.
4. Healthcare for all! Voters in Utah, Idaho, and Nebraska all overwhelmingly voted for Medicaid expansion last night. The Republican attacks on Americans with preexisting conditions were so unpopular that Republicans started running against their own records on healthcare. Over the last ten years, Americans have come to the conclusion that nobody should go bankrupt just because they happen to get sick. Now it’s up to our leaders to establish healthcare for all as a right.
5. Voting should be easy and universal! Yes, we’re all bummed that Andrew Gillum is not Florida’s next governor. But the people of Florida by a wide margin approved an initiative that restores voting rights to the 1.5 million Floridians who have been convicted of felonies and served their time, and those voters could very well make the difference in the next gubernatorial election. But that’s just the beginning. One thing I learned yesterday by keeping my eye on Twitter all day is that voting in most of this country is seriously broken. If voters have to wait three hours to cast their ballots in deep-blue Brooklyn, something is fundamentally wrong with our electoral system. The most unbelievable part of all this, to me, is that a clear solution to this problem is readily available, right here in Washington state. Our vote-by-mail system is easy, fraud-proof, affordable, and voter-friendly. I voted almost three weeks ago in the comfort of my own home, and I was able to deeply research every single candidate and issue on my ballot. Two days after I dropped my ballot in the mail slot, I received notice that my ballot had been received and would be counted. It doesn’t get much easier—or more secure—than that. And once our new Automatic Voter Registration laws go into effect next year, Washington state will be the gold standard for voter inclusion. Democrats should demand to copy Washington’s vote-by-mail system in their own states, both because it’s the right thing to do, and because it will force their opponents into the unenviable position of being anti-democracy. And history has proven again and again that when more people vote, better candidates win.

There are plenty of other issues that voters care about, but these five issues are about as popular and non-controversial as they come with a vast majority of the voting public. If Democrats ran on a platform of higher wages, gun safety, healthcare for all, legalized pot, and voting inclusion, they would win races everywhere—even the red states that turned down Democratic candidates last night.

Some pundits and politicians will argue that to govern effectively, Democrats should behave more like Republicans. They’ll call for centrist policies that land somewhere in the mush between liberalism and conservatism.

That’s bunk.

As my boss Nick Hanauer wrote in Politico earlier this year, the true centrist policies are those which benefit the broad majority of Americans. These five policies will help more Americans live better, more productive, healthier lives. They will solve problems and improve outcomes for more people. And really, isn’t that what democracy is supposed to be all about?