The blue wave that the DNC built: Behind the scenes of Democrats' historic election sweep

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Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin attends the Black Caucus meeting as part of the DNC Summer Meeting, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)

On Nov. 4, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stood at a podium in Tallahassee and called Tuesday’s results “an extinction-level event for Republicans across the country.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. By early estimates, Democrats are on track to win the national House vote by 13 to 14 points, the largest margin for either party since 1974. Two years ago, Democrats lost that same vote by 2.6 points. That is a swing of more than 15 points in a single cycle.

To understand how, look at where Democrats won.

Democrats flipped seven Senate seats on Tuesday and lost none. They won in Texas, Ohio. Iowa. Kansas. South Carolina. North Carolina. Maine. In the House, Democrats have flipped at least 40 seats. Democrats won governorships in Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Georgia. In Iowa alone, Democrats flipped three House seats. Democrats also flipped control of 10 statehouses and gained 585 statehouse seats.

Most of yesterday’s map runs through states President Trump carried. For years, the Democratic Party treated many of those states as lost causes. None of them flipped because of what happened on Election Day, or even the few weeks before. The groundwork for yesterday’s victories began 21 months ago.

When Ken Martin became chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2025, he made a bet. He said that the DNC must “organize everywhere and compete everywhere so we can win anywhere.” He had run that play before — as chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, he went 25-0 in statewide races.

The early returns on that bet came in long before Tuesday. Under Martin, Democrats flipped 31 state legislative seats from red to blue since Trump took office, and lost none. Democrats won or overperformed in roughly 90 percent of the races the DNC tracked.

25-0 in Minnesota. 31-0 in statehouse flips. 7-0 in the Senate. 40 seats flipped in the House.

That record was built, one efficient dollar at a time. Here’s what the DNC did.

First, it provided money for every state party, every month. Through its State Partnership Program, more informally known as the 57 State Strategy, the DNC sent $17,500 a month to every state and territorial party, plus another $5,000 a month to Republican-controlled states. In total, the Democrats’ national party committees moved $38.9 million into state parties this cycle through September.

That steady money raised both the floor and the ceiling of what was possible on Tuesday. When voters turned on the Trump administration, Democrats already had people on the ground to meet them. In Maine, the program added staff to build a full-time professional operation. And last night, Maine finally retired Sen. Susan Collins (R).

Second, Democrats listened to the voters. Through its Local Listeners program, the DNC called 450,000 Democrats who voted in 2020 and stayed home in 2024, and held 10,000 real conversations with them in 61 battleground districts. These were difficult conversations to have, but we needed to know why we lost these voters so we could learn and improve.

On Tuesday, those voters — and many more like them — came back. Latino support for Democrats rose from 55 percent in 2024 to 65 percent this year. Independents, who split roughly evenly two years ago, broke for Democrats by about 17 points.

Third, the DNC invested in people. The national party trained 25,000 organizers and nearly 350 campaign staffers in regional bootcamps across all 50 states. It paid more than 120 fellows to register voters, adding more than 7,200 in Arizona alone, and funded senior staff in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Finally, the DNC worked to protect the vote. Last year, five states had voter protection programs; today, 37 do. The DNC’s legal team also won injunctions against both of Trump’s executive orders on elections.

None of this is glamorous work. But thanks to Martin’s DNC, all of it was in place before the first ad aired.

Republicans made a different bet.

Elon Musk spent roughly $446 million to elect Republicans, including $158 million that flowed through a Senate super PAC to back Ken Paxton in Texas. Outside groups spent more than $316 million on Paxton alone. He still lost to James Talarico by about 12 points.

Since Labor Day, Republican groups poured more than $740 million into congressional races. Democrats swept on Tuesday anyway.

That was the plan a lot of D.C. consultants wanted the DNC to follow: bank the cash, spend it on television in the fall, pack up the morning after. But Martin refused to play the same old game.

Democrats know the late-money model well, because we’ve run it ourselves. I’ve sat in those rooms. I watched us do it. An independent autopsy of the 2024 cycle found that Democrats spent nearly $9 billion and left no permanent infrastructure behind. Republicans just learned the same lesson at Musk’s expense.

The skeptics will say this was a wave, and that any DNC chair would have ridden it. But waves don’t build boats. All you need to do is look at Texas.

Texas has been Democrats’ white whale for a generation. No Democrat had won statewide there in 32 years. In 2018, Beto O’Rourke came within 3 points of a Senate flip, and Democrats still won nothing statewide.

But this time, the boat was already built. Not only did Talarico win his Senate seat, but Gina Hinojosa (D) unseated Gov. Greg Abbott (R). And with nearly every vote counted, Democrats appear to have swept Texas’s statewide offices, from lieutenant governor to railroad commissioner.

If Democrats can compete for Texas’s 40 electoral votes, the 2028 map no longer looks like any map we have drawn before.

Martin and the Democratic Party built it. Now they need to keep it.

Michael Kapp is a member of the Democratic National Committee and its Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Read the full story at Axios ↗ · The Hill ↗

When Ken Martin became chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2025, he said the party must "organize everywhere and compete everywhere so we can win anywhere."…

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The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin attends the Black Caucus meeting as part of the DNC Summer Meeting, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)

On Nov. 4, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stood at a podium in Tallahassee and called Tuesday’s results “an extinction-level event for Republicans across the country.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. By early estimates, Democrats are on track to win the national House vote by 13 to 14 points, the largest margin for either party since 1974. Two years ago, Democrats lost that same vote by 2.6 points. That is a swing of more than 15 points in a single cycle.

To understand how, look at where Democrats won.

Democrats flipped seven Senate seats on Tuesday and lost none. They won in Texas, Ohio. Iowa. Kansas. South Carolina. North Carolina. Maine. In the House, Democrats have flipped at least 40 seats. Democrats won governorships in Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Georgia. In Iowa alone, Democrats flipped three House seats. Democrats also flipped control of 10 statehouses and gained 585 statehouse seats.

Most of yesterday’s map runs through states President Trump carried. For years, the Democratic Party treated many of those states as lost causes. None of them flipped because of what happened on Election Day, or even the few weeks before. The groundwork for yesterday’s victories began 21 months ago.

When Ken Martin became chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2025, he made a bet. He said that the DNC must “organize everywhere and compete everywhere so we can win anywhere.” He had run that play before — as chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, he went 25-0 in statewide races.

The early returns on that bet came in long before Tuesday. Under Martin, Democrats flipped 31 state legislative seats from red to blue since Trump took office, and lost none. Democrats won or overperformed in roughly 90 percent of the races the DNC tracked.

25-0 in Minnesota. 31-0 in statehouse flips. 7-0 in the Senate. 40 seats flipped in the House.

That record was built, one efficient dollar at a time. Here’s what the DNC did.

First, it provided money for every state party, every month. Through its State Partnership Program, more informally known as the 57 State Strategy, the DNC sent $17,500 a month to every state and territorial party, plus another $5,000 a month to Republican-controlled states. In total, the Democrats’ national party committees moved $38.9 million into state parties this cycle through September.

That steady money raised both the floor and the ceiling of what was possible on Tuesday. When voters turned on the Trump administration, Democrats already had people on the ground to meet them. In Maine, the program added staff to build a full-time professional operation. And last night, Maine finally retired Sen. Susan Collins (R).

Second, Democrats listened to the voters. Through its Local Listeners program, the DNC called 450,000 Democrats who voted in 2020 and stayed home in 2024, and held 10,000 real conversations with them in 61 battleground districts. These were difficult conversations to have, but we needed to know why we lost these voters so we could learn and improve.

On Tuesday, those voters — and many more like them — came back. Latino support for Democrats rose from 55 percent in 2024 to 65 percent this year. Independents, who split roughly evenly two years ago, broke for Democrats by about 17 points.

Third, the DNC invested in people. The national party trained 25,000 organizers and nearly 350 campaign staffers in regional bootcamps across all 50 states. It paid more than 120 fellows to register voters, adding more than 7,200 in Arizona alone, and funded senior staff in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Finally, the DNC worked to protect the vote. Last year, five states had voter protection programs; today, 37 do. The DNC’s legal team also won injunctions against both of Trump’s executive orders on elections.

None of this is glamorous work. But thanks to Martin’s DNC, all of it was in place before the first ad aired.

Republicans made a different bet.

Elon Musk spent roughly $446 million to elect Republicans, including $158 million that flowed through a Senate super PAC to back Ken Paxton in Texas. Outside groups spent more than $316 million on Paxton alone. He still lost to James Talarico by about 12 points.

Since Labor Day, Republican groups poured more than $740 million into congressional races. Democrats swept on Tuesday anyway.

That was the plan a lot of D.C. consultants wanted the DNC to follow: bank the cash, spend it on television in the fall, pack up the morning after. But Martin refused to play the same old game.

Democrats know the late-money model well, because we’ve run it ourselves. I’ve sat in those rooms. I watched us do it. An independent autopsy of the 2024 cycle found that Democrats spent nearly $9 billion and left no permanent infrastructure behind. Republicans just learned the same lesson at Musk’s expense.

The skeptics will say this was a wave, and that any DNC chair would have ridden it. But waves don’t build boats. All you need to do is look at Texas.

Texas has been Democrats’ white whale for a generation. No Democrat had won statewide there in 32 years. In 2018, Beto O’Rourke came within 3 points of a Senate flip, and Democrats still won nothing statewide.

But this time, the boat was already built. Not only did Talarico win his Senate seat, but Gina Hinojosa (D) unseated Gov. Greg Abbott (R). And with nearly every vote counted, Democrats appear to have swept Texas’s statewide offices, from lieutenant governor to railroad commissioner.

If Democrats can compete for Texas’s 40 electoral votes, the 2028 map no longer looks like any map we have drawn before.

Martin and the Democratic Party built it. Now they need to keep it.

Michael Kapp is a member of the Democratic National Committee and its Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Read the full story at Axios ↗ · The Hill ↗

Skip to content

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin attends the Black Caucus meeting as part of the DNC Summer Meeting, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)

On Nov. 4, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stood at a podium in Tallahassee and called Tuesday’s results “an extinction-level event for Republicans across the country.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. By early estimates, Democrats are on track to win the national House vote by 13 to 14 points, the largest margin for either party since 1974. Two years ago, Democrats lost that same vote by 2.6 points. That is a swing of more than 15 points in a single cycle.

To understand how, look at where Democrats won.

Democrats flipped seven Senate seats on Tuesday and lost none. They won in Texas, Ohio. Iowa. Kansas. South Carolina. North Carolina. Maine. In the House, Democrats have flipped at least 40 seats. Democrats won governorships in Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Georgia. In Iowa alone, Democrats flipped three House seats. Democrats also flipped control of 10 statehouses and gained 585 statehouse seats.

Most of yesterday’s map runs through states President Trump carried. For years, the Democratic Party treated many of those states as lost causes. None of them flipped because of what happened on Election Day, or even the few weeks before. The groundwork for yesterday’s victories began 21 months ago.

When Ken Martin became chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2025, he made a bet. He said that the DNC must “organize everywhere and compete everywhere so we can win anywhere.” He had run that play before — as chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, he went 25-0 in statewide races.

The early returns on that bet came in long before Tuesday. Under Martin, Democrats flipped 31 state legislative seats from red to blue since Trump took office, and lost none. Democrats won or overperformed in roughly 90 percent of the races the DNC tracked.

25-0 in Minnesota. 31-0 in statehouse flips. 7-0 in the Senate. 40 seats flipped in the House.

That record was built, one efficient dollar at a time. Here’s what the DNC did.

First, it provided money for every state party, every month. Through its State Partnership Program, more informally known as the 57 State Strategy, the DNC sent $17,500 a month to every state and territorial party, plus another $5,000 a month to Republican-controlled states. In total, the Democrats’ national party committees moved $38.9 million into state parties this cycle through September.

That steady money raised both the floor and the ceiling of what was possible on Tuesday. When voters turned on the Trump administration, Democrats already had people on the ground to meet them. In Maine, the program added staff to build a full-time professional operation. And last night, Maine finally retired Sen. Susan Collins (R).

Second, Democrats listened to the voters. Through its Local Listeners program, the DNC called 450,000 Democrats who voted in 2020 and stayed home in 2024, and held 10,000 real conversations with them in 61 battleground districts. These were difficult conversations to have, but we needed to know why we lost these voters so we could learn and improve.

On Tuesday, those voters — and many more like them — came back. Latino support for Democrats rose from 55 percent in 2024 to 65 percent this year. Independents, who split roughly evenly two years ago, broke for Democrats by about 17 points.

Third, the DNC invested in people. The national party trained 25,000 organizers and nearly 350 campaign staffers in regional bootcamps across all 50 states. It paid more than 120 fellows to register voters, adding more than 7,200 in Arizona alone, and funded senior staff in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Finally, the DNC worked to protect the vote. Last year, five states had voter protection programs; today, 37 do. The DNC’s legal team also won injunctions against both of Trump’s executive orders on elections.

None of this is glamorous work. But thanks to Martin’s DNC, all of it was in place before the first ad aired.

Republicans made a different bet.

Elon Musk spent roughly $446 million to elect Republicans, including $158 million that flowed through a Senate super PAC to back Ken Paxton in Texas. Outside groups spent more than $316 million on Paxton alone. He still lost to James Talarico by about 12 points.

Since Labor Day, Republican groups poured more than $740 million into congressional races. Democrats swept on Tuesday anyway.

That was the plan a lot of D.C. consultants wanted the DNC to follow: bank the cash, spend it on television in the fall, pack up the morning after. But Martin refused to play the same old game.

Democrats know the late-money model well, because we’ve run it ourselves. I’ve sat in those rooms. I watched us do it. An independent autopsy of the 2024 cycle found that Democrats spent nearly $9 billion and left no permanent infrastructure behind. Republicans just learned the same lesson at Musk’s expense.

The skeptics will say this was a wave, and that any DNC chair would have ridden it. But waves don’t build boats. All you need to do is look at Texas.

Texas has been Democrats’ white whale for a generation. No Democrat had won statewide there in 32 years. In 2018, Beto O’Rourke came within 3 points of a Senate flip, and Democrats still won nothing statewide.

But this time, the boat was already built. Not only did Talarico win his Senate seat, but Gina Hinojosa (D) unseated Gov. Greg Abbott (R). And with nearly every vote counted, Democrats appear to have swept Texas’s statewide offices, from lieutenant governor to railroad commissioner.

If Democrats can compete for Texas’s 40 electoral votes, the 2028 map no longer looks like any map we have drawn before.

Martin and the Democratic Party built it. Now they need to keep it.

Michael Kapp is a member of the Democratic National Committee and its Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Read the full story at Axios ↗ · The Hill ↗

This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.

• When Ken Martin became chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2025, he said the party must "organize everywhere and compete everywhere so we can win anywhere."…