There are crucial upcoming elections – let’s get to work!
2023 isn’t so much an off-year election as it’s an off-off-year. There’s no presidential election or even a federal midterm election, but there are a handful of gubernatorial elections – one of which involves a popular incumbent Democratic governor – Andy Beshear in Kentucky – and two pickup opportunities for Democrats in Louisiana and Mississippi.
There are also midterm elections in New Jersey where we need to play defense for a state assembly and senate, and in Virginia, where we have an opportunity to flip the house of delegates and make gains in the senate, to keep Gov. Youngkin in check. These are fairly small affairs that will hardly ever make the national news – but they’re worth contributing to in order to further ensure the effectiveness of Democratic grassroots campaigns across the country. The GOP regularly shows us why they’re unfit to govern – with their hatred for democracy now in broad daylight.
The good news is we don’t even have to wait until Nov 7 to let our voices be heard in local elections – there’s a bunch of special elections already happening throughout the year – with a crucial supreme court election to take place in Wisconsin on Feb 21. The even better news is that Democrats have been over performing in many of the special elections happening now – one in Virginia – and three in Pennsylvania, that allowed us to finally retake the Pennsylvania State House.
On Tuesday night, as President Biden gave a powerful state of the union address, Democrats overtook Republicans in three key races by thousands of votes – allowing them control once again of the legislature for the first time in thirteen years. We can lament Republicans all we want between now and 2024 but the only way to do something about them is to take away their power – and if we don’t, they’ll surely take ours.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making