GOOD NEWS FOR MIDWESTERN PROGRESSIVES.

• Position: SMOKING GUN

Anticipated to be a Red Wave, the November 8 elections turned out to be more of an orange puddle.

The GOP won control of the House of Representatives by the narrowest of margins, and many of the MAGA candidates backed by former President Donald Trump were rejected at the polls.

Nowhere were the reasons for optimism more apparent than in the following Midwestern states.

ILLINOIS

Voters handily approved an amendment to protect the right of workers to "organize and bargain collectively," including a prohibition on so-called right-to-work laws. Jonathan Jackson, the son of the Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., was elected to a seat in Congress after winning a competitive Democratic primary in June. Delia Ramirez, a state lawmaker who has pushed for LGBTQ+ rights, also won a seat in Congress.

MICHIGAN

Democrats won re-election in races for governor, attorney general, and secretary of state against an array of extremist Trump-backed Republican challengers. They also flipped control of both houses of the legislature, putting Dems in charge of state government for the first time in forty years. And voters in the Wolverine State approved two important state constitutional amendments--one to protect a "fundamental right to vote," including early voting and the availability of ballot drop boxes; the other to affirm "that every individual has a right to reproductive freedom."

MINNESOTA

Democrats clinched control of not just one but both houses in the state legislature, while holding on to the offices of governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. In Congress, progressive...