There’s plenty of outrage so we aren’t going to do that. Instead, we’re creating a place with new tips, tools, insights, sources, and stories that can help us understand how to win this November.
This week, we’re all celebrating the blue tsunami with the real people and stories who flipped districts across the country. We’ll keep sharing wins over the next few weeks.
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A 19-year-old philosophy major is now in charge of elections in the fourth-largest county in America.
Sebastian Matta, a sophomore at Arizona State University, beat a former Republican state senator by nearly seven points to become Maricopa County Clerk of the Superior Court — the office that runs record-keeping for the elections system that’s been at the center of years of right-wing conspiracy theories. Down-ballot offices like this one almost never get attention, but they’re exactly where election administration actually lives, and Matta’s win puts a young, trustworthy Democrat in charge of it.
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JoAnna Mendoza spent her career training Marines. This week she took out a two-term incumbent.
A retired Marine, former drill instructor, and openly queer veteran, Mendoza flipped Arizona’s most competitive congressional district, unseating Rep. Juan Ciscomani 53% to 45%. Her win shows that candidates with military credibility can neutralize one of the GOP’s favorite attack lines in swing districts, and that queer candidates can win decisively in places national Democrats sometimes write off as too risky.
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Tell them, Show them: WE ARE WITH YOU
Democrats ran in tough districts across the country – many of which ran hard with little to no money and little expectation that they would win. Now after stacking up unbelievable wins, believe it or not, they need you now! These Dems need to close out their campaigns, build a staff to serve their constituents, figure out how to manage their new roles AND begin to build a war chest so these aren’t one-time flukes in deep red districts. You can support them by making a direct donation to these winners – find these races on Flipthestates.com to donate directly.
🌊🤩
The surgeon who saved Tammy Duckworth’s life after her helicopter was shot down just won a seat in Congress.
A plastic surgeon and former Army combat trauma surgeon who reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, Hamawy spent over 30 years volunteering in war zones and disaster areas before running for the open seat vacated by retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. He won New Jersey’s 12th District and becomes the state’s first Muslim congressman — a biography that neutralizes typical “soft on security” attacks before they can even start.
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Mitchell Berman still works night shifts in the ER. Now he’s also a member of Congress.
A nurse with 23 years in health care, including a decade caring for veterans at the VA, Berman beat four-term Rep. Bryan Steil by just four points — about 12,000 votes out of more than 300,000 cast — to flip Wisconsin’s 1st District. It’s the first time Democrats have held the seat since 1995, and Berman’s healthcare-affordability message in a working-class district is a model for exactly the kind of race FTS exists to fund.
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Allie Phillips didn’t win by being flashy — she won by not quitting.
After losing Tennessee’s House District 75 to Republican Michael Lankford in 2024, the working mom and union member got back in the race and beat him by ten points in the rematch this week. Phillips first ran in 2024 after she was denied a doctor-recommended abortion and had to travel to NY for the procedure. Her win was part of a six-seat Tennessee House flip that pushed Democrats from 24 to 30 seats in the chamber — proof that a loss in a competitive district isn’t a reason to walk away, it’s a reason to run again.
💰😘
Tell them, Show them: WE ARE WITH YOU
You can support Dems like these build an early war-chest and keep strong opponents out of the race by making a direct donation to these winners – find these races on Flipthestates.com to donate directly.
🌊🥳
Pia Dandiya flipped a district Trump carried by double digits — with a resume built for exactly this moment.
A former teacher and high school principal in Harlem, Harvard-educated, and a former White House Domestic Policy Council fellow with stints at Apple and the Department of Education, Dandiya beat Republican Casey Askar in Florida’s newly redrawn 22nd District. She becomes the first South Asian American to represent Florida in Congress, in a seat that was projected as a toss-up at best — a reminder that candidates with deep public-service resumes can still outperform the partisan lean of their district.
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Allison Montgomery beat back personal attacks from the state party chair — and won anyway.
A software engineer and lifelong Huntsville resident, Montgomery became Alabama’s first openly transgender state lawmaker after defeating a Republican incumbent in House District 25, despite the Alabama GOP chair directly attacking her gender identity during the campaign. She ran on Medicaid expansion, public education funding, and workers’ wages — kitchen-table issues that gave voters a reason to back her beyond the historic nature of her candidacy, which is exactly the playbook other red-state Democrats should study.
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Kristina Knickerbocker had never run for office. Her first race knocked out a 12-term incumbent.
An Air Force veteran and nurse practitioner who treated patients at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, Knickerbocker unseated Rep. Mike Turner, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee who had represented the district around Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for over two decades. Her win is proof that even the most entrenched, national-security-credentialed incumbents are vulnerable to a candidate with real credibility on the same turf.
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LaKesha Womack raised $59,000. Her opponent raised $3 million. She won anyway.
Womack moved to North Carolina in 2016 to campaign for Hillary Clinton and never left — and after being unhoused at one point in her life, she unseated former House Speaker Tim Moore in a congressional district he drew specifically to be safe for Republicans. Her roughly 6,400-vote victory over a 50-to-1 fundraising disadvantage is a direct rebuke to the idea that gerrymandering and money can fully insulate an incumbent, and a case study in what grassroots organizing can still do in a “safe” seat.
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Claire Valdez just became the first Native American woman elected to Congress from New York.
A citizen of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Nation and a sitting state assemblymember, Valdez ran as a democratic socialist on taxing the wealthy and protecting tenants, and won her Brooklyn-and-Queens district decisively. Her victory adds to a growing bench of state legislators who used Albany as a proving ground before moving up to federal office — a pipeline worth watching in other blue strongholds.
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Joanna Whaley’s opponents tried to get her thrown off the ballot. She won by 25 points instead.
A hospital chaplain and first-time candidate from Lincoln Park, Whaley survived a transphobic primary challenge that falsely claimed she’d misfiled her campaign paperwork under her legal name, then went on to beat her Republican opponent by nearly 25 points. She becomes the first openly transgender person elected to the Michigan legislature, proof that attacks designed to knock a candidate off the ballot can backfire spectacularly with voters.
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