On Tuesday, Republicans lost their supermajority in the Iowa Senate. 

Catelin Drey’s victory in Senate District 1 is not just a local upset — it is part of a growing national pattern of Democratic overperformance in state legislative special elections. Donald Trump carried this district by more than 11 points in 2024. Drey’s victory represents a 20-point swing toward the left — making this one of the most consequential state legislative flips of the year.  

In fact, Democrats are overperforming their 2024 results by an average of nearly 16 points in state legislative races, according to The Downballot’s special elections Big Board. That is not a blip — it is the same kind of sustained overperformance that foreshadowed the blue wave in 2018.  

The Iowa result joins a long list. In Pennsylvania’s SD-36, Democrats defied the odds and flipped a seat Trump carried by 15 points. In Oklahoma’s HD-71, Amanda Clinton won by 69 points in a district Kamala Harris carried by only 19 — a 50-point overperformance. Even in heavily Republican-leaning districts in Florida and Alabama, Democrats are running well ahead of expectations and are narrowing margins while forcing Republicans to pour resources into traditionally safe districts.  

Special elections are a demonstration of energy, organization and the ability to mobilize voters in off-cycle conditions. For example, Sister District, a national organization that builds Democratic power in state legislatures, raised nearly $18,000 in small-dollar contributions, made more than 23,000 calls to Iowa voters, and secured 413 vote plans for Drey in just three weeks. She went on to win by 797 votes — proof of what can happen when national resources are directed strategically at the state level.  

For decades, national Democratic strategy has focused overwhelmingly on federal races and a narrow set of so-called “swing states.” That approach has left state-level Democrats in the South and Midwest running on fumes, with skeletal staff and minimal infrastructure.  

That neglect has real consequences. Republicans, who have invested heavily in state legislatures for decades, now hold disproportionate power in statehouses throughout the country. This gives them the ability to redraw congressional maps and further entrench themselves in power. 

After a painful defeat in 2024, Democrats now face a choice: retreat to the familiar trope of short-term presidential battlegrounds, or commit to building a broader, more durable movement that cannot be easily washed away. 

State legislatures are where policy is made, where democracy is shaped, and where the fight for power is unfolding right now. And the data from this year is clear: with organization and investment, Democrats can mobilize voters even in historically red corners.

If the party is serious about its future — and the future of American democracy — it must invest in state legislatures now. 

Sarah Curmi is executive director of the progressive grassroots organization Sister District. Previously she served as vice president of state and local campaigns at EMILY’s List. 

Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-Texas) decision to leave a safe congressional seat and join a crowded Republican primary to succeed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is part of a trend. Attorney general positions — once sleepy and apolitical — are quickly becoming a pipeline to increased influence and higher office for aspiring members of Congress.

Tea Party-era Republicans figured this formula out more quickly, but Democrats have picked up on it, too. For anyone interested in what their state and country’s political future could look like, pay close attention to under-the-radar attorney general races just as much as more expensive and high-profile campaigns.

Attorney general roles have always been launching pads for higher office. Just ask 12 of our nation’s governors, eight sitting U.S. senators, former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi about how they all leveraged their time as state attorneys general to gain higher office.

The tried-and-true joke that AG stands for “aspiring governor” has long been relevant. The increasingly noticeable trend now is that the role’s appeal is strong enough to convince someone to leave Congress to run for state attorney general.

In January 2013, a little-known congressman from Louisiana, Jeff Landry, finished his one term in Congress with no major legislative accomplishments. Landry had ridden the tea party wave into the U.S. House of Representatives and was best known for criticizing President Barack Obama for, well, almost everything. I’d argue Landry’s most significant yet underappreciated achievement related to his congressional service was launching the congressman-to-attorney general-to-governor pipeline.

Just three years after his brief congressional tenure, Landry was elected to his first of two terms as Louisiana attorney general. He quickly became one of the most conservative attorneys general in the country, achieved Republican policy goals that no freshman congressman could have accomplished, and successfully maneuvered himself into an easy 2023 gubernatorial victory after eight years of increasing his statewide profile as attorney general.

Where now-Gov. Landry led, others have followed. Three of Landry’s fellow Republican freshmen colleagues from the 112th Congress, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, have begun down the same path. All three aspire to governorships, having each unsuccessfully run previously for that higher office before running for attorney general.

As Landry has shown, proving oneself first as attorney general can be a powerful stepping stone. Each is considered more conservative and combative than their predecessors in roles that traditionally involve bipartisan cooperation on multistate litigation and mundane state regulatory issues. Rokita’s and Landry’s affiliated political action committees — Fund for American Exceptionalism and Cajun PAC II, respectively — even supported Labrador’s successful 2022 campaign to oust a more moderate incumbent in the primary.

Democrats have also slowly begun to recognize this pipeline, but they are a few years behind their Republican counterparts. The Minnesota, Maryland and North Carolina attorneys general all served in Congress before seeking their current positions. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s race had a possible first as he ran against a fellow congressman to win his current post.

President Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra also served more than two decades in Congress, including two terms as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, before leaving to succeed Kamala Harris as California attorney general — a role he was able to leverage into a Cabinet post.

Attorney general races matter. The victors serve as their states’ chief legal officer, represent the state before the U.S. Supreme Court, and can be a formidable force against bad private actors, as the tobacco and opioid industries can attest. Politically, however, they have mostly run under the radar.

Voters from both parties need to focus more on who is running for their state attorney general. The role itself is powerful, but these future potential governors, senators and presidents are also communicating their priorities and how they would govern long before reaching higher offices.

Roy is not forging a new path — he is simply following a trend. Nor is he exiting the political arena by leaving Washington. He just found another potential path upward to increase his impact and influence.   

Ryan Greenstein served in several roles within the National Association of Attorneys General from 2017-2022, most recently as legislative director supporting the association’s advocacy efforts before Congress and the previous two administrations. 

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. enters another dangerous season with a fractured national emergency response system. Katrina showed what happens when truth and trusted communication are missing. Those lessons are now in danger of being lost.

The Gulf of Mexico is nearly two degrees warmer than normal. The Atlantic is very active. Floods are striking communities across the country, and wildfires are burning in the West. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts an above-normal number of storms as we move into the most dangerous stretch of hurricane season.

And when we should be at our best, federal systems for delivering life-saving information are at their weakest in years.

When disaster strikes, one of the most critical lifelines is not food or water. It is information. People need to know what is happening, why it matters, who has answers, and what comes next. They need honest updates, a clear plan and credible voices — not spin, not confusion, but just the truth, especially when it is difficult.

Help only works when people trust it. After Winter Storm Uri in 2021, multiple reviews found serious communication gaps in Texas. When local messages were delayed, vague, or not translated into locally spoken languages, trust collapsed, no matter how much aid arrived.

I know this because I led the team responsible for getting it right. From 2021 to early 2025, I served as FEMA’s associate administrator for external affairs and directed the National Joint Information Center,through some of the country’s most difficult disasters.

We modernized language translations and cultural competence, expanded engagement in rural communities, built partnerships to reach older adults, people with disabilities, and those with limited resources, and created feedback loops to fix breaks in information flow.

Nationally, the Joint Information Center coordinates communication across the federal government and supports states during major disasters and national security threats. Without it, messages are delayed, inconsistent or missed. A well-run center cuts through politics, focuses on the public, and delivers facts quickly. It may look chaotic from the outside, but every second counts and everyone knows their role.

Local communication is the backbone of disaster response, and local information centers are vital in a crisis. When states, territories or Tribal Nations are stretched thin, they rely on FEMA’s capacity and expertise to deliver urgent, accurate information at scale.

In fast-moving emergencies, rumors spread quickly, expectations rise, and national headlines take over. Reaching every community is urgent, including those facing language barriers, rural isolation or other access challenges.

After Katrina, FEMA expanded its disaster response framework and strengthened external affairs to close deadly communication gaps. Congress reinforced these reforms through the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which required disaster communications to be translated so all communities could access life-saving information.

Last year, with congressional support and experienced leadership, FEMA was far stronger than it had been in 2005. When skilled communicators are empowered, resourced and given authority to act, the system works.

That progress is now eroding. An English-only executive order creates uncertainty. FEMA, the National Weather Service and other safety agencies have had authorities stripped and capabilities weakened. Experienced external affairs professionals have been forced out, taking decades of expertise with them. FEMA staff and funds are being shifted away to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

New Department of Homeland Security bureaucracy is slowing resilience funding and delaying approved recovery dollars for North Carolina. The same red tape slowed the Texas flood response.

During the Texas floods, FEMA’s communications amounted to a few press releases and social media posts — a fraction of the standard response. Homeland Security blocked or delayed critical, time-sensitive information, according to my sources inside the agency. The Joint Information Center was never activated.

This is not the first time FEMA has been weakened. After being absorbed into the newly created department in 2003, its authorities and capabilities were stripped, leaving it unable to meet Katrina’s devastation two years later. Then as now, inexperienced leaders ignored seasoned communicators who knew how to help.

Marty Bahamonde, my former colleague and a longtime FEMA official who resigned months ago, testified before Congress in 2005 about urgent warnings ignored by political leadership. Featured in a new National Geographic documentary on Katrina’s anniversary, his emails remain a warning of what happens when experienced communicators are sidelined.

We are not just repeating history. We are setting ourselves up for something much worse unless we act quickly to fix it.

First, FEMA must activate the JIC during future catastrophic disasters and shield it from Homeland Security interference. The experienced career leaders who remain at FEMA must be able to do their jobs. FEMA should have full authority over Emergency Support Function-15 and the National JIC, not the Department of Homeland Security.

Second, federal systems may not rebound quickly this season. Every sector — federal, state, local, nonprofit and private — must plan accordingly and strengthen its crisis communication capacity.

That means putting trained communicators at the decision-making table before, during and after disaster. If your organization serves the public in a crisis in any way, your communication team must have access, resources and backing to be successful.

Finally, as Congress considers how to strengthen FEMA, it must treat external affairs as a core disaster capability, equal in urgency to operations and logistics. It should fund and protect this part of FEMA’s mission to ensure timely, accurate information that helps solve problems and inform the public.

Without strong, sustained support from Congress, FEMA’s ability to communicate in the next disaster or national security crisis will remain dangerously vulnerable, and that hurts the American people.

In our darkest hours, protecting people depends on delivering accurate information they can rely on and act upon. If we act now, we can build a system that reaches every community when it matters most.

Justin Angel Knighten is a national security expert in crisis and risk communication and community engagement. He served as FEMA’s associate administrator for external affairs from 2021 to 2025 and now advises governments, philanthropy, media organizations and companies.

The concept of congestion pricing first appeared in the economics literature more than 60 years ago in an article written by William Vickrey, a Columbia University economics professor and future Nobel laureate. Yet traction for the concept has proven elusive.

In January, New York City became the first city in the U.S. to implement it.

The basic idea is straightforward. My decision to commute on the roadways during peak periods delays other commuters because it reduces average speeds. New Yorkers lose an average of 117 hours annually sitting in traffic.

Suppose that I am one of 1 million commuters. If my decision to commute increases the commuting time for the other commuters by 1/1000 of a second, and the value of their time is $32 per hour, then I am responsible for imposing a marginal congestion cost on all the other commuters of $8.89. This example demonstrates the logic underlying the $9 congestion toll that most passenger vehicles pay when commuting into New York City during peak periods.

Congestion pricing is politically controversial, drawing criticism from politicians from both parties. But it is not economically controversial. Congestion is a classic example of a “negative externality.” When commuters do not pay for the congestion costs that they impose on other commuters, the amount of commuting will be excessive, because the resource costs that society allocates to commuting exceed the value that society places on it.

If congestion pricing succeeds in reducing traffic volumes, then the benefits include fewer injuries and fatalities for vehicle occupants, cyclists and pedestrians, as well as reduced levels of harmful automobile emissions. Some commuters will even realize a reduction in the effective cost of commuting. For these commuters, the savings in the opportunity cost of time that results from travel at higher average speeds exceeds the $9 congestion price.

Nonetheless, congestion pricing is to a certain degree self-defeating. The same price increase that reduces congestion also gives rise to expectations of shorter commuting times, a de facto improvement in quality that in turn increases demand. These countervailing effects may explain the muted way that demand has changed in response to congestion pricing. The 6.3 percent reduction in commuting volumes that New York City experienced after introducing congestion pricing was only about half of what the Metropolitan Transit Authority expected, and a recent study found that average speeds increased by only 8 percent.

The demand for vehicular commuting is highly “inelastic” — not very sensitive to price — so a 10 percent price increase reduces demand by much less than 10 percent. This has far-reaching policy implications. It means that congestion pricing is more effective in raising tax revenues than it is in reducing peak-period traffic volumes.

This explains, in part, the Trump administration’s strong objections. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he planned to rescind federal approval for the program, which he called “a slap in the face to working-class Americans and small business owners.” He further opined that “every American should be able to access New York City regardless of their economic means. It shouldn’t be reserved for an elite few.”

Despite the efficiency gains, there is a social-equity dimension of congestion pricing that some find concerning. The more inelastic the demand for vehicular commuting, the more the benefits of congestion pricing, measured in terms of the reduced effective cost of commuting, are skewed toward higher income classes.

The average commuting time into New York City prior to congestion pricing was 43 minutes, the longest in the nation. If congestion pricing reduces the commuting time by half, then the effective cost of commuting decreases for any commuter with a value of time that exceeds $25.12 per hour. However, if the commuting time decreases by only 10 percent, the effective price of commuting is reduced only for those commuters with a value of time that exceeds $125.58 per hour.

Congestion pricing has taken heavy fire from both Republicans and Democrats. The Trump administration believes the policy is elitist. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) has railed against the massive tax revenues that it sends to the much-maligned Metropolitan Transit Authority. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) argues that his constituents pay the toll when commuting into New York City, but his state receives none of the corresponding tax revenues.

New York’s congestion pricing plan remains in effect for now, but it faces strong political headwinds. One cannot be too hopeful about the longevity of a policy that economists praise and politicians deride. This may explain why it took more than a half-century before congestion pricing found its first use in America.

Dennis L. Weisman, Ph.D. is a professor emeritus of economics at Kansas State University. The author is grateful to Glen Robinson for illuminating discussions.