Iowa Sen.-elect Josh Turek (D-IA) delivers remarks during a midterm election night watch party with Iowa Democrats at the State Historical Museum of Iowa after defeating Iowa Republican Senate candidate, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) on November 3, 2026 in Des Moines, Iowa. The state was one of many where Democrats were not expected to win and prevailed. Scott Olson/Getty Images The Democrats and their many supporters in Hollywood had a historic election Tuesday night, and it’s leaving some of the people who orchestrated it both celebratory and trying to learn from the results. Jane Kleeb is one such person. A vice chair of the Democratic National Committee under Ken Martin who also heads up the Association of State Democratic Committees (which basically represents the Democratic party in each state and territory), she helped lead the movement that resulted in Tuesday’s many wins.
A native Nebraskan and longtime activist, Kleeb was in a giddy mood Wednesday, and also a pragmatic one. We got on the phone with her to break everything down. First I have to ask, how much of a surprise were some of these races? A few felt on the bubble coming in but others were just shockers. Does it feel that way to you? I definitely thought we were going to win the House and the Senate back because I knew the quality of candidates and the infrastructure we were building, and I thought we would win some governors’ races and break some supermajorities at the state legislative level as well. But I didn’t know it would be to this extent — that the margins would be so wide. In some of these races it wasn’t one or two percentage points; it was five or six or more. So it was a resounding victory, not just voting against Trump. So you don’t see a lot of these as “anti” votes. When I was watching some pundits [on cable news] last night people were pontificating saying this was just a rebuke to Trump. And no question it was. But it was also because Democratic organizers everywhere and candidates who looked and sounded like their communities and were also fighters. So it was all of those factors. Of course, you’ve tried to do that before. What changed? I think it’s because our candidates this cycle thought they had nothing to lose. That Donald Trump was such a threat to democracy that they were putting everything on the field and because of that it happened all across the country not just in targeted battleground states. You say nothing to lose. In your mind did you need to hit rock bottom — did 2024’s calamity enable this? There’s no question we had a major reality-check as a party in 2024. And even in 2016. We felt like we recovered some footing in 2020 but not enough to carry us. We saw that with the divisions over keeping Biden as the nominee or switching candidates 100 days out in [2024]. And that’s a picture of where we were as a party, that we couldn’t find our voice, we couldn’t find our footing. We couldn’t figure out how to communicate to the American people all of the good things we were doing. So we hit the bottom. We had to hit the bottom. When Trump won again we saw with so many of the communities that we frankly took for granted — Black voters and young voters and Latino voters — they saw Trump as a change agent and someone who would break up the status quo. And obviously he didn’t deliver on any of that, so we picked back up and said “actually we’re the party fighting for change to level the playing field.” And voters received that message. That certainly happened across the Midwest and the South. But a lot of our readers are in California, where that didn’t happen — it looks like the billionaire’s tax is going to fail pretty badly. Why couldn’t you make that case to Californians? If the tax fails it could be for a lot of reasons. Maybe it’s that people don’t like taxes, it could be that. Honestly the way it was laid out on the ballot was also confusing — you basically had a billionaire tax and a ban on a billionaire tax right next to each other, both just looking like a property tax. I think it could also have been that. I definitely still believe people are deeply frustrated by the billionaire class and want to see accountability from billionaires. So maybe it’s not a tax but maybe it’s stopping giveaways at the federal level. There are other ways to get that accountability. One thing that struck me about the election is that unlike in past party sweeps — say, the Democrats in 2008 with Obama — there was no central charismatic figure around which all these House and Senate and local races coalesced. That you did it bottom-up instead of top-down.
The difference this time was definitely the story of a team instead of a lead actor. And I think that’s where the party shines. When rely on one person to carry us through we’re going to lose that battle. That happened with President Obama during his terms. We lost 1,500 seats at the local level over his eight years because we weren’t investing in state and local infrastructure; we got so wrapped up in “Obama.” So I think we learned the hard lesson that it’s this infrastructure model that works. And we saw that this time. What would you say was the biggest surprise last night? Symone Sanders, who is from [here in] Nebraska had been talking about Mississippi. So I went down and visited. I thought ’this was a state where it could happen, but not this cycle.’ But that was a mistake. We had Brandon Presley, [a moderate Democrat] who almost won [for governor in 2023]. But we didn’t give the resources to get over the finish line. And to see what Scott [Colom] has done without those resources — if this happens [Colom is currently leading his opponent Cindy Hyde-Smith by a few dozen votes with 44,000 ballots outstanding] it’s from the sheer grit of Scott and the Democratic Party there and the candidates down-ballot. And the viral videos were insane — he did that whole pick “another protein/pick another Senator” bit to troll Hyde-Smith’s line from a debate. I don’t think I can remember a political ad as subtly effective and smile-inducing as that. He’s been great. And it does make me feel like, damn, we should have known. You do have limited resources, though, and I wonder how you spread that out now that so many states seem to be in play, places like Kansas and Nebraska and Texas and South Carolina and maybe even Alaska. It seemed a lot easier when certain red states were just automatically out of bounds. Does this indeed make where to spend your money more complicated? What is very clear from the amount of money raised this cycle is that we don’t have limited resources. There’s plenty of money in the political system. What you will hear from me and Chair Martin and many who live and work in our 57 states and territories is we can and should have permanent infrastructure everywhere, no exceptions, year-round. You don’t think there are simply some states too far gone to justify Democrats spending money in — that if, say, Florida couldn’t elect a Democratic Senator or governor in this climate, maybe it’s beyond hope for the party?
I think this is absolutely the wrong way to look at it. Colorado was red not that long ago, and then we began organizing and getting young people to vote. Georgia was red not that long ago and now look at it. [SZ: Both those states saw large influxes of Democrats from other states that Florida has not seen.] I grew up in Florida and it was a swing state. We’re starting to organize there. You have places like Colorado and Mississippi where there are cities that are blue and then you spread out to the suburbs and beyond making inroads there. Florida has that too. I think you’ll begin to see things shift significantly in places like Florida and Nebraska [where the party came close to defeating a Republican this cycle with an independent Senate candidate] as we head into 2028. Speaking of looking ahead, now the Democrats have to govern. And they have to govern with moderates and progressives and far-left activists in the came caucus. We see here in Hollywood the rifts that can happen even among Democrats — we see it, and I’m kidding but not kidding, all too well unfortunately. How do you ensure those rifts don’t happen in the next two years? I think having progressives and moderates gives us an advantage because we’ll have durable long-lasting policies that all kinds of Americans will embrace. Because the American people have all those different views too. People look at these disparities as a risk, but I see them as an advantage.
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