Winners cited affordability concerns and voters’ desire to stand up to Trump
Democratic candidates with almost no public profile and long odds of winning swept races for Congress, state legislatures and county office across the United States in Tuesday’s 2026 midterm elections, stunning themselves and their opponents in a wave that unseated Republicans in deep-red districts considered untouchable, The Guardian reported. One winner had dropped out of the race in September. One had no campaign staff. One was a 19-year-old halfway through the fall college semester.
In Tennessee, Victoria Broderick is poised to unseat Representative Scott DesJarlais, a Republican seeking his ninth term in the state’s fourth congressional district. State officials declared on Wednesday that she had won by about 300 votes, though the Associated Press has not called the race. The Cook Political Report, a prominent US election forecaster, rated the seat “solid Republican,” and almost nobody in Washington thought DesJarlais could lose, The Guardian reported.
“It’s very surreal,” Broderick, a 34-year-old mother of two, said the day after the election. “I think the first words to my team were: ‘Wait, what?’ I was just sitting there shocked.” Broderick worked a full-time tech support job throughout her longshot campaign. “I’m a working-class mom. I was supposed to go to work today, and I had to message my boss,” she said. Before the campaign, she worked as a logistics sourcing coordinator.
Broderick first ran for Congress in 2024 after learning that DesJarlais was running unopposed. “I essentially said: ‘Over my dead body,’” she said. DesJarlais won 70% of the vote that year to her 27%. Earlier this year, the Tennessee legislature redrew the state’s congressional maps, making the fourth district slightly more Democratic by adding parts of Nashville — though Donald Trump would still have carried the district as drawn by 24 points in 2024, according to The Guardian’s report.
Broderick ran without support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s fundraising arm for House races, and had about 400 followers on X as of Wednesday, she said. She was outspent roughly 12 to one during her primary. “The Democratic party wasn’t paying attention to this race … I knew I was the underdog,” she said. She said she connected with residents who had not voted in years and met Republicans concerned about affordability who appreciated the “integrity” she brought to the race. “We’ve been neglected in this district,” she said. “People want representatives who understand what they’re going through, who understand the costs of going to the gas station or grocery store. I’m that representative.”
DesJarlais’s tenure was marked by scandal over the years. In 2014, Politico called him the “biggest hypocrite in Congress” after it emerged that he had privately supported his ex-wife’s abortions while publicly opposing abortion rights in office. His campaign did not respond to inquiries.
In Iowa, Eric Armstrong won a state representative race despite dropping out in early September, when he cited “personal health issues that require my full attention and immediate care.” Armstrong did not campaign over the final two months but still defeated Keith Jones, a Republican county supervisor and retired police lieutenant, by more than 800 votes. The Guardian described the result as an indication of how eager some voters were to “vote blue no matter who.” Armstrong did not respond to The Guardian’s inquiries, but told The New York Times by phone on Wednesday morning: “I’m going to do my best to represent [the district] … But I still have health issues, that’s what I’m struggling with.”
Jones said by phone on Thursday that he was stunned by the loss. “It was a gut-punch. I worked really hard for eight months … the blue wave hit Iowa and Texas very hard, no doubt,” he said. He said voters were focused on the Iran war and gas prices — issues he could not address as a state representative. “It’s hard to lose a race based on events outside of my control,” he said.
In Arizona, Sebastian Matta, a 19-year-old college student studying philosophy, defeated Jeff Dial, a 50-year-old Republican former state lawmaker, in the race for Maricopa County clerk of the superior court. Matta told the Arizona Republic that he noticed Democrats had not run for the office in years. “I figured: ‘You know, why not?’” he said. He had expected the race to be a “destined loss” for his party. Instead, he is set to lead the clerk’s office for the nation’s fourth-largest county.
In North Carolina, LaKesha Womack, a 49-year-old Democrat, defeated Representative Tim Moore, the Republican incumbent, without any paid, full-time staffers, raising $59,000 to Moore’s $2 million. “I wanted to run a different type of race. I wanted to be more present in the community,” Womack said on Wednesday. “So I didn’t spend as much time fundraising. I spent most of my time with the voters – attending events, going to church, doing meet-and-greets.” She worked closely with county party chairs who hosted events for her and prioritized door-knocking. Womack, the founder of a consulting firm for small businesses, non-profits and faith-based organizations, holds a political science degree and has no previous experience as an elected official.
Her campaign survived a surprise criminal summons, served while she was at a campaign event last month, accusing her of failing to return a rental car on time in 2019, the Charlotte Observer reported. In a video message at the time, Womack said she had struggled with homelessness that year and was unaware of the criminal proceedings until the summons arrived. She declined to discuss specifics of the charge but questioned why it was issued just before the election. Conservative media covered the charges, and Moore highlighted them in attack ads. Womack has a court date in the case next week. “It was very hurtful, but my supporters reached out to me and said: ‘We’ve got your back.’ They had questions, but never doubted that I was the person they had gotten to know over the past nine months,” she said.
Womack said her personal experience with economic insecurity prepared her for Congress. “When you know what it’s like to figure out how am I going to put food on the table for me and my child, then you look at food security differently,” she said. She named healthcare costs and protecting rural hospitals from funding cuts among her top priorities. She said voters were also desperate for a candidate who would stand up to Trump, noting that Moore did not criticize the president after he said at a rally that he would not send Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to North Carolina if the Republican Senate candidate lost — before adding that he was “kidding.”
Moore served one term in Congress; before that, he was the longest-serving speaker of North Carolina’s statehouse. His campaign did not respond to an inquiry. Womack said voters understood the stakes. “People understand what’s at stake in this election. They chose the candidate they believe will go to Washington and fight for them,” she said. “I’m looking forward to our freshmen orientation. I’m sure I’ll get a big binder of all the things I need to work on.”