Tuesday brought encouraging results for Democrats eyeing a sweep in next year’s midterms. But the most notable portent wasn’t the governor’s races won by Abigail Spanberger in Virginia or Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. Nor was it Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City.

The most significant win for Democrats was in two little-watched races for Georgia’s utility board. Little-watched outside of Georgia, that is. These races are important for several reasons. No Democrat has been elected to the five-member Georgia Public Service Commission since 2007. Georgia has become a bellwether in the conservative South, and it has 14 House seats.

What the above outcomes indicate is that much of the electorate has had it with Donald Trump: Tariff chaos. The fake wars waged on our cities’ streets. Bankrupt farms. Blatant corruption. The destruction of democratic institutions. It’s obviously getting harder for Trump to bully election officials in Georgia or elsewhere to “find” more votes than a candidate won.

Sherrill’s opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, might have done a lot better if he didn’t have Trump hanging around his neck. He was known as a moderate, the sort of Republican who can get elected in New Jersey. But he blew it playing cultural warrior, MAGA style.

As an aside, the media should stop making a big deal about Spanberger becoming “Virginia’s First Female Governor.” America currently has 12 women serving as governors. Several oversee conservative states: Kay Ivey in Alabama, Kim Reynolds in Iowa, Laura Kelly in Kansas and Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas.

Spanberger came with an impressive background as a representative who had worked for the CIA. Sherrill, by the way, is preceded in the New Jersey governor’s mansion by Christine Todd Whitman (1994-2001).

The outcome in the races for Georgia’s utility board also reflected frustration with climbing electricity bills. Spiking electric costs are plaguing Americans all over the country, and they will get worse as large data centers rush in to scoop up available energy supplies.

Nationally, electricity prices have jumped 10% since January. Trump is making matters worse by ditching the Biden-era subsidies for clean energy. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill chops $500 billion from those projects.

So hot are Republicans to kill off these new energy sources that they’re stranding capital already invested in them. In August, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop-work order on a major wind project off New England that’s already 80% built. The bureau cited “concerns related to the protection of national security interests” without saying what they were. It took a federal court to lift that order.

Starting with Obama, America had pursued an all-of-the-above energy policy. That meant using traditional fossil fuels, the clean renewables and emerging sources, such as nuclear power, hydrogen and biofuels. (Texas is very good at this.) Now the policy is to stop the green-energy part, including infrastructure that even some oil companies supported.

The political battle that got the most attention was the race for New York mayor. The reasons were the colorful personalities, Mamdani’s controversial past and a Republican spoiler who wouldn’t leave the race. Add to that the New York-based media’s obsession with New York.

Mamdani has taken some of the edge off his more radical ideas by making nice with the “power brokers” he campaigned against. The hope is that he focuses on governing pragmatically — for which he will need some adult supervision. Unlike fellow Democratic Socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York mayor is an executive position overseeing a very complex organization. And no, Mamdani can’t single-handedly raise taxes on the rich.

But again, let’s not dwell on New York. For the most significant omen of Democrats’ prospects in the midterms, look to Georgia.

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM