https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3742635-democrats-interrupt-history-to-make-their-own/

by Antjuan Seawright, Opinion Contributor - 11/21/22 7:30 AM ET

Let’s be clear, these results weren’t just historic for Joe Bidenand the Democratic Party, they defied gravity. Here are some facts:

• The party in the White House has lost an average of 26 members in the House in every midterm election since 1934. At last count, Democrats had lost 18 but gained six — for a net loss of 12.
• Biden is the first president since Franklin Roosevelt whose party gained governorships in a midterm: four so far (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland and Arizona).
• Democrats defied dire predictions about losing control of the Senate and actually flipped Pennsylvania. The party is positioned to expand the majority on Dec. 6 with Georgia’s runoff election.
• In Michigan alone, we not only flipped the state House and Senate (securing the state Senate majority for the first time since 1983), but we elected the state’s first Black speaker of the House, the first Arab American and Muslim House majority leader, and the first woman majority leader in the state Senate.
• We won the trifecta (governor’s office, as well as majorities in both the state House and Senate) in both Michigan and Minnesota.

• We watched Rep. Karen Bass(D-Calif.) beat back Rick Caruso’s $100 million campaign to become the first woman mayor of Los Angeles and join trailblazers such as Mayors Eric Adamsof New York, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago and Sylvester Turner of Houston.
• And, importantly, we kept election deniers out of the Secretary of State offices in New Mexico, Minnesota, Michigan, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts and Nevada.

If that isn’t enough to take your breath, we passed ballot measures to protect reproductive rights and voting rights in Vermont, Michigan, California and Connecticut, while defeating a constitutional amendment that would have eliminated the right to choose regarding abortion in Kentucky.

I don’t care who you are — that’s a big night. It just goes to show that every time they count us out, we show them they don’t know how to count.

But how did this happen? It’s really simple: All the work to strengthen the Democratic ecosystem that I’ve been talking about paid off.

 The Democratic National Committee (DNC), led by Chair Jaime Harrison and all our committee chairs, invested $90 million in state and electoral midterm programs, tripling its 2018 investment. In addition, the DNC made the largest-ever midterm cash transfer of $27 million to the Democratic Senate and Congressional Campaign Committees, not to mention the intentional investments made earlier than ever by the DSCC, DCCC and other committees in our most loyal and consistent voting blocs, combining the high-tech and high-touch strategies that really matter, especially in communities of color.

 I’m proud of that, not only because it demonstrates how practical investments pay off, but also because it proves without a doubt that the grassroots still matter in our party. Of course, this is inside baseball. At the end of the day, all the money and messages in the world don’t win elections. Votes do — Americans voted.