Salena Zito: The wave beneath the wave

ERIE, Pennsylvania — In the last week of October, fall foliage in Pennsylvania's Appalachian Mountains reached its peak, with native hardwoods and understory trees ablaze in red, orange, yellow and purple. A Democratic governor cruising to reelection had no obvious reason to travel through these rural counties, but Josh Shapiro went anyway. A lodge in coal country was one stop on a bus tour that took him and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis through 29 counties in the campaign's final 10 days. Fourteen of those counties voted against him in 2022.

The tour started in Erie and ran through college campuses, union halls, a diner and a Steelers watch party. It went into Milford, in Pike County, which President Donald Trump carried by 24 points in 2024. Shapiro told me throughout his reelection campaign, which began in earnest in January, that his theory of politics is about place: "Show up, especially in communities that didn't vote for you."

Most of the people who came out to see him when I joined him on the bus in Beaver County were already Democrats. But the tour was never really about Shapiro, who beat state Treasurer Stacy Garrity 60.4% to 38.3%. In Doylestown, he never mentioned Garrity. Instead, he promoted local candidates for state office wherever he went and promised that the first bill he would sign would raise the minimum wage. Shapiro had done more than show up. He built a coordinated campaign that shared money with downballot Democrats.

"This governor and this lieutenant governor put it all on the line," said Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes.

It worked.

Democrats took the state senate away from Republicans for the first time in 48 years. That gave them the governor's office and both legislative chambers at once, a trifecta the party had not held since 1993. They flipped four Republican senate seats, including one in the Poconos, and lost one in Lancaster County, for a 26-24 majority.

Not every stop paid off. Shapiro had rallied in Lancaster for state Democratic Sen. James Malone, but even his help couldn't save the Democratic incumbent. In the House, Democrats flipped nine Republican seats on election night. They added a 10th when Tim Hayes edged Rep. Shelby Labs in Bucks County. They lost one: State Rep. Brandon Dukes, who won a Butler County seat in an August special election, conceded to Republican Scott Timko. That leaves Democrats with a 112-91 majority, up from 103-100, pending certification.

Pennsylvania was one piece of a national sweep. With Arizona and the Georgia House now settled, Democrats flipped 12 legislative chambers in one night. Eleven came from Republicans; the 12th, the Minnesota House, had been tied. Democrats netted at least 330 seats and went from 39 of the 99 chambers to a projected 51. It was the biggest single-election shift in state partisan power since 2010.

It was also 2014 in reverse. In former President Barack Obama's second midterm, Republicans netted 300 to 350 legislative seats and took 11 chambers from Democrats. They came out holding 68 chambers, matching a high-water mark last reached after the 1920 election. The two nights were almost the same size, and 2026 was slightly larger. What differed was where each party started. Republicans in 2014 were adding to their 2010 Tea Party gains. Democrats in 2026 were climbing out of a hole; they held only 29 chambers when Trump was first elected.

Pennsylvania lived the 2014 version. Democrat Tom Wolf ousted a Republican governor even as Republicans expanded their legislative majorities, which set up years of budget standoffs. Why does it matter? Because much of American governing happens in state capitols. Legislators decide how billions of dollars are spent on classrooms, corrections and health coverage.

In Harrisburg, the new majorities have pledged to lift the minimum wage, write abortion rights into state law, and fund mass transit; the state's wage floor is still the federal minimum of $7.25. Wisconsin Democrats can now expand Medicaid. Even where Democrats only broke a supermajority, it matters: New Democratic governors in Iowa and Ohio can veto bills knowing Republicans lack the votes to override them.

Legislatures also write election law. No major election bill has passed in Pennsylvania since 2020, and Democrats now plan to let counties process mail ballots before Election Day. In most states, legislatures draw the congressional maps. Republicans showed how much that matters in 2010, when a $30 million push to win statehouses gave them control over drawing 210 House districts, compared with 44 for Democrats. Shapiro has ruled out a mid-decade redraw, and the state Supreme Court has barred partisan gerrymandering. He is also term-limited, so the officials elected in 2028 and 2030 will draw Pennsylvania's next map.

Then there is the bench. Nearly half of Congress once served in a state legislature. In a study of close state legislative races, the narrow winners were more than twice as likely to run for Congress afterward as the narrow losers. Shapiro started in the state House. Republicans built their bench the same way: Scott Perry and Ryan Mackenzie both went from the state House to Congress. On Tuesday, both lost.

Democrats invested heavily, Republican State Leadership Committee President Edith Jorge-Tunon said, because legislatures build "the pipeline for the next generation of leaders." She blamed her party's losses on the national environment and the top of the ticket. The new majorities are thin. A swing of about 5,000 votes across six states kept Democrats from winning six more chambers, which means a modest swing the other way could cost them several of the ones they just won. Republicans who swept the statehouses in 2010 and 2014 learned that the wave is the easy part.

Shapiro now has to govern the country's biggest swing state with a two-seat Senate majority, and he will have to keep showing up.

Salena Zito is a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner.

Salena Zito: The wave beneath the wave

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