Future Timeline

Republicans will win the House of Representatives, CNN projects, in a victory that will fall short of their hopes of a “red wave” but thwart President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda and will likely subject his White House to relentless investigations.

The fact that the GOP finally passed the threshold of 218 seats needed for control of the chamber eight days after Election Day – and that it came down to the final districts to report results – underscores the party’s underwhelming midterm election performance, which history and political logic suggested should have delivered a heftier rebuke to Biden and Democrats.

In defiance of political gravity, Democrats held onto the Senate after an election dominated by concerns about high inflation and influenced, in some places, by the Supreme Court’s overturning of a constitutional right to abortion this summer. There’s still an outstanding Senate race in Georgia, which will be decided by a December runoff and will determine how large Democrats’ majority will be.

(Common Dreams) In this year’s midterm elections, voters showed a strong level of support for progressive ballot measures across the country. These victories were tempered by the defeat of worthwhile ballot measures in some states and the uncertainty of progress under a divided Congress. Nonetheless, voters across the country approved minimum wage increases, protected access to abortion, supported cannabis legalization, and approved measures to increase housing affordability and promote good union jobs.

Though much work remains to be done to enact a progressive economic agenda, this midterm election showed clear signs of support for a policy agenda that prioritizes economic, racial, and gender justice for working families.

Minimum wage

Nebraska: Voters approved Initiative 433, which will increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 by 2026.

Nevada: Voters approved Question 2, which will increase the state’s minimum wage to $12 in July 2024. The measure also removed a provision that allows employers to pay workers $1 less if they offer health insurance.

(Common Dreams) In 2009, I went to West Virginia for a week-long school for poor and low-income organizations and leaders. There were 150 people there from over 40 organizations across the country. I met organizers, media-makers, cultural workers, faith leaders, scholars, and advocates of every stripe, united by their desire to raise wages, make housing more affordable, ensure clean water for all, and more. It was a remarkable experience.

At the time, the Great Recession had been declared officially over — but nearly every person there was still reeling from its effects. A decade later, we realized the true extent of that hardship, when the Souls of Poor Folk report found that in the wealthiest country in the world, 140 million people were poor or low-income.

As the Policy Director of the Poor People’s Campaign and the Kairos Center, I spend most of my time thinking about these 140 million people. Among them are our parents and children, friends, neighbors, and people who touch our lives every day.

We seldom hear about poverty in elections. But poor people vote. In 2020, one-third of all votes were cast by poor or low-income people — a figure that rose even higher in some battleground states in the South and Midwest. In all, 50 million low-income people voted in that election.

Numbers like these can make all the difference. That’s why the Poor People’s Campaign reached out to over 6 million poor and low-income eligible voters in the lead up to this year’s midterms. Our bilingual voter drive engaged nearly 1,000 volunteers, who together contacted 1 in every 43 eligible voters.