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Welcome to Popular Information, a newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism.
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On X, Vice President J.D. Vance dismissed the poor showing by Republicans on Tuesday night as “a couple of elections in blue states.” Although Democratic victories in New York, Virginia, New Jersey, and California dominated the headlines, significant contests were held across the nation.
In purple states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, and deep red states like Texas and Mississippi, voters rejected the MAGA agenda. Here are six results from the 2025 elections that flew under the radar.
Pennsylvania county ousts sheriff who collaborated with ICE
In Bucks County — Pennsylvania’s largest swing county, which Trump narrowly won in 2024 — Democrat Danny Ceisler was elected county sheriff after the Republican incumbent signed a deal to collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this year.
In April, Republican Fred Harran signed his deputies up for a 287(g) program with ICE, which allows local law enforcement to execute arrest warrants for immigration violations and perform other duties typically reserved for federal immigration enforcement officers.
Ceisler, who defeated Harran with more than 55% of the vote, described the ICE agreement as “the big issue in this race.” Ceisler promised to suspend the agreement immediately after taking office and said that restoring trust with immigrants in the county was a top priority.
Progressives win control of Texas school board that censored books
In Texas’s Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (CFISD), which is the third largest in the state, progressive candidates won all three open board seats, giving them a 4-3 majority. Since 2023, the board has been controlled by a 6-1 conservative supermajority, which has enacted a range of far-right policies.
In the past two years, the CFISD board has removed textbook chapters on climate change, vaccines, Covid-19, and diversity; fired over half of CFISD librarians, leading to school library closures; restricted school library content; and created elective courses about the Bible.
One of the members who lost her seat, Natalie Blasingame, first ran for the CFISD board in 2015. At the time, she wrote in an email to donors, “The Lord put on my heart that my agenda is to tear down the over-interpretation of the separation of church and state that has shut God out of schools.”
Georgia elects its first Democrat to a non-federal statewide office since 2006
Two Georgia Democrats, Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson, won election to the state’s Public Service Commission, which regulates electricity, telephone services, and natural gas. Both candidates won with over 60% of the vote, according to unofficial results posted on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website. The commission will now have a 3-2 Republican majority.
The commission has not had a Democrat since 2007, and this is the first time since 2006 that Georgia Democrats have “won a statewide constitutional office.” Johnson will also become the state’s first Black woman elected to a statewide partisan office.
The Democratic candidates ran on a platform of affordability. The commission approved six rate hikes for electric utility provider Georgia Power in recent years. Rate increases approved by the commission have added around “$43 a month to the average household bill,” which is now over $175 a month for the average Georgia Power residential customer, CBS reported.
The upset could provide momentum going into the 2026 midterm elections, when Georgia will elect a Governor and U.S. Senator.
Mississippi Democrats break Republican super majority in the state Senate
For the first time in 13 years, Democrats in Mississippi have broken up a GOP supermajority in the state Senate. This victory for Mississippi Democrats came after a panel of federal judges ordered the Mississippi legislature to redraw its state House and Senate districts to create more majority-Black districts. The court found that the previous districts diluted the political power of Black voters, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Democrats were able to flip two newly redistricted state Senate seats, reducing the GOP supermajority from 36 members to 34. Just one vote short of a supermajority, it will now be more difficult for Republicans to propose amendments to the state constitution and override the governor’s veto.
Whether the victory holds will depend on an upcoming Supreme Court decision in a case challenging the constitutionality of creating electoral districts based on racial demographics to give minority voters more power.