A week has passed, but we’re still riding high on the US midterm results. You know the headlines: Texas elected its first Democratic senator since 1988, Iowa flipped both its top races, and woke 2.0 is here – America has welcomed its first Muslim senator in Abdul El-Sayed, first Black woman governor in Keisha Lance Bottoms, first Native American woman governor in Deb Haaland and first openly gay male senator in Chris Pappas. A wave of millennial candidates have reinvigorated millennial optimism, and we’re here for it.
These races were won through the hard graft of thousands of organisers and volunteers. Culture played its part too: Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl half-time shows arguably did as much to make marginalised voters feel seen as any campaign content. Culture that starts offline carries on online, and the best campaigns picked up that energy in feeds and group chats.
As digital mobilisers, we love an election cycle – they’re where innovations fly or fail. By paying close attention, we can see what might hit the mark with supporters here in the UK, and where comms can fall down. So here’s our hot take on the 2026 US midterms.
Six takeaways for UK progressives:
- Name a villain, and make it bigger than your opponent
- Talk about prices people actually pay
- Personality beats polish (mostly)
- Go where communities already gather
- Train volunteers for conversations, not scripts
- New issues create new switchers
1. Name a villain, and make it bigger than your opponent
The most consistent pattern across winning campaigns was that they picked a clear antagonist, and it often wasn’t the person on the ballot.
In Texas, James Talarico beat Ken Paxton to become the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat since 1988. The race was the most expensive non-presidential contest in US history, with over $570m in ad spend. The campaign cast Elon Musk and big outside money as the villain, so the opposition’s spending became proof of the message rather than a threat to it. The victory line was a David-and-Goliath one: money can’t beat people.
Alaska had its own version. The fight centred on Seattle-based factory trawlers blamed for bycatch, turning a fisheries issue into a story about outsiders taking from locals. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign aimed most of its fire at Washington and Trump rather than his direct opponent.
| What does that mean here? A clear villain gives supporters something to act against. It doesn’t have to be a person. A system, a practice or a broken promise works, as long as it’s concrete. The winning trick here is framing your opponent’s strength (their money, their reach) as the very thing your supporters are standing up to. |
We can take some heart that the anti-establishment, underdog framing looks more like Trump’s 2024 playbook than the recent Democratic default of positioning as the sensible grown-ups.
2. Talk about prices people actually pay
Cost of living was the big ticket issue across the US, and we know it’s weighing heavy on people’s minds here in the UK. What set the winners apart was how specific they got.
In Alaska, Mary Peltola’s campaign talked about $24 grocery receipts and $17 milk. In Iowa, Josh Turek flipped the open Senate seat by tying tariffs and the Iran war to farmers’ diesel and fertiliser costs, and named exactly how many times his opponent had voted for each. North Carolina’s campaign listed the bills: food, healthcare, energy, childcare, housing. Michigan’s slogan put it simply: money out of politics, money in your pocket.
Trump won in 2024 talking about the cost of eggs. In 2026, the Democrats responded by showing they understood the weekly shop – and the role that Trump’s decisions had played in increasing it.
| Here in the UK: Talking about “the cost-of-living crisis” in the abstract lets people nod and scroll. A number on a receipt makes them stop. If your cause connects to household budgets, and more do than you’d think, lead with the cost people actually feel. |
3. Personality beats polish (mostly)
The content that cut through was rarely the slickest. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton’s channels were mostly interview clips, doorstepping and meeting people, plus a recurring format of voters explaining why they were backing a Democrat for the first time. His following was tiny: around 5.5k on TikTok and 22k on Instagram.
In Michigan, El-Sayed used good humour as a weapon. He met attacks with jokes, showed up on TikTok as an actual human being, and made the stiff, scripted politician look like the odd one out. Talarico got national reach from long-form appearances on Joe Rogan’s podcast and Colbert, not ads.
The exception proves the rule: North Carolina’s campaign used highly produced videos to build state pride, reaching 110k on Instagram. Polish worked when it carried an emotion: pride in place.
| For UK orgs: The “first time I’ve ever…” testimonial is a gift. A supporter explaining why they signed up or gave for the first time is more persuasive to the undecided than anything from your organisation account. And a small audience posting real moments can outperform a big one posting assets. We’d love to see organic social spotlighting real supporters in their own words this winter. |
4. Go where communities already gather
Some of the most powerful spaces in these races weren’t built by campaigns at all.
In Alaska, a Facebook group run by a charter fisherman, campaigning against trawler bycatch with more than 60,000 members, became a kingmaker. Both parties tried to win its favour. One volunteer moderator with an engaged community mattered more than a lot of paid reach.
In Kansas and Texas, the Christian left came to the fore. Hamilton leaned openly into faith on X, and his content argued that corruption goes against faith values. Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, ran as a progressive Christian. Values-based framing let them speak to communities that usually feel written off by their side.
| Reaching communities in the UK We’re guilty of looking at new audiences before we map the existing ones – the local Facebook groups, the faith networks, the WhatsApp communities, the hobby forums. Our digital relational organising pilots are making the case that these are the spaces where we can win over opinion (this is your sign to join us at our upcoming webinar on digital relational organising). So start asking: who runs these spaces? What do they care about? Is your issue already being discussed there, and if not, who could bring it in? |
5. Train volunteers for conversations, not scripts
Michigan’s campaign put deep canvassing at its core. Volunteers were trained to hold open-ended conversations rather than read a script. They also organised by community: Jewish volunteers were trained to talk with Jewish voters, grounded in that community’s own concerns, including antisemitism.
Volunteers had plenty of ways to connect with the campaign and each other, and email and SMS sign-up sat alongside the organising. In Iowa, Rob Sand won the governorship on a promise to restore neighbourliness, and he organised the same way. He hired organisers 18 months out, held a town hall in every county, and built a digital team whose job was recruiting and training volunteers through relational tools and texting. The message and the method matched.
| What should we be doing here? Michigan’s approach is the case for relational organising in a sentence. Peer-to-peer conversations, led by people who share a voter’s identity and concerns, persuade in ways broadcast can’t. Invest in training supporters to listen, and give them more than one way to stay involved after the first action. |
6. New issues create new switchers
In Texas, data centres emerged as a reason for people to switch sides, alongside long-running concerns like immigration enforcement. In Iowa, the state’s unusually high cancer rates became a health story Democrats used to argue voters’ needs were being ignored.
Neither issue was on national strategists’ radar. Both were tangible, local issues new enough that people didn’t yet have a fixed view.
| Watching for local issues in the UK: Start mapping emerging issues where opinion hasn’t hardened. Data centres, water quality, local health services: a new local fight can bring in people who’d never respond to your usual framing. Getting there early is the advantage. |
What should stay in the US
Luckily, not everything we see in US politics travels to these shores. Here are three things that can stay out of UK campaigning:
- Money. Iowa’s Senate race was one of the most expensive in the country, with more than $100m from outside groups on top of the candidates’ own $30m-plus. UK campaigns can’t and shouldn’t try to compete on spend, which makes the low-cost lessons above all the more valuable.
- Decoys and dirty tricks. In Alaska, Republicans accused Democrats of running an identically named “Decoy Dan” candidate to confuse voters, and federal authorities opened a probe. Tactics that erode trust cost everyone.
- Chasing the middle at the expense of your values. Turek drew criticism from his own side over an ad on trans issues. Reaching new audiences is vital to winning, but it can’t come at the cost of alienating the people already on your side.
These campaigns won in places they weren’t supposed to, often with smaller audiences and rougher content than their opponents. It’s the same toolkit that UK charities must use to build power: a clear antagonist, an authentic understanding of what people are feeling, real voices, and supporters equipped to have conversations.
This is a first glance, and we’ll keep digging. Which of these are you already testing?
If you’d like to chat about your campaign plans with our team, get in touch.