We invested early. Our candidates delivered.

On Tuesday night, The Next 50’s candidates won 37 races and lost one, with two still being counted. That brings our general election record this cycle to 48–1, including a perfect 10-for-10 in 2025: a 98% win rate in general elections. Across all 55 endorsements we made this cycle, primaries included, we won 90% of our races.

Our candidates helped flip legislative chambers in eight states, won congressional seats in deep-red territory, and ran some of the biggest upsets in the country. This cycle we contributed more than $1 million directly to our candidates for the first time, more than double what we did in the 2024 cycle, and helped bundle significantly more.

Our model works because we move early and with conviction.

The Next 50 doesn’t wait for a race to become a target. We find leaders under 50 before the field is settled. We make early, high-conviction investments when our support can be outcome-determinative in a race. And we stay with our leaders across cycles, including after a loss.

This cycle tested every part of that model. We were on Zach Dembo’s and Brian Poindexter’s teams before the DCCC added them to Red to Blue. We backed Cait Conley on day two of her campaign, when the field was far from settled. And we went 6-for-6 in congressional primaries, making early endorsements in some of the most competitive contests, putting our candidates on the general election ballot in the seats that decided the majority.

These wins were built over multiple cycles.

Tuesday’s victories didn’t begin on election night. They began when we identified exceptional leaders, often becoming their first national endorsement, and kept investing in them.

• State Rep. Dante Pittman (NC) helped break a Republican supermajority in North Carolina two years ago. On Tuesday, he helped deliver a Democratic majority in the North Carolina House.
• Lieutenant Governor-Elect Sandra Jauregui (NV) had our support in her previous two runs for the Nevada Assembly, which were competitive elections. We endorsed her on the first day of her campaign for Lieutenant Governor. 
• State Rep.-Elect Kristian Carranza lost her 2024 race for the Texas House. We encouraged her to run again, and she won with more than 60% of the vote.
• Congresswoman-Elect Sarah Trone Garriott had our support in competitive Iowa state Senate races before she ran for Congress. Our work early with her helped clear her primary field, setting her up for success in the general election. On Tuesday, she flipped Iowa’s 3rd District.

We helped build majorities in eight states.

The Next 50’s candidates won pivotal Governors races and legislative races in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Georgia, helping Democrats take control of chambers, often for the first time in decades. In Wisconsin, when we backed Democratic Leader Greta Neubauer in 2024, she led her Assembly caucus to ten pickups, putting a majority within reach in the next cycle. On Tuesday, Neubauer and Robyn Vining, an Assembly member who ran for a must-flip Senate seat, helped Democrats win both chambers and, with TN50 candidate David Crowley’s election as governor, a trifecta in Wisconsin for the first time in two decades. In Michigan, Anna Aho Rink flipped a state House seat in the Upper Peninsula, helping Democrats retake the House and, with Jocelyn Benson‘s win for the Governor’s race, regained the trifecta after losing it in 2024. We’ve been with Benson since 2022 when she ran for re-election as Michigan Secretary of State.

Across the map, our candidates delivered where it mattered: Zack Dunn and Kristian Carranza in Texas; Jen Fox in Minnesota; Rebecca Harned in New Hampshire; State Rep. Lorena Austin and Jacob Martinez in Arizona; and State Rep. Sam Park in Georgia.  

Our candidates ran some of the biggest upsets in the country.

Of the 35 biggest congressional flips called as of Wednesday, ranked by how much the Republican candidate won the seat by last cycle, six are The Next 50 candidates.

Candidate	Seat	2024 margin	2026 margin	% Swing
Zach Dembo	KY-06	R+26.1	D+9.4	35.5
Cait Conley	NY-17	R+6.3	D+4.4	10.7
Christina Hines	MI-10	R+6.1	D+3.4	9.5
Rebecca Bennett	NJ-07	R+5.4	D+15.7	21.1
Sarah Trone Garriott	IA-03	R+3.8	D+7.0	10.8
Paige Cognetti	PA-08	R+1.6	D+8.8	10.4

The Next 50’s candidates who ran in districts impacted by the Republican mid-cycle redistricting gambit also tell a similar story. 

In Alabama, incumbent Congressman Shomari Figures won reelection in a district Republicans redrew after the Supreme Court’s Callais decision weakened Voting Rights Act protections. The new map reduced the district’s Black population from 47% to 40% and shifted it toward Republicans; Donald Trump would have carried it by 14 points in 2024. Many political prognosticators counted Figures out, but he stayed focused on delivering for Alabamians – including meaningful work to protect beef farmers from tariffs and keeping a rural hospital from closing. And we stayed focused on supporting him. Figures won by about eight points—a swing of roughly 22 points in margin compared with the presidential result. In Texas, prosecutor Zack Dunn flipped a San Antonio-area House seat that Democrats had not held in 45 years. 

In Kentucky, Zach Dembo, whom The Next 50 backed in July, won with 52.7% of the vote—nearly 16 points more vote share than the Democratic nominee received in 2024. In New Hampshire, Harned won with 51.8%, more than seven points above the Democratic candidate’s share in her district two years ago. 

Our candidates connected the cost of living to the corruption keeping families from getting ahead – and it resonated.

People weren’t just frustrated by high prices. They were angry that no matter how hard they worked, they couldn’t get ahead, and that the system worked for the wealthy and well-connected instead. We backed candidates who made that case credibly in places the party often writes off.

• Paige Cognetti ran for mayor of Scranton with the slogan “Paige against the machine,” as an independent to clean up corruption, then brought that fight to Congress. Her anti-corruption agenda called for banning congressional stock trading and corporate PAC donations, connecting the influence of money in politics to the needs of working families.
• Zach Dembo, a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor, ran on a plan to put Washington corruption on trial. He called for getting dark money out of politics and closing the revolving door to lobbying, and won in a deep-red district.
• Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and local council member, ran on an economy and a government that work for workers, not billionaires. He spoke from his own experience of the squeeze on working families and won a congressional seat in a district Trump carried by 11 points.

The bottom line: we’re building the bench that Democrats need.

That’s our theory of change at work: find leaders under 50 early, invest when we can be a force multiplier, and stay with them as they grow from a tough state house seat in the minority to a majority, to Congress, and beyond. A bench isn’t built in one night; it’s built one early bet at a time, over years. These leaders will now shape their states’ laws and maps, and many will be on the ballot again in 2028, some for higher office. Finding next cycle’s most principled, pragmatic, and energetic leaders starts today.