The Biggest Winners of the Midterms: Jon Ossoff, DSA, and More

Tuesday night was a great night for the Democratic Party: As of the publication of this article, Democrats lead the generic congressional vote by 11.6 points, already outperforming their 8.8-point lead in the RCP Average by nearly 3 points. Their lead will likely expand even further in the coming days as votes from California, which overwhelmingly favor Democrats, continue to trickle in. Even matching their polling lead would have delivered an overwhelming victory.

In terms of its effects on federal politics over the next two years, the Democratic tsunami won’t be dramatically different from the wave that was predicted and is typical of midterm elections. The Trump administration will have to negotiate with a Democratic-controlled House and Senate, which would have been the case whether Democrats won 52 Senate seats or reached the 56 seats they could potentially win as the remaining votes are counted.

However, while Democrats nationally might not necessarily see a huge benefit from their overwhelming margins, aside from having a large enough majority to avoid being hamstrung by a Democratic socialist bloc similar to the Freedom Caucus under Kevin McCarthy’s Republican majority, a few key individuals and groups secured major victories Tuesday. Those victories could affect politics not only over the next two years but also in the election cycles and decades to come.

Sen. Jon Ossoff

Even if Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff had only met expectations Tuesday, he would have been on track to become a top contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. The senator barely survived his first election in 2020, receiving 48% of the vote to Republican incumbent David Perdue’s 49.73% in the general election before winning the Senate runoff by 1.2 points. In 2026, RealClearPolitics rated his re-election race as “Likely Dem,” with Ossoff leading by 8.6 points in the final RealClearPolitics Polling Average in a swing state that Trump won by 2.2 points in 2024.

Ossoff ended up winning by 18 points, receiving 59% of the vote to Republican Rep. Mike Collins’ 41%. The 9.4-point difference between the final RCP Average and the election results was the second-largest polling miss of the cycle, behind only Texas, where James Talarico outperformed the polls by 9.5 points. The RCP Average had Talarico leading by 2.6 points, while he currently leads by 12.1 points.

Overperforming already bullish polls by such a large margin in Georgia, a swing state demographically similar to North Carolina, though with a larger black population, gives Ossoff a strong case to make heading into the Democratic presidential primaries. With candidates expected to begin announcing their campaigns soon, Ossoff can point to his overwhelming victory in a state that voted for Trump just two years earlier.

Betting markets agree that Tuesday was a good night for Ossoff’s 2028 presidential prospects. On Monday, Vice President JD Vance was the individual front-runner to win the 2028 presidential election, with an 18.4% chance, followed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 12.2%, and Ossoff at 11.5%. Following the elections, Ossoff’s odds rose dramatically, making him the new front-runner with a 21% chance of winning, followed by Vance at 17% and Ocasio-Cortez at 13%. The Democratic Party’s overall chances of winning the 2028 presidential election remain high, at 68%.

Democratic Socialists of America

All five congressional candidates endorsed by the national Democratic Socialists of America won their elections Tuesday. An additional five candidates received endorsements from local DSA chapters, three of whom have won. Of the remaining two, one lost in Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District to Republican Steve Scalise, who defeated Lauren Jewett by 27 points, a closer margin than his 43-point win in 2024. The other race, California’s 7th Congressional District, remains undecided, with only 49% of the vote counted, though Sacramento DSA-endorsed candidate Mai Vang is trailing 57.4%-42.6%.

Almost all the national DSA endorsements came in races where the seats were considered safe for Democrats. This is partly because those districts are where the most progressive members of the party can win elections, but also because DSA members want to demonstrate that their endorsements aren’t political liabilities.

When Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon, who joined the DSA in June 2026, was being considered by the organization for endorsement, some members expressed skepticism, arguing that “Nixon will probably lose, we can’t save her campaign as DSA alone, and an endorsement advances the narrative that DSA can’t win in swing states.” Nixon ultimately lost to Republican Ashley Moody by 2.9 points.

Another important victory for the DSA was the margin by which Democratic Sen.-Elect Abdul El-Sayed defeated Mike Rogers in Michigan. Before the election, concerns remained that El-Sayed could underperform his 5.3-point lead in the RCP Average, as he had during the Democratic primary. In that race, polls had shown El-Sayed leading by 10.2 points, but he ultimately won by just 1 point. In the general election, however, the opposite occurred. El-Sayed won by 7 points, outperforming the final polling average by 1.7 points.

Despite not receiving a DSA endorsement or being a card-carrying member himself, El-Sayed campaigned with DSA-affiliated streamer Hasan Piker during the primary, a decision that some viewed as a potential liability in the general election. Clips of Piker making controversial statements, including “America deserved 9/11,” were used against El-Sayed because of his association with the streamer. After the primary, El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker, saying in August that he had “no plans” to campaign with Piker during the general elections, plans that he followed.

However, the controversy wasn’t enough to sink his campaign, as El-Sayed ultimately won by a comfortable margin in a state that was highly competitive in the 2024 presidential election. Such a strong performance by El-Sayed and the DSA-endorsed candidates indicate that the DSA and very progressive wings of the Democratic Party are here to stay.

Democrats in 2028 and beyond

While the exact size of the Democrats’ Senate majority won’t make an enormous difference in the house and Senate over the next two years, such a large victory in 2026 will significantly improve the party’s Senate electoral math heading into 2028.

If Democrats Mary Peltola and Scott Colum win their races, as currently projected, Democrats will hold a 56-44 Senate majority. In 2028, to even scrape back a 50-50 Senate – which would require Republicans to also control the vice presidency to cast the tiebreaking vote – Republicans would need to hold their Senate seats in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alaska, and Iowa while flipping Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Ohio and New Hampshire, a seat Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan won re-election by 9.1 points in 2022.

While not technically impossible, this would require a Republican wave comparable in magnitude to the Democratic victory on Tuesday. The challenge is compounded by the historical difficulty of the sitting president’s party retaining the White House when the incumbent is not running for reelection. Since Herbert Hoover’s victory in 1928, only one non-incumbent candidate has succeeded a president of the same party: George H.W. Bush in 1988, when Ronald Reagan had a 57% approval rating.

Even if Republicans manage to win all 10 of the aforementioned Senate seats, they would still need to win the presidency to secure control of the Senate. That would require Republicans to accomplish something the sitting president’s party has managed only once in nearly 100 years.