Why 2026 Is The Most Important Election of the Decade

Editor’s Note

There are elections that feel like they're about the next four years. And then there are elections that feel like they're about the next hundred. We believe 2026 is one of those elections.

That may sound like a big claim. It is. But the case is simple: what happens this November will determine whether Democrats can still win a majority in the Georgia House by the end of this decade. (And yes, we all want to flip 10 seats now! Yesterday! But at a minimum, we have to stay on track to win the majority. Another generational failure is not an option!) 

The decisions made by the people we elect this year will not only help determine how Georgia responds to today’s crises, but also a decade of changes we can barely begin to predict.

But first, let’s go back to 2023, when four folks from Athens and Oconee got together in a room – and decided Georgia's maps didn't have to look the way they looked.

We didn't have money. We didn't have a plan beyond that room. What we had was each other, and the belief that grassroots organizing could still build real power in this state.

Three years later, our four co-founders are fighting harder than ever. Harold and Terry now run the Oconee County Democrats. Talk about punching above your weight. Every. Single. Cycle. That’s the Oconee Dems. That’s Harold and Terry. Eric sits in the State Legislature, having flipped a +12 Trump District last December. Fighting for his own reelection, he’s left a glowing, trailblazing path for Georgia Democrats across the state to follow. We can do this. This is how.

Our former Program Director, Caitlyn Gegen, is the Democratic nominee for Georgia's 9th Congressional District. Our student alumni have gone on to Ossoff Fellowships, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Senate Youth Program, and the UN Human Rights office in Geneva. 

We have students from UGA, Emory, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Duke, and Oconee County High School all working together on Battleground State House races.

In 2024, we helped flip HD-56 back to blue, and helped Michelle Kang and Ashwin Ramaswami post the largest vote-share gains of any State House and State Senate candidates in Georgia. 

And now here we are, in 2026, closer than we've ever been. Michelle Kang in HD-99. Farooq Mughal in HD-105. Beth Fuller in HD-53. Ethan Wolfe and Harry James in Southwest Georgia. Five seats that decide if the path to majority in the State House stays alive into 2027 – or not.

But to win all five of those seats, we must close strong. And for that, we need the one thing that's carried us since that living room in 2023: 

You.

Most grassroots political movements are flashing lights—they spark for one election cycle, burn through their cash, and disappear within 18 months. But because of donors like you, we haven't just survived; we've defied the political gravity that pulls down most grassroots, youth-led PACs. We are officially in our 4th year of fighting for Georgia's most flippable districts.

Below is our donate button. If you don’t want to donate now, that’s ok. There’ll be another button at the bottom. In the meantime, it’s up to us to make the case in the next 3000 words why we need your support, and what it takes to get our team through the finish line. On with the show.

The 30,000-Foot View: Why These Five Seats

What total Republican control after 2030 means: they draw the next decade's maps too, locking in power through at least 2034, most likely. 23 years becomes 31. GA already ranks 49th in healthcare, 49th for workers, 39th for children. We have the lowest minimum wage in the country, a six-week abortion ban, and a $14 billion surplus – but no political will to meaningfully use it. 

In a November General Election, in the last 16 years, Georgia Democrats have flipped 19 State House seats from Republicans. All but 3 of those fit one of two patterns: the district had gone Republican by single digits the cycle before, or Democrats hadn't fielded a candidate the cycle before. That's 84 percent of every flip on record. All five of The 2030 Projects Battleground districts fit one of those two patterns.

Why the State House, specifically? Because it's the one lever of power that matters regardless of who wins the Governorship. The maps for the next decade will be drawn by whoever holds the legislature. The current State Senate map is rated an F by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, leaving the State House, rated as a B, as the most viable path.

The math is simple: for Democrats to attain the majority by the end of 2030 means we need a net gain of 10 seats. This November is the first of three remaining chances to get there. Fail to get there, Republicans redraw the maps again, and the boulder rolls back down the hill. Again. 

Our five seats, HD 53, 99, 105, 151, and 154, represent a pivotal turning point between a viable path to a legislative majority and a decade of absolute political lock-out. Flipping these five seats streamlines the opportunity to a 2030 majority, absorbing the impact of anticipated Republican redistricting. Alas, if we fall short with only three flips, the 2030 majority opportunity greatly decreases and Republican redistricting increases. This would push the 2028 cycle threshold to a potential 11-seat requirement, which seems unattainable given the current political landscape.

The bottom line? Without a net gain of at least 5 seats, we’ll most likely find ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder with Sisyphus in 2031. Again.

The Obvious and Not-So Obvious Stakes

The Obvious

Democrats in the State House have pushed for expanding Medicaid, protecting reproductive healthcare access, strengthening public schools and teacher pay, and addressing Georgia's affordable housing shortage. Electing more Democrats – either by taking the majority or edging closer to it – creates a more viable path for passing policies that improve people’s daily lives.

These are not abstract policy debates. They shape whether families can afford healthcare, students have well-supported schools, and working Georgians can find a place to live.

The Governor's office carries the same stakes, at a different level. A Democratic governor can expand Medicaid without years of legislative pressure forcing the issue, appoint agency heads who enforce reproductive healthcare protections instead of rolling them back, and set budget priorities that put public education and affordable housing at the center instead of the margins. What the legislature passes, the Governor signs or vetoes. Both offices are shaping the same set of outcomes, from two different directions.

But there is another, less obvious stake: the maps themselves. None of these priorities can become law without the seats to bring them to the floor.

And the lawmakers who control the State House in 2031 will have an important role in determining Georgia's legislative districts for the following decade. That means flipping five or six seats by 2030 is not simply about passing legislation in one session, but about determining which communities have a voice, which policies receive a hearing, and what Georgia's political landscape looks like for years to come.

The Not So Obvious

Last week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and made bold claims that Anthropic and other AI companies lack adequate safety measures for the rate at which AI software is developing. Safety researcher Evan Hubinger backed this claim, giving a greater than 10% chance that models will cause extinction within the next decade. 

This week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged the industry to slow down to buy time to establish safety measures in response to the uproar from Coxon’s revelation. Amodei warns that AI models could swarm the internet with agents, effectively taking it over, as soon as within 6 months. Many other industry executives, such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman, backed this proposal.

The AI threat is here; whether through draining our natural resources or unchecked, dangerous, and rapidly developing sentient AI, the problem is clearer now than ever. On Tuesday, President Trump responded, calling the whole ordeal a hoax “being perpetrated by the Radical Left Democrats”. The Republicans have followed suit, with Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson investing in data centers and pitching them in rural communities during his campaign. Mike Collins, the challenger to Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff’s seat, has used AI videos falsely depicting him supporting government shutdowns and mocking rural Georgians. 

Despite American citizens’ demonstrated concern, and tech moguls coming out and reinforcing fears, Republicans have made clear they will not engage in effective legislative oversight.  

This is just another stake on the ballot this year. The professionals have said it as it is– we need guardrails. Republicans have offered quips instead of legislation, but the people have the power to choose legislators who take the issue seriously and provide real action instead of just covering their tech donors’ hides. States have already begun taking action in writing rules regarding data privacy, AI oversight, and algorithmic accountability, because Congress and the federal government refuse to do so. In Georgia, we have the opportunity to decide whether or not we join other states in protecting ourselves, or let AI run rampant. This November, we vote like the future’s on the line– because it very well might be.

The Climate Crisis

Picture a car that's not just moving; it's pressing the gas pedal down harder every year. That's what's happening to the planet's warming right now. Researchers at the Potsdam Institute confirmed this August that the rate of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015, from roughly 0.2°C per decade between 1970 and 2015 to about 0.35°C per decade over just the last ten years. That's not a projection or a worst-case model; it's a measurement, confirmed with better than 98% statistical certainty across five separate datasets. It's not just that things are getting hotter. It's that the speed at which they're getting hotter has picked up sharply in just the last decade, the equivalent of that car pressing the pedal down further, year after year. 

Georgia's legislature already writes the rules that actually matter here: utility regulation, disaster resilience funding, coastal and agricultural adaptation, quietly, the same way it's shaping AI oversight while national attention stays somewhere else entirely. None of that changes because the news cycle is elsewhere. It changes because of who holds the State House. The pace of the crisis is accelerating, and so is the redistricting clock. That makes whoever controls the State House after November more consequential, because the next decade of Georgia's response to a faster-moving crisis gets decided by whoever's in the room when the rules are written.

Meet the 5 Republicans We’re Defeating in November

Georgia ranks 49th in overall healthcare ranking. According to the Oxfam’s Work Index, Georgia is ranked 46th out of 52 jurisdictions with regard to its overall workforce environment. For overall child and family well-being, Georgia ranks 39th out of 50 states. 

While these numbers may be shocking, this didn’t happen by accident. There are people who have been in power while Georgia gets increasingly more expensive and more folks get left behind. These statistics are a result of the choices GOP lawmakers make every day. If these lawmakers are reelected, these issues won’t go away; rather, they will be further amplified as Republicans continue to underserve and harm Georgians.

House District 105: In 2022, Democrat Farooq Mughal won this seat by 701 votes. Republicans then redrew the map to oust him, and in 2024 Republican Sandy Donatucci won this seat by 80 votes. In her first year in office, Donatucci didn't just vote for a bill targeting transgender kids in school sports; she helped write it. That's the priority she chose to spend her freshman term on, not affordability, not healthcare, a culture-war bill with her name on it as a sponsor. The Democratic challenger for this seat is once again Farooq Mughal.

House District 154: Republican Gerald Greene ran in 2024 uncontested. In the previous election in 2022, Greene won by 2718 votes. Greene is a long-serving Republican who has been in the Georgia House since 1983. In 2025, Greene voted yes to the Republican backed tort-reform legislation, changing the rules governing civil lawsuits and limiting the rights of citizens in the process. The Democratic challenger for this seat is Harry James. 

House District 99: Republican Matt Reeves won his seat by 621 votes in 2026, defeating Democrat Michelle Kang. Reeves has voted to strip healthcare from transgender inmates, expand mandatory cash bail, and impose mandatory minimum sentences. Matt Reeves isn't just voting on Georgia's future; he's on the committee drawing the map for it. That's exactly why this seat can't wait another cycle. The Democratic challenger for this seat is Michelle Kang.

House District 53: Republican Deborah Silcox won her election by 1351 votes in 2024. After losing her 2020 re-election bid in a different district, Silcox refused to concede for over six months, following a lawsuit alleging voter fraud in that race. The lawsuit was later dismissed by the Georgia Supreme Court. Silcox has voted to criminalize sheriffs who won't cooperate with federal immigration agents, to fund private school vouchers with public money, and to target prosecutors she disagrees with. Sandy Springs deserves a representative who accepts election results and represents the whole district, not just the base she's legislating for. The Democratic challenger for this seat is Beth Fuller. 

House District 151: Republican Mike Cheokas won in 2024 after an uncontested election. Originally a part of the Democratic Party, Cheokas switched to the Republican Party in 2010. The Democratic challenger for this seat is Ethan Wolfe, a thirty-year Air Force veteran. Wolfe had a 128-vote higher turnout than Republican Cheokas in the May primary.

Look at those numbers again: 80 votes. 621 votes. 1351 votes. Uncontested twice over. These aren't safe seats; they're seats nobody's finished fighting for yet. That ends this November.

Meet the 5 Democrats We’re Electing in November

House District 105: Meet Farooq Mughal, a former incumbent who, as a freshman legislator, passed eight bipartisan bills focused on reducing the cost of living, protecting utility and hospital workers, and ensuring public safety. Farooq won his 2022 election despite a Republican +4.6 generic ballot, and came within 80 votes in 2024 in an environment that favored Republicans by 5.2 points. 

House District 99: Michelle Kang is a first-generation Korean immigrant who moved to Georgia in 1992 and has spent more than three decades building a life and a small business in the community she's now running to represent. District 99, covering Suwanee, Sugar Hill, and parts of Duluth, is one of the most diverse districts in the state, and Michelle's campaign has leaned into that directly, building support across the district's Korean, Hispanic, and Black communities rather than banking on any single voting bloc. She's fighting to improve the lives of working families by making housing and childcare more affordable, expanding healthcare coverage, and reducing the tax burden on average Georgians. 

House District 154: Harry James is challenging a seat Democrats didn't contest in 2024. Democratic primary turnout outpaced Republican turnout in the district this cycle by over 1200 votes. This district was won by Ossoff in 2020, Warnock in 2022, and Harris in 2024, all with 51%.

House District 53: Beth Fuller, a public health professional with more than 25 years of experience advocating for healthier communities, is running to bring real-world public health expertise to the Georgia State Capitol. Beth's own decision to run traces back to losing her CDC contract, a firsthand look at how quickly public health work can get gutted by decisions made far from the communities they affect. She's running so those decisions get made by someone who's actually done the work, not someone who's never had to. Beth dominated her primary in a district where Democrats came within 1,351 votes of flipping in 2024.

House District 151: After 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, Ethan Wolfe came home to Sumter County and his grandparents’ farm that dates back to the 1940s. He's spending this campaign the way he spent his career, showing up in person, county by county, building real relationships. Ethan starts from a strong position, backed by a growing list of union and advocacy endorsements and a message built around jobs, housing, schools, and Medicaid expansion. He’s built a campaign that has made HD-151 genuinely winnable this November. 

Republicans won this seat uncontested in 2024. This cycle, Democratic primary turnout outpaced Republican turnout by 128 votes, a real sign this seat is flippable with hard work.

Five districts. Five qualified, public service first candidates. A political environment shifting in Georgia's direction for the first time in years. None of that wins in November on its own. Every one of these races was either decided by fewer than 1,400 votes, or went uncontested in 2024.

Five candidates, five winnable districts, and 47 days to make sure winnable turns into won.

How You Can Help

If you’re reading this, you’ve helped us since the beginning, and here’s our closing ask to get our candidates over the finish line in November:

$1,500.

Not a typo. Not a placeholder waiting on another zero. $1,500 is our ask to get gas in the tank for Michelle and Farooq & postcards in the mail for Beth, Ethan, & Harry over the next 47 days.

I know. A newsletter about the most important election of the decade, and the ask is gas money and stamps. That's not a metaphor; that's genuinely what $4-a-gallon gas and $0.65 stamps add up to when you're helping five campaigns at once. It's not glamorous. It's also completely non-negotiable, because a canvasser without gas money doesn't knock doors, and a campaign without stamps doesn't reach anyone it hasn't already met.

And the people doing that knocking and mailing are young organizers, learning to build and run winning campaigns in real time. That's not incidental. That talent pipeline is part of what your $1,500 builds too.

And the voters on the other end of those stamps aren't a hard sell. Gated communities in Beth's district. Rural voters across Ethan's district, a district bigger than Rhode Island. Harry's district, carried by Ossoff in 2020, Warnock in 2022, Harris in 2024, every single time at 51%. We're not asking people to consider something new. We're asking them to vote for true public servants.

That's our Must Have. Everything past $1,500, more postcards, more canvassing days, events and digital support – maybe pitching in to help one more candidate – is our Nice to Have.

One more thing, and I mean this: this isn't going to a list of a million people. It's going to you, and about 3,300 other people. That’s our mailing list. Most folks won't open this. That's fine. It just means your $25 isn't a rounding error – it's a real piece of whether we hit $1,500 at all.

Three years ago, four of us sat in a room with nothing but an idea. It didn't become anything real until people like you decided it was worth building too. 47 days left. 

Let's finish it the same way we started it – together. 

What Your Support Already Built

Thanks to your generous contributions, a team of hard-working, motivated, and passionate young Democrats has been able to give their all towards flipping the Georgia State House by 2030. Your commitment to the 2030 Project has also allowed us to support some of the best candidates we have ever seen step up to run for public office. 

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