The midterm election wasn’t just about party. It was about the people who showed up.
By Deb Love, WORC executive director
Last week, we witnessed a staggering shift in our political landscape.
It’s tempting to call the midterm results a “blue wave” since the Democrats benefited mightily. But I’d call it something else. I’d call it a people’s wave, because folks from across the political spectrum and almost every demographic—Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native, Arab, white, old, young, and so on—powered it. And they did so with so much energy and unity that they crashed through the seawalls of the gerrymandered Congressional districts meant to keep those districts safe for one party. Gone was the polarization of the last several elections.
Turnout was the second highest for a midterm in over a century, and voters not only repudiated the current administration for its rampant cruelty and brazen corruption; they also denounced a system that subsidizes more wealth for billionaires and corporations at the expense of the rest of us—at the expense of our healthcare, our housing, our land, our water, our livelihood, and our self-determination.
To call this a blue wave misses the point, and it risks taking us back to a status quo that wages culture wars, promotes divisiveness, and serves political bosses and their corporate underwriters, not the people. Let that status quo be of a bygone era, and let the midterm election results herald the beginning of profound transformation in our country that puts people back in charge of a system no longer rigged for and by corporations and billionaires.
WORC and our member groups didn’t just channel this people’s wave into wins across the Mountain West—we made the investments, built the infrastructure, and did the organizing that shifted the political landscape and made these wins possible.
WORC and our member groups didn’t just channel this people’s wave into wins across the Mountain West—we made the investments, built the infrastructure, and did the organizing that shifted the political landscape and made these wins possible.
Now the work begins to make the cost of living, especially healthcare and housing, more affordable for working families so they can begin to thrive again; to purge the government of the corruption and cronyism that’s fueling the affordability crisis; to return common sense and rationality to our energy, agriculture, and public land policies; to push pause on and create guardrails for data centers and AI; and to restore decency and the rule of law to how our country treats immigrants.
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WORC and our member groups are here for all of it, and we’ll be taking the lead in the coming year to shape a political platform that restores power and prosperity to rural communities throughout our region.
For now, here’s a state-by-state breakdown of the victories WORC and our member groups helped make possible. A huge thanks and congratulations to all the members and volunteers in our network who made these victories possible.
Montana
Perhaps the most notable example of the people’s wave in our region occurred in Montana, where smoke jumper and union leader Sam Forstag won the state’s western Congressional House seat. He’s the first Democrat that Montana has sent to the House of Representatives since Pat Williams was last elected in 1994.
A wildland smokejumper and firefighter, Sam decided to run for the House after DOGE laid off thousands of the lowest-paid Forest Service workers, many of whom he represented as a union leader. He won by focusing on the economic distress Montana’s working families face, running on a message that every American should be able to work one good job and afford healthcare, childcare, housing, and a dignified retirement. Again and again during his campaign, he called out the billionaires and corporate power brokers corrupting our leaders and politics, driving up the cost of housing and healthcare, and building data centers where they aren’t wanted.
One of our voter projects, Montana Rural Voters (MRV), endorsed Sam and went on to build a multilayered electoral program focused on rural voters in 12 counties across western Montana, almost all of which swung Democratic in this election compared to last. Under the leadership of WORC Political Director Gwen Lachelt, Montana Rural Voters developed and executed a comprehensive independent expenditure campaign supporting Sam, targeting rural voters across western Montana with direct mail, phone canvassing, and advertising.
Montana Rural Voters, endorsed Sam and went on to build a multilayered electoral program focused on rural voters in 12 counties across western Montana, almost all of which swung Democratic in this election.
In 2024, Montana Rural Voters Action Fund played an instrumental role in flipping 12 seats in the Montana Legislature—the second-highest number of legislative seat flips in the nation. This year, MRVAF built on that achievement, holding every seat gained in 2024 while picking up at least four more. That’s two consecutive election cycles of significant legislative gains, demonstrating the growing strength and staying power of our rural voter engagement.
Our member group in Montana, Northern Plains Resource Council, organized around and built support for a measure to keep Montana’s Supreme Court nonpartisan, a crucial step to keep the judiciary independent of the legislature and keep politics and corporate influence out of the state’s highest court. The measure won handily with more than 68% of the vote.
Montana also made history by electing the nation’s largest Native American legislative caucus, marking a significant milestone for Indigenous representation and political leadership in state government.
Colorado
The Colorado ballot included a statewide measure to replace the state’s current flat income tax with a graduated income tax. The additional revenue would fund K–12 public education, health care, and early childhood care and education.
Our member group, Western Colorado Alliance, led the rural western Colorado field effort to pass this amendment, talking to thousands of their neighbors about a broken tax code and how they could fix it. They reached 10,000 Western Coloradans from Ouray to Montrose to Glenwood Springs. In a true story of organized people against organized money, thousands of Western Coloradans joined the effort to demand that the system deliver for rural communities and working families.
In a nail-biter, the measure passed with just over 51% of the vote.
In a true story of organized people against organized money, thousands of Western Coloradans joined the effort to demand that the system deliver for rural communities and working families.
The Alliance also prevailed on five ballot measures that defeated polluters and defended funding for public schools and environmental protections. They also celebrated wins that protected funds for schools and libraries in Garfield County and defended the Montrose City Charter against anti-democracy attacks on local elections.
Colorado Rural Voters led the successful effort to flip a Garfield County commissioner seat that had been long dominated by candidates aligned with the oil and gas industry. The victory was the culmination of years of strategic organizing, relationship-building, and sustained investment in the electoral infrastructure that made this historic change possible.
South Dakota
In South Dakota, South Dakota Rural Voters (SDRV) led successful campaigns to defeat two constitutional amendments—one that would have weakened Medicaid expansion and another that would have raised the threshold for approving future constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%.
Learn more:
Stepping Out of Isolation and Into Power
Shared Recall: How a recall brought a rural county together around shared values
Grassroots Democracy Shines in the West with 2025’s Electoral Victories
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