The November 4 election gave us a huge boost. But for the 2026 midterms, success requires both electoral majorities and preparations for a popular uprising at vote-counting sites, state capitols, courthouses, workplaces, and schools.

The November 4 elections give the opposition to MAGA—and its progressive contingent especially—a huge boost. But in the coming year, the fight against US-style fascism will only intensify, as will contention over how to wage it and what ought to come next.

The election results showed the scale of public disapproval of MAGA’s agenda. They indicated that a substantial majority is willing to turn out to defeat MAGA candidates. And the readiness to not only vote but to actively campaign is strongest among those enthused by progressive standard-bearers like Democratic Socialists of America member Zohran Mamdani, whose big win in New York City was the highlight of the day.

Most of the progressive movement already understands that non-compliance and disruptive protests are needed both to reduce harm and to lay the basis to push MAGA out of power.

But the next year’s challenges are going to be harder. MAGA’s assault on democratic rights and working-class living standards has already included steps to rig the electoral system. The administration is escalating its election interference efforts and preparing to use all means, up to and including outright theft, to ensure that it keeps control of Congress in the 2026 midterms. 

Landslide anti-MAGA ballot totals will be necessary but not sufficient to block those efforts. Preparation for mass action to protect election results—large-scale non-violent civil resistance—must be part of this next year’s to-do list.

Most of the progressive movement already understands that non-compliance and disruptive protests are needed both to reduce harm and to lay the basis to push MAGA out of power. Many are already practicing that level of militancy in defense of immigrants and resistance to National Guard occupations. 

Now is the moment to recognize that the 2026 election is likely to be another “this-is-not-a-drill” test of strength. It will present huge challenges but also opportunities to engage millions in participatory political action. Other experiences in anti-authoritarian resistance have shown that attempts to steal elections can be the trigger for a popular uprising (including something approximating a general strike) that topples an anti-democratic regime—and provides millions with a rich lesson in class struggle in the process. 

Election winds at anti-MAGA’s back

By now readers are familiar with the list of major contests that added up to an overwhelming rebuke of Trump 2.0: Zohran Mamdani scoring more than 50% of the vote to become Mayor-elect of New York City; Democrats winning landslides in races for the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia and the Virginia Attorney General’s office, and capturing two statewide offices in Georgia for the first time since 2006; all the liberal State Supreme Court justices in Pennsylvania retaining their seats; a two-to-one majority voting for California’s temporary redistricting measure to counter the GOP’s Texas gerrymander; and the GOP losing its supermajority in the Mississippi Legislature. 

A few other important points have received less attention:

The GOP candidate for Governor of Virginia made anti-Trans messaging a centerpiece of her campaign.

Her effort tanked so badly even Republican post-mortems admitted it was a losing strategy. And the racist, anti-LGBTQ group Moms for Liberty, which stormed into School Board seats in numerous places after its founding in 2021, lost every one of the 31 contested races its candidates entered. It’s long past time for those who have been silent or wavering on defense of trans rights to get off the fence.

In every contest for which there is data, evidence is strong that Latinos swung heavily toward Democrats this year.

This is a big opportunity for anti-MAGA and for progressives in particular, but taking advantage of it requires abandoning all “demographics are destiny” myths and organizing at the grassroots with a working-class economic agenda as well as an anti-racial-profiling one.

“The Mamdani victory is the revenge of all the campus protesters”

Zohran Mamdani’s win was due to many factors, and several excellent pieces have been published analyzing his victory, the challenges his administration will face, and the lessons to be drawn for work in other localities. (See here, here, and here). Given less attention but crucial is this insight from Mark Naison: “The Mamdani victory is the revenge of all the campus protesters that powerful Israel supporters pushed out of area universities…those protesters and activists who powerful Zionists thought they had neutralized became the heart and soul of an extraordinary get out the vote effort… this election was about Gaza, validating all those who warned, 2 years ago, that a ceasefire was necessary and a genocide was going to take place if people didn’t mobilize to stop it.”

MAGA election interference already underway  

In a best-case voting scenario for 2026, MAGA candidates lose the votes for the majority of House seats, possibly enough Senate seats to flip that chamber, and numerous positions at the state and local level. But due to MAGA voter suppression, interference with fair vote-counting, and potentially outright refusal to certify anti-MAGA victors, those results, especially for federal offices, could well be nullified. 

Election rigging has been part of the Right’s playbook for many years, even before MAGA. Under Trump 1.0, racist gerrymandering became more naked and voter suppression more widespread. Trump 2.0 has now gone further. A 2020 election denier has been appointed to head the “election integrity” office at the Department of Homeland Security, and Justice Department probes and FBI investigations have been launched in attempts to intimidate election workers, who have faced direct threats of violence since 2020 from right-wing non-state actors. Current National Guard and ICE deployments are, among other things, testing grounds for the use of armed force to intimidate voters. The full list of MAGA plans to steal future elections is documented in The Atlantic.

The Brennan Center has published a timeline of all steps already taken to rig elections, and states: “Since day one of his second term, the Trump administration has attempted to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems, targeted and threatened election officials and others who keep elections free and fair, supported people who undermine election administration, and retreated from the federal government’s role of protecting voters and the electoral process.”

All MAGA election-rigging moves are being challenged in the courts. But even if lower courts follow the law and the Constitution and rule these measures illegal, the Federalist Society hijackers who have taken over the highest court in the land are bent on ruling the other way. Most recently, this Gang of Six signaled they will gut what remains of the Voting Rights Act, reinforcing the denial of political representation to people of color, African Americans in the first place.

Fierce primary battles will shape the general 

The first necessary step in stopping the steal is defeating MAGA candidates at the ballot box, with special emphasis in 2026 on flipping the House. Numerous labor, community, and issue-based organizations have already been focused on this and will be intensifying those efforts. 

The 2026 midterms will be shaped by the outcome of the fight over direction currently underway in the Democratic Party. A combative posture toward the Trump administration and MAGA in general characterized the winners from all parts of the party in 2025, from “moderates” like the governors-elect in Virginia and New Jersey to Mamdani in New York. But there are big differences between the programs of those two tendencies. And there is a layer of Democrats who either choose caving over fighting (evident in the shutdown surrender supported by more Dem Senators than those who voted with the GOP) or stay silent when MAGA and the Left square off (Chuck Schumer) or outright ally with MAGA (Cuomo and the big money donors and elected heavyweights who backed him). 

Several organizations are throwing down to support challenges to the business-as-usual Democratic Party. Justice Democrats has so far endorsed four challengers to incumbent mainstream Democrats and is supporting nine progressive incumbents against anticipated challenges from corporate and AIPAC-funded opponents. “Run for Something,” which recruits young progressives to run for office, had 3,000 people sign up since November 4. Democratic Socialists of America, which played the anchor role in Mamdani’s campaign, is energized by his victory and will almost certainly back socialist challengers for numerous House seats in 2026. The Working Families Party will build on important candidate victories in 2025 by recruiting and training candidates for House seats in 2026; two new WFP endorsements have just been rolled out. 

Corporate and centrist Democrats are going to have mega-donors behind them in these battles. But outpourings of people power, like the volunteer energy galvanized by Mamdani, can defeat big money. And only if progressives gain enough strength to shape the 2026 campaign and shape Democrats’ action agenda in its aftermath can the millions alienated from politics as usual be motivated to turn out against MAGA and fight for a post-MAGA government that will deliver for the working class and popular majority.

Mamdani’s campaign models the kind of program insurgents can win on: economic populism, an “affordability agenda” that substitutes big ideas for tinkering around the edges, and an “injury to one is an injury to all” stance that throws no constituency under the bus in the face of MAGA’s racist, sexist, nativist, or homophobic dehumanization. Even on what has long been a third rail in US politics—backing for Palestinian rights—Mamdani’s victory showed that taking that kind of a firm stand is not just morally right, it is a political winner. The movement for Palestinian rights not only was a key factor in Mamdani’s win, it is showing its strength in the number of centrist Democrats who are now saying they will not take donations from AIPAC.

These initiatives…operate on the idea that, “protests ask, resistance refuses.”

Not only Palestine, but US militarism and foreign policy in general is likely to be a topic of heightened struggle between progressives and mainstream Democrats in the next year. Under Trump 2.0, US military interventionism is increasing, not diminishing, with murder on the high seas and threats to attack Venezuela in a regime-change operation the latest flashpoint. Besides this being a case of immoral aggression, there is a long sordid history of strongmen going to war to suppress dissent and “unite the nation.” With leading Democrats still hesitant to take on the National Security State, it will fall to insurgents to prepare the electorate to understand that fearmongering about foreign enemies is a tool used to weaken and divide movements of the popular classes and facilitate a transition to fascist rule.

Year-round organizing and civil resistance  

On the non-compliance and direct-action front, the last few months have seen a dramatic expansion in the number of people being trained and taking to the streets. In July, Indivisible launched its “One Million Rising” campaign to train a mass cohort of people in non-cooperation, civil resistance, and community organizing. The October 18th No Kings demonstrations exceeded the July turnout by several million. Thousands have since taken newly acquired skills to work in community-wide resistance to ICE kidnappings and National Guard occupations.

In the group’s November 6 post-election call, Indivisible’s coordinators stated that, “we’re going to build the kind of popular mass mobilization muscle that is necessary on the back end to resist and repel any [2026 election] sabotage effort.” 

These initiatives and others, such as those launched by Choose Democracy, operate on the idea that “protests ask, resistance refuses.” Building on them and similar efforts month after month is a way to construct a well-prepared body of people located throughout the country and ready to swing into action before, during, and after Election Day 2026.

Of special importance: efforts to build support in the labor movement for protests, including workplace actions against authoritarianism, overlap with and can feed into overall election protection work. Based on a Workers Over Billionaires agenda, May Day Strong, along with numerous partners, organized well-attended protests last Labor Day; plans are for consistent organizing over the coming years on May Days and Labor Days, leading up to coordinated workplace actions by as many unions as possible on Mayday 2028. 

There are also efforts to get a conversation about calling a general strike going in the labor movement. At present, unions and other organizations with a genuine base in the working class are not ready for anything on that scale. But a blatant attempt by MAGA to steal the 2026 election could cause a shift in sentiment and sense of urgency. And whatever was galvanized in 2026 would be important not just for that year but as a valuable “stress test” for 2028.

Intersecting with all of the above are a set of post-No Kings Day suggestions from Eric Blanc for specific action campaigns that could steadily escalate in size and militancy. And a group of organizations have launched the We Ain’t Buying It economic pressure campaign, calling for a boycott of major retailers—including Amazon, Target, and Home Depot—that have caved to Trump and reneged on pledges to support diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. These, or similar ideas, are ways to build protest muscle between now and November 2026, and beyond. 

Defeating the steal

The essential point is that a MAGA attempt to steal the election—if it is called out forcefully as such—has the potential to trigger whole new levels of political action on the part of a majority who voted against MAGA candidates. But that trigger will set off a powerful grassroots explosion only if a contingent of people prepared to engage in disruptive but non-violent protest step up to monitor polling places and protest at vote-counting sites, and provide on-ramps for large numbers of new people to join them. 

MAGA is likely to go all out with its steal—we need to appreciate Steve Bannon’s message to the faithful: “as God is my witness, if we lose the midterms, if we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison—myself included.” 

Under those circumstances, defeating their power-grab will require action of sufficient size, and militancy to convince decisive sections of the ruling class, the military and other armed agencies of government, and the political class that the country will be ungovernable if MAGA’s steal stands. For the US, this would be uncharted territory; the only comparable moment would be the lead-up to and then the waging of the war against the Slave Power. 

It—fascism—can happen here. But the 2025 election results remind us that the potential is there to oust MAGA and push US fascism back to the margins. 

¡No pasarán!

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