Arlington Democrats are turning their attention to attempts to help the national party take back the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 2026.
“We do have our work cut out for us,” said Kip Malinosky, a former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee who chairs its “Beyond Arlington” initiative.
Malinosky spoke at the Nov. 5 committee meeting, a day after Democrats pulled off a string of major wins in state and national races. The theme of the night was “Crushed It.”
While celebrating their wins, Democrats at the meeting began a pivot to 2026.
“It is literally, ‘Welcome to the next election cycle,'” said County Board Chair Takis Karantonis, coming off a major re-election victory.
The party’s sweep of key races in Virginia and beyond has given Democrats hope that they may be able to wrest control of the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority. Malinosky told the local Democratic rank-and-file not to be overconfident, but also not to assume the work can’t be done.
“We can make it happen,” he said of flipping the Senate, which would give Democrats a way to block President Donald Trump’s appointments, including to the judiciary.
How would the party get there? Malinosky laid out this scenario:
- Step 1: Democrats need to hold Senate seats in New Hampshire, Michigan and Georgia and flip seats in Maine and North Carolina that will be on the ballot next November, getting the party to 49 seats
- Step 2: The party needs to focus on flipping Republican-held seats in the GOP bastions of Iowa, Alaska, Ohio and Texas
“None of these states is going to be easy,” Malinosky said, acknowledging it would require “the slow, steady work of convincing people, one at a time.”
At least for now, Beyond Arlington efforts within Virginia do not foresee needing a significant push to get Sen. Mark Warner (D) over the finish line next November. Most analysts see Warner’s re-election chances as secure for now.
The Beyond Arlington initiative, which focuses on downstate and out-of-state competitive races, includes phone-bank operations and door-to-door visits in those communities.
As for the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a thin majority, local efforts in 2026 will be concentrated on a few targeted races, Malinosky said. They’ll begin with an effort in the Dec. 2 special election for the 7th Congressional District in Tennessee, called after the incumbent Republican resigned.
Local Democratic volunteers will be calling people in the district four evenings per week in the lead-up to the special election.
The party is not expecting miracles, as the district in the west-central part of the state gave Donald Trump a 20-point victory margin in 2024. But special elections can be unique events, and “things are going blue,” county party chair Steve Baker said.
Despite the victories of Nov. 4, Democrats face an electorate that has shown itself willing to throw out the old and bring in the new on an almost continual basis for the past decade.
“We have to deliver,” Karantonis acknowledged in his valedictory remarks.
The 2026 campaign season is starting soon: The November 2026 ballot will include single seats for County Board and School Board, where the incumbents are keeping their options open for now.
Neither County Board member Matt de Ferranti nor School Board Chair Bethany Zecher Sutton was on hand at the Nov. 5 meeting of the Arlington County Democratic Committee. Although neither has formally announced plans for 2026, de Ferranti — the County Board’s most senior member with seven years in office — has hinted he leans toward running again.
Sutton was elected to School Board in 2022 and, after the departure of Mary Kadera in late December, will become that body’s senior member.
When those incumbents announce their intentions is up to them, but decisions could come as early as next month. Incumbents’ announcements to the Democratic Committee typically take place between December and March.
This January, Kadera announced she would be leaving the School Board after one four-year term, and County Board member Takis Karantonis announced his re-election bid at the same meeting.
Democrats return to pre-Covid meeting site: Those involved with Arlington Democratic politics in the pre-pandemic era probably felt they were back where they belonged during the party’s November monthly meeting.
For the first time since Covid, the meeting was held at the Ballston headquarters of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) conference center.
“This was home,” Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-3), who spoke at the gathering. “We used to have meetings here every month. We’d have 300 in here.”
There weren’t quite that many people present at the November meeting, but at least 150 filled the main conference room to celebrate the party’s success in the recent elections and begin preparations for 2026.
Even before the pandemic hit, the party had begun rotating its meeting locations in geographically diverse locations countywide.
Upon Covid’s arrival in 2020, Democrats first shifted to online-only meetings, followed by a few months with outdoor gatherings that included a very chilly leadership election in January 2022. Indoor meetings resumed later that year, with an online option also provided.
Even if NRECA resumes its place as a meeting location in the Democratic rotation, it will likely share it with other venues. The party also holds its meetings at Lubber Run Community Center, Dr. Charles Drew Elementary and Innovation Elementary.
