Are We Breaking the Electoral Ricochet
I’m not putting out a full We Can Stay Human post this week. Life is loud and I didn’t have the bandwidth to build something longer. But I don’t want to let the thread go cold, because something feels like it might be shifting.
Last November, right after the election, I talked about the electoral ricochet, how we keep slamming back and forth between disgust and disappointment, voting against the last administration instead of for a life we can actually live.
This week, I want to name a small, cautious hope: maybe the ricochet is starting to break.
Not because the system suddenly became righteous. Not because the party machines stopped being machines. But because a few candidates are winning attention, and sometimes winning ballots, by making the conversation about kitchen-table survival again: affordability, housing, healthcare, wages, transit, daily dignity.
Here’s what I’m watching:
Maine: Graham Plater is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate after Janet Mills suspended her campaign. If that holds, it’s another signal that “business as usual” isn’t automatically getting the crown.
Denver: Melat Kiros beat Diana DeGette in the Colorado House District 1 Democratic primary (by 28 points) has that unmistakable movement energy, the kind that doesn’t feel like it was manufactured in a consultant lab.
Nebraska: If Dan Osborn’s polling continues to hold (and especially if it improves), it’s another example of a candidate landing not by performing culture-war theater, but by talking about the material conditions people are living inside.
And that’s just a small sample of what we see happening all over the country.
Here’s the throughline: these campaigns aren’t perfect, and they’re not all the same. But they’re leaning into the same basic moral claim: politics should make ordinary life more livable.
That’s what Zohran Mamdani’s campaign in NYC crystallized for me: not just “representation” as a symbol, but representation as a delivery system for relief: free buses, public groceries, rent stabilization, childcare, the stuff that actually changes a Tuesday.
So here’s the personal piece: in Colorado’s Senate primary, I’m planning to vote for Julie Gonzales over John Hickenlooper for this exact reason. Not because one person is going to save us, but because primaries are one of the few places we can sometimes push the ballot toward someone who’s even trying to plant in different soil.
Because yes, we can do a lot to stay human as individuals. But we also need container. We need soil. Putting healthy trees in poisoned ground doesn’t produce a healthy forest.
So my invitation this week is simple:
Look up your next primary election.
Ask: who is actually talking about affordability and daily dignity, not as branding, but as a commitment?
Confirm they're funded not by wealthy corporations and anonymously funded PAC’s, but by you and me (that’s how you know who they serve).
If there’s someone trying to break the ricochet where you live, help them get on the ballot. Vote. Volunteer. Tell a friend. Share their platform.
No grand conclusion this week. Just a hand on the thread, and a question: What if “staying human” also means choosing leaders who are trying to make the ground less toxic?