One can be forgiven for thinking the only elections this year that matter are in New Jersey, Virginia, and NYC. The East Coast centric NYT and WaPo have almost exclusively covered these races at the expense of other important ones. I’m no exception having covered NJ and VA heavily and leaving these races with scant coverage for last.
Well, today I will spend a little time covering these other elections and explain their importance. I don’t want to bog you down with the thousands of local races going on so I have limited it to statewide races in four states. California has Proposition 50, Georgia has races for the Public Service Commission, Maine has an anti-voting referendum, and Pennsylvania has some judicial retention elections.
While I have you… here is a chance to start making a difference in taking back the House of Representatives next year by donating to the 30 or so key races!
Take the House in 2026!
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Again: Take the House in 2026!
Win the Majority in 2026!
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Let’s explore all of these below the fold.
California: Proposition 50
I dislike him but kudos to Gov. Gavin Newsom for being willing to push for this to try and save our democracy. Other blue state governors cannot do it or have chickened out.
This election was the brainchild of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Desperate for a way to counteract the mid-decade gerrymander of Texas, the California Democrats gambled on passing a new map that changes the district lines to gain 4 seats and imperil a 5th GOP seat. Every vulnerable incumbent was also shored up.
I was skeptical this would pass at first. We have too many good government “this is BAD!” types in our coalition and the push has been for independent commissions for years. Yet the YES side has successfully turned this sleepy race on the West Coast into a referendum on the Trump regime. All of the caveats seemingly have placated the good government types that could’ve derailed this Proposition entirely.
The GOP has all but given up on trying to fight it on the airwaves. Democrats are still spending millions but the Republicans have spent less than $100k in recent weeks. Now, the only question remaining is whether the referendum will do better than MVP Harris did in 2024 or not.
We need to still run through the finish line and not let up on the gas.
Georgia: Public Service Commission
These elections have been delayed by lawsuits. It could be a preview of races next year in the Peach State.
These offices are responsible for regulating public utilities in the state of Georgia. It is this kind of more local office that makes the impact on citizens and the sort of races where we build a bench in a swing state. The Peach State elects these people statewide despite each person representing a different slice of the state.
There was a very complicated lawsuit that significantly delayed these elections for years. Now, they are finally occurring. This is under the cloud of high voter suppression and racially polarized voting.
As a result, voters across the state will vote for two PSC commissioners this November. While all five seats are currently held by Republicans, Democrats could make some inroads if they can oust the two GOP incumbents who are running to stay on the panel.
Connie di Cicco, political director of Georgia Conservation Voters, the group that brought the unsuccessful lawsuit against the at-large structure, is hopeful that the general PSC elections this fall will attract more attention than usual from voters since they’re the only statewide races on the ballot.
“This election represents… an excellent opportunity for voters to have direct impact on their [electricity] bills,” she said of Georgia’s first PSC elections in five years. “When you have two PSC seats out of five come up for election, … that is real and actual hope for change. It’s more tangible than we have seen in a long, long time.”
Because of the delays, the winners will serve only a ONE YEAR term and face the music again in 2026. We have candidates facing off against each of the two incumbents.
In November, Echols faces Democrat Alicia Johnson, a community development advocate and health care administrator, who didn’t reply to Bolts’ interview request. The winner will serve a five-year term ending in 2030.
Fitz Johnson faces Democrat Peter Hubbard, a clean energy advocate who has worked in solar energy development. HB 1312 provided that the winner of this race would serve just a one-year term, before facing voters again in 2026 for a full term.
Hubbard says he entered the race even knowing he’d only serve a one-year term due to the new election rules.
These elections should be seen as a trial run for the elections of a Democratic governor and Senator Jon Ossoff next year. If we keep it close or even win it will show that 2024 was an aberration and Georgia is a state we need to count on to have a shot at winning the White House and Senate. If the gap is significantly in the favor of the GOP despite the Trump regime being unpopular, that would bode poorly on our chances next year.
Maine: Question 1
Maine conservatives are looking to upend elections in the state with onerous restrictions.
This ballot proposition has totally gone under the radar. It has been pushed by the fascists to “secure Maine elections” by forcing voters to show an ID and restricting mail-in ballots when nearly half the state voted that way in 2024. Trump has repeatedly called for the elimination or drastic curtailment of mail-in voting.
To help older folks and those with disabilities vote, Maine last year established a specific accommodation to allow anyone over 65 or with a disability to make a one-time request to receive a mail ballot without needing to ask again for all future elections. This policy, which the state calls “ongoing” absentee voting, would also be repealed by Question 1.
“We’re not even a voting rights advocacy organization, but we’ve had to become one,” Jess Maurer, executive director of the Maine Council on Aging, told Bolts.
Maurer is also concerned about other provisions of Question 1 that’d require all voters, including those voting by mail, to present a state-issued ID before casting a ballot. Maine does not currently require voters to show ID when voting.
National studies show that elderly voters and voters with disabilities are more likely than others to not have a state ID, in part because they may no longer keep an up-to-date driver’s license. Maurer says research shows Mainers very often stop driving altogether by the time they turn 80, and that a third of people in Maine over 65 have a disability.
The problem? Voter ID propositions are broadly popular with the masses and only one has ever been rejected by the voters nationwide (Arizona, 2022). At stake is the outcome of the Maine elections in 2026 including a critical seat for the Senate that we must win. Not to mention Maine’s 2nd district which may be a must win as well! Voter ID laws hurt our coalition more than it hurts the fascists. The proponents of this measure are counting on low turnout in order to sneak this one by.
Pennsylvania: Judicial Retention Elections
Postcards to Voters reminding people in Pennsylvania to retain the three judges up for retention elections.
What used to be treated as routine is no longer the case. Only one judge nationwide has failed a recent judicial retention election (a moderate judge in Oklahoma). Yet there was a push to recall judges in Arizona last year (failed miserably) and a robust effort to recall judges this year in Pennsylvania.
Still, the stakes next month are high: Three Democratic justices—Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht—are up for retention, meaning voters will decide, in a simple yes-or-no vote, whether or not to keep them on the bench. Republicans are mounting an unusual effort to oust them and deprive Democrats of the court majority they’ve enjoyed for the last decade.
Whether that effort succeeds depends on the right’s ability to shake up a firm status quo—only one state judge has ever lost a retention election in Pennsylvania—by motivating people like those walking the fair in Ephrata. Bolts interviewed more than a dozen voters there, mostly Republicans. Only two of them were even vaguely aware of these supreme court elections, and neither knew the justices’ names or party affiliations. Several said they weren’t planning to vote at all in this off-year election.
“People have no idea,” Way said. “Even informed voters—they just don’t know.”
In a sense, the GOP’s mission is straightforward: If voters remove Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht, the current 5-2 Democratic majority would fall to a 2-2 tie. Republicans would then have a shot at winning an outright majority in the 2027 cycle, in time for the 2028 presidential election.
The court has been sharply divided on issues of voter access, partisan gerrymandering, and other key rulings in recent years. If these 3 judges were to be recalled Pandora’s box could be opened and many of these reforms that keep us competitive in the state could be overturned. Pennsylvania is a state where we need a lot to go right in order to win. These judicial retention elections are an important part of setting the stage for 2026 and beyond.
If you need a guide to even more local and statewide elections, the publication Bolts has you covered. It gets into mayoral, prosecutorial, and other local races that I did not touch. Of particular note are the special elections in Washington state as indicated in this embed.
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The GOP hopes to flip two swing districts in Washington's state Senate in November. In the first round in August, Democrats finished narrowly ahead of GOP opponents but margins were narrow.
All part of our guide of the races to watch this fall.
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— Bolts (@boltsmag.org) October 10, 2025 at 12:00 PM
What other elections are you planning on watching or voting in this November? Please leave a comment describing the contest and its importance to you!
