A couple of weeks before the midterm elections, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and implored his party to take advantage of unique opportunities to win elections in the Deep South, insisting that Democrats can “absolutely” win in red states such as South Carolina and Mississippi.

It turns out, Warnock knew what he was talking about — and now he wants to keep going. NBC News reported the day after the midterms:

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., emphasized the need for his party to invest in Southern states as the race for Senate in deep-red Mississippi remains too close to call. […]

“I have been telling my party now for a long time that it needs to invest in the South,” Warnock said in an interview on CNN. “The road to a sustainable Democratic majority in the Congress goes right through the South.”

The skepticism that Warnock has faced is understandable. When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legend has it that the Democratic president turned and said, “There goes the South for a generation.”

The point was hardly subtle: At the time, the Deep South was recognized as a Democratic stronghold, though it was made up of white conservative “Dixiecrats,” who started moving toward the Republican Party as Democrats became the party of civil rights. The change didn’t happen overnight, but in time, the GOP’s stranglehold on the Deep South was obvious — to the point that many in Democratic politics didn’t see the point in even trying to succeed in the region, viewing it as a pointless waste of limited resources.

After Election Day 2026, however, Warnock wants to see a reassessment, and the results bolster his case.

The Senate races, for example, tell a striking story: Democratic candidates won in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas — and in four of those five races, the margin of victory was double digits. There’s a very real possibility that Mississippi’s Senate race will ultimately join the list of Democratic victories, and even the contests in Louisiana and Florida proved far more competitive than most observers expected.

There were related Democratic success stories in gubernatorial races in Texas and Georgia, as well as plenty of down-ballot contests, as Southern voters shifted to an unexpected degree in a blue direction.

Assessing the election results Wednesday morning, The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie described this as “an earthquake in the South,” adding, “With investment — and with laws protecting the right to vote — the whole region could be blue.”

Expect a whole lot of conversations along these lines in the coming days, weeks and months.

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