We’ve lost another election. Here’s what we do next.

We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.

Progressive democrat Hiral Tipirneni was defeated in April’s Arizona’s congressional special election. It was a close thing and, according to the press, this is good news for Democrats. Media organizations like CNN and FiveThirtyEight jumped on the results, eager to measure the electoral swing from red to blue. But I don’t want to talk about the numbers. I don’t want to reduce these campaigns and volunteers to a mere ‘data point’. I want to talk about the hundreds of hours spent on each campaign. I want talk about how we can learn from our losses, and what we can do with the resources we already have.

Photo by Mirah Curzer on Unsplash

Last night night Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia voted in their primaries. Nearly every candidate backed by progressive PAC Our Revolution lost their primary, joining dozens of others who ran and lost in special elections this year. So what do we do when we lose our elections? What should the candidates do? Should Tipirneni slip back into her job as a physician until the next election? Should Indianan Sue Spicer stop her fight to get money out of politics? No. There’s still a lot of work to do.

We’ve lost the election. Here’s what we do next: