Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak received national attention last week for vetoing a bill aimed at reforming the Electoral College. State lawmakers approved a measure that would have added Nevada to the popular vote interstate compact, pledging its six electoral votes to whoever wins the nationwide popular vote. Fourteen states plus the District of Columbia, comprising 189 electoral votes, have signed the compact. Once the compact reaches the threshold of 270 votes, it would theoretically render the Electoral College obsolete.

Sisolak said he opposed the bill because it “could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada’s electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose.” Proponents still weren’t thrilled. New York magazine’s Eric Levitz wrote that it was “rather dispiriting to hear a Democratic governor echo one of the dumbest arguments in contemporary American politics.” ThinkProgress’ Danielle McLean warned that Sisolak had “made the road to giving all Americans a voice in the process much more difficult.”

While the compact’s defeat in Nevada may have been dispiriting to national observers, its failure shouldn’t be their biggest takeaway from the state’s legislative session. Democratic lawmakers, fresh off their clean sweep in last year’s elections, advanced progressive legislation on multiple fronts, including abortion rights, criminal-justice reform, labor rights, gun control, and more. Those victories show what other former red states can accomplish if and when Democrats secure power there.

A reliably Democratic Assembly is all that’s kept Nevada from being controlled by Republicans for the past three decades. As of last year, it had been run by Republican governors since 1999, and the Senate had been controlled by Republicans for 11 of the 16 legislative sessions dating back to 1987. The GOP even held unified control of Carson City as recently as 2016-2017—something the Democrats hadn’t enjoyed since 1992.

But in November’s midterms, thanks in part the anti-Trump “blue wave,” Nevadans handed Democrats a trifecta: full control of the state legislature, and installing Sisolak as governor. State Democrats broke other barriers, too. Women currently hold 52 percent of the seats in the Assembly and the state Senate, creating the first majority-women state legislature in American history. Lawmakers told The Washington Post last month that the gender shift reshaped the legislature’s approach to countless issues during this year’s session, from women’s health to gun violence.