Ossoff, El Sayed and Talarico. The Democrats are looking for a figurehead for the post-Trump era, and winning is not enough

Three names stand out above all others: Jon Ossoff, Abdul El Sayed and James Talarico. Then there is a host of rising stars, mainly Democrats, who could become leading figures, and a number of incumbents preparing to set their sights on the 2028 presidential election. America goes to the polls today to elect a new Congress and a large number of state-level officials. A long and heated election campaign is bringing the country new figures who have what it takes to make their mark on the national stage in the coming years. Of course, they must first secure victory, because those who lose after having been in the spotlight risk never getting another chance like the one they have today.

Take the case of Talarico in Texas. Aged 37, the former Presbyterian seminarian who is fuelling Democrats’ hopes of winning a Senate seat that the state has not held since 1988 is on the verge of becoming a national star. The latest polls show him a couple of points ahead of the Republican Ken Paxton, whom Donald Trump has imposed on his party’s voters despite a track record riddled with contradictions. Among young voters, Talarico is the preferred choice of 69 per cent of potential voters and is also attracting interest amongst Hispanics disillusioned with Trump. But Texas has already dealt the Democrats several harsh blows, and if Talarico loses, he could become yet another footnote in the state’s political history, as happened in recent years to Beto O’Rourke.

The same fate, in the event of defeat, threatens to befall El Sayed, the Democrats’ candidate for the highly contested Senate seat in Michigan. While Trump has taken a risky gamble in Texas, the Democrats have done the same in the Great Lakes state, choosing an anti-establishment candidate who is viewed favourably by the almost certain presidential candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the party’s most left-wing faction, but is unpopular with much of the leadership in Washington. The decision by his primary opponent, Haley Stevens, to back the Republican Mike Rogers was the most sensational surprise on the eve of the vote. If El Sayed wins, he will make history and spark an important debate on the party’s direction, shifting it towards the political positions of Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani. But if he loses, there will be a rush to distance themselves from him and make him disappear from the radar.

Ossoff faces no such risk; he is perhaps the real revelation of these elections. He is not a new face – he was already a senator and is seeking re-election, which seems certain in Georgia – but he is the one who has come on the strongest and who has managed to capture the national spotlight with his direct attacks on Trump. He has raised more money than any other Senate candidate, has taken social media by storm with his rhetorical skills, and is set to retain his seat in a state that Trump won in 2024. At 39, with his father’s roots in the Lithuanian Jewish community and his mother’s in Australia, he is being compared to a potential new Obama (even the ‘O’ in his logo resembles that of the former president), and there is a growing belief that he has his sights set on the White House.

Behind the trio of Democratic stars lies a group of political outsiders who have carved out a space for themselves and attracted attention. Here too, the difference will lie in whether or not they manage to seal the deal by winning a seat. The most intriguing case is that of Adam Hamilton in Kansas. Founder of America’s largest Methodist church, with 22,000 congregants on the outskirts of Kansas City, he is challenging Republican Senator Roger Marshall in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. Marshall has dismissed him as ‘too woke for Kansas’; he has retorted that Marshall would even call Jesus ‘woke’. If elected, he will continue to preach around fifteen times a year. Alongside Talarico, he is the face of a religious left that is once again dreaming big, as in the days of Reverend Jesse Jackson.

In Maine, there is Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation lumberjack and former president of the state Senate, who entered the race almost by chance. The original candidate was Graham Platner, the oyster farmer who had trounced Governor Janet Mills in the primaries with 72 per cent of the vote, before withdrawing in July following an allegation of sexual assault, which he has always denied. Jackson has inherited his populist support base and a one-and-a-half-point lead over Susan Collins, who, however, has built her career on defying the polls.

Mary Peltola, the first Alaskan Native to be elected to Congress, seemed set to take the seat from Dan Sullivan. Then, last Wednesday, the New York Times published messages in which members of her campaign discussed recruiting people with the same name as the senator, eventually choosing a retired teacher from Petersburg, Dan J. Sullivan, who actually ended up on the ballot. Party officials were also involved in the exchange. The campaign denies the allegations, and the main source—the former manager who was sacked in August—has attempted to retract her statement. But Trump had already ordered the Department of Justice to seek a block on the certification should Peltola win. If she does win, it will be a victory with an asterisk.

Out on the plains, Dan Osborn is giving it another go in Nebraska as an independent. A former trade unionist who led the strike at Kellogg’s and a Navy veteran, he is neck and neck with Pete Ricketts, so much so that Trump had to rush to Grand Island for a rally. In Iowa, Josh Turek, a two-time Paralympic gold medallist in wheelchair basketball, is fighting for every last vote in his bid to win the seat against Ashley Hinson.

Further south, two women are defying the odds. Annie Andrews, a paediatrician from Charleston, is running alongside Darline Graham, Lindsey’s sister, who was appointed to take his place following the senator’s death and who admitted during the campaign that national security “is not my area of expertise”. In Florida, Angie Nixon, a progressive from Jacksonville who beat Alexander Vindman in the primaries, is chasing Ashley Moody for the seat formerly held by Marco Rubio: one poll puts her level with her opponent, another ten points behind. In a state where the Democrats have not won a Senate race since 2012, even a narrow defeat would make the headlines.

On the Republican side, there are few new faces, and they all bear the same hallmark: that of the president. Vivek Ramaswamy, who previously made a name for himself in the 2024 primaries and during the brief ‘Doge’ era alongside Musk, is running for governor of Ohio against Amy Acton, the former state health director during the Covid pandemic. Trump won Ohio by eleven points, yet the polling average puts her ahead. A defeat there would close quite a few doors. In Florida, Byron Donalds, a staunch loyalist of the President, is set to take up Ron DeSantis’s mantle and become the state’s first Black governor, with an interesting political future ahead of him. In Kentucky, Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL and farmer, is the candidate Trump recruited to oust Thomas Massie: he defeated him in the most expensive primary in the history of the House of Representatives – over $25 million spent on adverts – and on the night of his victory explained that his priority is to advance the president’s agenda. A brief but clear programme.

The exception is Hinson in Iowa. Chosen by Trump to fill Joni Ernst’s seat, in September she publicly called for an end to the war with Iran, which has caused diesel prices to soar in rural areas. If she beats Turek, she will have shown that it is possible to dissent within Trump’s party and still survive. If she loses, the lesson will be the opposite, and many will learn it by heart.

But within the Republican Party, the most revealing result could come from Arizona, and it concerns not so much the candidate as the person who backed him. Andy Biggs, a veteran of the House of Representatives and former head of the Freedom Caucus, is challenging the Democratic governor Katie Hobbs with the support of Trump and, above all, Turning Point, the organisation founded by Charlie Kirk. Kirk had already given him his blessing back in 2025; his widow Erika has confirmed her support, and the movement’s political arm has made ousting Hobbs its national priority, spending $18 million on adverts in a single month. Arizona is their home: their headquarters are in Phoenix, and AmericaFest is held there every December. And it was there, a year ago, that Erika Kirk promised to get Vance into the White House ‘in the most spectacular way possible’. Turning Point is already deploying activists across all 99 counties in Iowa ahead of 2028, and the vice-president appears to make no secret of his intention to make Turning Point the operational base for his next campaign. The problem lies with the polls, which show Hobbs leading by more than ten points. In 2022, the organisation had backed Kari Lake and Blake Masters heavily, only to lose with both. A second home defeat would leave Vance facing an uncomfortable question. Unless, that is, Biggs loses by three points rather than twelve: in which case, Turning Point will claim to have mobilised voters whom the polls fail to pick up.

Finally, there are the governors with presidential ambitions, who on Tuesday evening will not have to wonder whether they have won, but by how much. J. B. Pritzker in Illinois is aiming for a third term – something no Democrat in the state’s history has ever achieved – against the very same Darren Bailey he defeated four years ago. His opponent claims he will stand for president on 4 November, and Pritzker is doing little to deny it: last month he was in South Carolina, the state that will kick off the Democratic primaries in January 2028. Wes Moore is set for an easy win in Maryland, and his game plan is different: as recently as February he was saying “I’m not standing”, yet today he speaks of wanting to be “part of a wider conversation”.

Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania has a 25-point lead over the Republican Stacy Garrity, according to Quinnipiac. In 2022, he beat Doug Mastriano by almost 15 points: anything above that threshold will be seen as a springboard. Meanwhile, he refuses to promise that he will serve his full term. For Shapiro, however, the most significant result of the night could come from outside his home state. As a Jew with close ties to Israel, he aims to lead a party that has split in Michigan precisely over the issue of Israel. If El Sayed wins, that party will be a little less his own.