Decency, Diversity Over Dollars Win The Midterms

By Laurel Donnellan

I woke up today to a country that said something clear, and it wasn’t what the biggest checks paid for.

Democrats took both the House and the Senate. But the story I am more interested in is not the party math. It is who won, who they beat, and how much money was stacked against them. I have watched a lot of election nights, and this one deserves a closer look beyond party lines; voters choose leaders who better represent them and a more caring, diverse electorate. 

The Money Was Not Close

Going into Election Day, the 50 biggest donors had put nearly $2.4 billion into these midterms. Of the top 50 donors, Republicans far outpaced Democrats, giving $1.54 billion this cycle compared to $590 million, according to Spectrum News, citing Federal Election Commission filings. That is about $2.60 for every $1.

At the top of the list is Elon Musk. By late October, he had given more than $445 million to Republican candidates and causes, Bloomberg reported. That made him the single biggest disclosed donor of the 2026 midterms, and by several counts the largest single donor in any midterm on record.

Democrats have big donors too; George Soros gave $102 million on their side. I raise it because the numbers set up a simple test. If money decides elections, Tuesday should have gone the other way.

Texas Was The Test

Nowhere was that test plainer than here in Texas. Musk put $158 million into a Republican-backed super PAC, which passed the same amount to a group backing Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate.  Paxton lost. James Talarico won, the first Democrat to take a Texas Senate seat since 1988. 

Texans also elected Gina Hinojosa, a state representative who ran on education reform. She will be the state’s first Latina governor and the first woman to lead Texas since 1995. Only two other Hispanic women have ever served as governor in any state, both in New Mexico. 

I live just outside Austin. I know my neighbors. What moved them this year did not come from a television ad.

Diversity Showed Up And Won

Leadership faces changed on Tuesday night, and the change crossed party lines. Here is what voters did:

Governors

• Georgia: Keisha Lance Bottoms becomes the first Black woman governor in our nation’s history (NPR). All 83 of Georgia’s previous governors were white men (NBC Washington).
• New Mexico: Deb Haaland becomes the first Native American woman governor (NPR).
• Texas: Gina Hinojosa becomes the state’s first Latina governor (Axios).
• Florida: Byron Donalds becomes the first Black Republican ever elected governor. The only Black Republican governor before him, P.B.S. Pinchback, was appointed in Louisiana during Reconstruction (Stateline).
• Wisconsin and Nevada: David Crowley and Aaron Ford become their states’ first Black governors (CNN).
• Ohio: Amy Acton becomes the state’s first woman governor and its first Jewish governor (ABC7).
• California: Xavier Becerra becomes the state’s first elected Latino governor (CNN).
• By the numbers: Before Tuesday, the country had elected only three Black governors in 250 years (NBC Washington). In January, five will serve at once (The Washington Post). At least 17 women will lead states, about a third of the country, breaking the old record of 14 (NBC News).

Senate

• Three Black women at once: Juliana Stratton’s win in Illinois means three Black women will serve in the Senate together for the first time. She will be only the sixth Black woman ever to serve there (Axios).
• Illinois: With Tammy Duckworth, who is of Thai heritage, Stratton makes Illinois the first state represented by two women of color (NBC Washington).
• Minnesota: Peggy Flanagan becomes the first Native American woman senator (NBC Washington).
• Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed becomes the first Muslim senator (CNN).
• New Hampshire: Chris Pappas becomes the first openly gay man elected to the Senate (Axios).
• The gap: Before Tuesday, only five of 100 senators were Black, in a country where Black Americans are about 14% of the population (Texas Metro News).

Congress

• Speaker: Hakeem Jeffries is on track to become the first Black Speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency (NPR).
• Colorado: Melat Kiros becomes the state’s first Black congresswoman (CNN).
• Nebraska: Denise Powell becomes the state’s first Hispanic member of Congress (CNN).
• New York: The state sends its first Native American congresswoman to Washington (CNN).

None of these people won because of who they are. They won because enough voters trusted them. That they also look more like the rest of America is the part I want us to notice.

Why More Voices Make Better Decisions

This is not only about fairness. The research on how groups decide points to the same conclusion again and again: different perspectives in the room lead to better choices.

• Better business decisions: Cloverpop studied about 600 business decisions made by 200 teams. Diverse teams made better decisions up to 87% of the time, and decisions made and carried out by diverse teams delivered 60% better results.
• More careful deliberation: In a Tufts University study of mock juries, racially diverse juries deliberated longer, raised more facts about the case, and made fewer factual errors than all-white juries. When errors did happen, the diverse juries were more likely to catch them (EurekAlert).
• Everyone thinks harder: Much of that jury improvement came from white jurors themselves, who cited more facts and made fewer mistakes when they sat on a diverse jury (EurekAlert).
• Stronger results: McKinsey’s 2020 study of more than 1,000 companies in 15 countries found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than those in the bottom quartile.

The researchers are honest about the costs. Cloverpop found that diverse teams run into more friction when it is time to act, and McKinsey’s numbers show a correlation, not proof of cause. I find that honesty reassuring. Diverse rooms are harder rooms. They are also wiser ones.

A House and Senate with more lived experience at the table have a better chance of asking who a bill will help and who it might leave behind.

Decency Is Compassionate Leadership

Compassionate Leadership is using your head and heart to inspire and influence others. To me, that is what decency looks like in public life.

At Compassionate Leaders Circle, we define compassion as preventing or alleviating suffering. It is action, not sentiment. People often hear words like compassion or decency and think soft. They are not soft. They are powerful, and they require courage and accountability. 

When researchers reviewed 41 studies of compassionate leadership, six dimensions kept showing up: empathy; openness and communication; health and well-being; inclusiveness; integrity; and respect and dignity. Read that list again with Tuesday in mind. Inclusiveness and dignity sit right beside integrity. Decency and diversity are not two separate stories. They are the same one.

The workplace data points the same way. Compassionate leadership has been shown to raise job satisfaction by more than 50% and cut burnout by 40% (Compassionate Leadership, Harvard Business Review Press, 2022). Inclusive organizations are up to 50% more likely to make better decisions (Harvard Business Review, 2023). People at high-trust companies report 50% higher productivity and 74% less stress (Harvard Business Review, 2017). 

Voters are workers, too. They know what it feels like to be led well, and what it feels like not to be.

I won’t pretend every winner ran a perfect campaign, or that every loser ran a cruel one. Plenty of good people lost, and some on both sides were outspent. But taken together, the results point one way. Voters were looking for character, and they found it in people of many backgrounds.

What Leaders Can Take From This

Whether you run a company, a nonprofit, or a team, there is something here for you.

1. People can tell when you mean it. A message bought at scale reaches more people. A message lived at small scale is believed.

2. Trust is built before you need it. The winners on Tuesday had spent years earning it in their communities. No last-minute spending could replace that.

3. The people you lead want to see themselves in leadership. When they do, they show up differently. Tuesday’s results were, in part, millions of Americans saying exactly that.

The new Congress and the new governors take office in January. The real test of decency begins then, in how they govern. For now, I am grateful for a reminder I needed: the deepest pockets don’t always win.