Left-leaning challengers in the Rust belt are throwing chaos into a divided party struggling to rebuild after Trump’s win

From Detroit to Pennsylvania to Buffalo, New York, and here in Ohio, insurgent, progressive Democrats are defeating their long-established colleagues in dozens of school board, city council and mayoral races, throwing the already-divided national party into chaos, even as polls indicate it stands to potentially benefit at next year’s midterm elections due to the Trump administration’s divisive policies.

In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, one of seven swing states whose voters in recent years have decided the country’s presidential election, 37-year-old Jaime Arroyo was elected mayor on 4 November, becoming the first Latino mayor in the city’s 295-year history. In La Crosse, Wisconsin, another swing state, Shaundel Washington-Spivey, the city’s first Black and out gay mayor, beat a fellow Democratic party candidate with extensive local government experience last April.

Candidates such as Turner-Sloss, Arroyo and Washington-Spivey are campaigning on combating rising housing costs and providing better public transit infrastructure at a time when affordability issues and federal government policies are driving many working families into crisis.