How Key Local Elections are Shaping Up in 2025

Photo via Des Moines Register 

PRESTON HETRICK: Since the first Tuesday of the new year, Americans have been busy electing state-level and local officials across the country, including in Iowa, Minnesota and Oklahoma. After looking at these results, we’ll examine some of the key races upcoming in Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana and Wisconsin.

Do you care about how your local school is run? Or the amount of taxes you pay? Or what that tax money goes toward? Local elections determine all those issues, and more. From public safety, to enforcement of federal and state policies, to determining election rules and keeping public infrastructure up to standard. Local officials are critically important, and elections are happening nearly every day. We’ll examine some of the races that Americans have voted on so far this year.  

On Jan. 28, Iowa voters shocked the nation by electing Democrat Mike Zimmer, seen above being sworn in, in the 35th Senate District (SD), flipping it 52% to 48% after it voted for Donald Trump by about 20 points in November. The special election, called due to Kris Courneyer resigning to become Lieutenant Governor, was decided by about 400 votes between Zimmer and Republican Katie Whittington. 

District 35 has a voting population of about 43,000, yet only 9,000 showed up to the polls on the 28th. This lack of turnout showcases the problem with special and local races, non-concurrent to a larger general election. Most citizens simply don’t bother to show up, or have difficulties in finding any real information about the candidates. 

This extreme lack of turnout causes these sorts of elections to be both highly unpredictable and highly localized. It’s pretty difficult to nationalize any of these results, and I disagree significantly with anyone who uses these results to showcase reasons for a “blue wave” for 2026. Zimmer ran on issues like education spending, and had credentials as a school district President in Clinton County, where SD 35 is mainly located.

We saw in 2024 from Democrats like Marilyn Lands, who flipped an Alabama state House (SH) seat over IVF issues, and Tom Keen, who flipped a Florida SH seat over insurance and housing costs. Neither of these flips had any bearings on the national results, where Donald Trump improved in both states, and especially Florida. Keen was defeated in the November general election, and it remains to be seen if Lands and Zimmer will be able to survive the 2026 general election. 

Elsewhere throughout the year, special state legislative elections occurred in Delaware, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Virginia. On Feb. 15, Democrats in Delaware held SD 1, where Dan Cruce held now-Rep. Sarah McBride’s seat, and SD 5, with Ray Seigfried holding now-Lt. Gov. Kyle Evans Gay’s seat. Both were held without much Republican contest. 

Both parties held a seat in the Louisiana St. Senate, as no member of the opposition party filed. Democratic state Rep. Larry Selders won the SD 14 primary easily, and thus the seat. Republican state Rep. Brach Myers defeated Lafayette city councillor Jesse Regan in a competitive contest. Myers won with 55% of the vote. 

Jan. 7 saw Virginia Republicans hold SD 10, and Democrats held both SD 32, and SH 26 without much opposition. These took place due to John McGuire and Suhas Subramanyam being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the 26th from Rep. Kannan Srinivasan running for Subramanyam’s seat. No real surprises took place here, and Luther Cifers, Srinivasan, and J.J. Singh won respectively. 

Along with the Iowa SD 35 Special election, the 28th also saw voters in Minnesota overwhelmingly return a Democrat to St. Paul, with Doron Clark easily winning SD 60, a seat in central Minneapolis. 

Apart from the Iowa election, none of these were surprising. They were simply the incumbent party easily holding a safe seat, and no real trendlines emerged from them. But now to talk about some more local races.

A small wave of change rode over the state of Oklahoma on Feb. 11, with voters knocking out multiple school board members and city officials in the state’s municipal primary. 49 school districts and 26 municipalities held elections, representing the largest election so far this year. 

The most high profile school board loss was Broken Arrow PSD Vice-Chair Jerry Denton, who was beaten outright by Kate Williams in this Tulsa suburb. Williams ran on issues of mental health, raising school standards, and increasing board transparency and advocacy. 

In the Oklahoma City area, two school board incumbents failed to reach a majority of the vote, and now head to an April run-off. Chris Adamson, who has only served on the Deer Creek Public School District (PSD) Board since December 2024, narrowly squeaked out a first place spot against consultant Lisa Antonelli, winning by three votes. They head off to the run-off in what is expected to be a very competitive race.

The other incumbent, Marvin Provo, who has served on the Millwood PSD Board since 1990, got 47% of the vote against two challengers, including former Board member Andre Coleman, who got second place with 29% of the vote. Provo, who has been a major community figure since his term began, is expected to win in April, though with these extremely low-turnout elections, it’s hard to really say for sure. 

Oklahoma City PSD Chairwomen Paula Lewis was able to cross that 50% line, beating out two competitors in a heated race. Challengers Jan Barrick, an educational consultant, and Niah Spriggs, a former teacher, mainly campaigned on improving the educational quality in OK City, which has some of the worst proficiency scores in the state. 

Oklahoma City also had some contentious city council races on the 11th. Ward 7 saw a close race between attorney Camal Pennington and former city council member John Pettis, and now both go to the run-off. The major issue in this primary was public safety, which really brought down Ward 3 incumbent Barbara Peck, whose ward has seen some of the largest increases in crime. Peck, who has also been criticized for a lack of transparency and communication, was beaten by business scientist Katrina Avers, with Peck only receiving 26% of the vote. 

Voters in Oklahoma County, home to Oklahoma City, also had a Democratic primary for their county commission. State Rep. Jason Lowe won in a tight contest between former state Sen. Anastassia Pittman, and Midwest City Councilor Sara Bana. Lowe primarily ran on improving the justice system within Oklahoma County, and improving the city infrastructure. Lowe goes on to face independent Jed Green in the general election in April. Lowe is the heavy favorite. 

In the most notable result from Oklahoma, Norman  City Councilor Stephen Tyler Holman beat incumbent mayor Larry Heikkila, winning 62% of the vote. Holman, who has served on the City Council of Oklahoma’s third largest city since 2015, ran on increasing public services, lowering housing costs and protecting the city’s natural spaces. Heikkila had won his first term in 2021 on a platform of hard-on-crime and public safety. While non-partisan, Heikkila aligned with the Republican Party and Holman with the Democratic. 

The 11th also saw elections in Georgia, Minnesota, and New York, all for county-wide offices. Cobb County, GA, home to Marietta, and a county that has zoomed to the left since 2016, saw two primaries for its county commission after a judge ordered a redraw of their maps. The District 2 primary will see former state Rep. Erick Allen and former Board of Education member Jaha Howard go to a run-off. District 4 saw Democratic incumbent Monique Sheffield easily win the nomination. Both districts only saw one Republican file, with Alicia Adams and Matthew Hardwick running respectively. 

Minnesota’s Ramsey County, home to state capitol St. Paul, also saw a special election for the county commission. Democrat aligned candidate Garrison McMurtrey easily won against challenger Joshua Bau. McMurtrey is now the first Black male to be elected to a county commission in Minnesota. 

In the biggest election of the year, Westchester County, NY voters elected their County Executive, after John Latimer was elected to the U.S. House. Interim Executive Ken Jenkins, a Democrat, easily won to fill the remainder of Latimer’s term, against Republican Christine Sculti. In a county that Kamala Harris won by 26% points, Jenkins victory is no real surprise. He’ll be up for a new four-year term in November. 

These elections have enormous impacts on people’s lives, with these officials determining budgets, tax policies and running county services. The fact that many of these results and candidate information are extremely hard to find is worrying. One thing I’ll advocate throughout this column is the need for centralized local election dates, ways for the candidates to get their names and issues out to a large audience, and ways for the public to actually find the election results for their locality. 

It’s too early in the year to really get anything like a national trendline from these results. Even if they weren’t all extremely varied, the first real test of a national trend won’t occur until April 1, with the Wisconsin Spring Election. The primary for that is on Feb. 18, and will be the biggest local election of the year (so far). The next piece in this column will examine the ramifications and results of the Wisconsin Spring Primary. 

The biggest thing to take away from this is the fact that there are elections across the country every week. Due to their extremely low-turnout, your vote matters even more than it normally would. This is a call to action to research your state, county, and city, to see when your elections take place this year. Vote, vote, vote! These elections have massive ramifications for the policies that affect you every single day, with issues like public safety, how your local school is run, social programs, and tax policies being on the ballot every single week. 

Written on February 15, 2025

Preston Hetrick is a freshman majoring in History and minoring in Journalism from Morgantown, West Virginia. He is interested in elections across the country, great and small.