The 2025 election cycle brought hard-fought victories for Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey, California, New York City, and beyond. Higher Ground Labs’ portfolio companies played a critical role in powering the infrastructure behind these campaigns. Each of these wins underscored a clear trend we’ve seen building all year: the campaign playbook is changing. 

At first glance, the three highest profile races couldn’t have been more different: A Democratic socialist mayoral candidate in New York City and two moderate female gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey with CIA and military backgrounds, respectively. The former, a young insurgent candidate, ran a distinctly modern campaign. The latter two executed disciplined, high-capacity statewide operations in the more traditional sense. All three won handily—and each offers lessons for what’s next. 

The differences in tone and approach reflected the needs of their electorates. But under the hood, they shared a few defining strategies that are already shaping our investment thesis and programmatic priorities for 2026 and beyond:

• Make your message personal. “Life is too expensive for working people” was the core message of all three, but each made that idea deeply personal to their voters. In NYC, Zohran Mamdani leaned into message discipline, consistently highlighting the everyday economic pressures facing renters and low-income communities, creating a clear, relatable narrative for city voters. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger focused on government spending cuts, connecting federal and state budget decisions directly to how they impacted families’ wallets and local services. In New Jersey, Mike Sherrill made the cost of electricity a central issue, showing voters how energy prices were affecting household budgets and small businesses. Each candidate took a broad economic theme and made it resonate personally for the voters they needed to reach.

• Be everywhere. Once messaging was decided, all three campaigns maintained a persistent presence across every channel their voters engaged with. They experimented with new content formats, from short-form video and social graphics to email, SMS, and text-based campaigns, creating content that people actually wanted to share. AI tools made this possible at scale: one speech could become dozens of digital assets, a single digital staffer could produce multiple videos in a day, and organizers could quickly draft follow-ups and materials. By showing up everywhere consistently, these campaigns ensured their messages were impossible to ignore.

• Empower supporters to be messengers. Volunteers, creators, and local validators were key multipliers, carrying each candidate’s story in their own voice. In NYC, neighborhood-level organizers amplified Mamdani’s economic messaging through hyper-local networks, turning influence into real voter contact. In Virginia, Spanberger’s supporters brought budget and spending stories directly to their communities, reinforcing trust and engagement. In New Jersey, Sherrill’s campaign enlisted both traditional volunteers and content creators to share electricity-cost-focused narratives that felt authentic and local. Across all three campaigns, empowering supporters transformed individual networks into active, decentralized engines of persuasion and turnout.

These campaigns took risks within their campaign playbooks that we can all learn from as we look towards 2026 and beyond. That work starts now. 

Our portfolio companies empowered much of this progress by helping campaigns communicate more personally, organize more efficiently, and reach voters where they are. From ad optimization and voter engagement to relational organizing and creator-led storytelling, these teams are helping build the campaign of the future. 

We have more work ahead, but the 2025 cycle was a great step forward. We met voters where they were and invited them in. Take a moment to celebrate that. Then let’s get back to work. 

Higher Ground Labs (HGL) is a venture fund and ecosystem builder investing in technology for political progress. We invest in and support companies that advance political progress from pre-seed to exit. 

See more from them by subscribing to our newsletter and connecting with us on LinkedIn.