Beyond the Backlash

This isn’t an essay about personalities, policies, platforms, or party agendas. Instead, it’s a pause to consider a different lens: the diversity of the winners, and what it signals.

In what turned out to be a landmark night, we witnessed a wave of firsts…

Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty of New York City, the city’s first Muslim, first South Asian, and youngest mayor in more than a century.

In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger became the state’s first female governor. And alongside her, the ticket included the newly elected lieutenant governor, Ghazala F. Hashmi, the first Muslim woman in U.S. history to win a statewide office.

And also in Virginia, Jay Jones became the state’s Attorney General, the first Black person ever to hold that role.

In Mikie Sherrill’s victory in New Jersey, we witnessed the second woman ever elected governor of that state.

So yes, last night, inclusion won. The electorate clearly sent a message: representation matters, identity matters, and diversity in leadership still resonates deeply. Voters looked at more than slogans or soundbites, they chose people whose backgrounds reflect the full fabric of our nation.

For those of us in the business of building inclusive workplaces, this is more than a headline. This is a call-to-action. If you’ve been on the sidelines wondering whether inclusion is no longer the right move or whether the moment has passed, the answer is an emphatic “no.”

What’s happening is not a flash in the pan moment. The diversity of last night’s outcome says loud and clear, inclusion isn’t just a politically correct philosophy, but is instead culturally and economically alive.

So let’s lean in. Let’s show up. Let’s build cultures of belonging that mirror the promise our electorate just affirmed. Because yes, in uncertain times, inclusion reinforces trust, and last night we saw exactly what that trust can build.

Inclusion. It’s worth it.