Success in Public Engagement 2025–26
Between early 2025 and fall 2026, ordinary people changed outcomes by showing up, spending differently, speaking at public meetings, and voting.
The breakdown of labor on this research brief includes:
- Kevin Nix: Conceived and outlined the topic. Provided several directions (prompts) to Claude. Fact-checked and edited Claude's work. Added analytical components to it.
- Claude: Compiled the "authoritative" source material for each of the five topics. Fact-checked itself. Design.
Purpose
To debunk the myth of powerlessness, as well as this notion that people participating in politics doesn't "do anything," I've compiled a list of citizen successes over the past 22 months.
Success doesn't necessarily mean x political problem has gone away or was defeated. It's why I'm not calling many of them "wins" at this time. Work still needs to be done, and success in politics is not a straight line from A to B.
AI data centers, for instance, are still being built or in the planning phases, despite the instant and visceral opposition to them. But the public outcry, in an election year, has served as a stop sign to slow development. And a bipartisan middle finger to corporate and government hubris in thinking they can disregard the financial and environmental effects on communities.
Success, of course, needs to be measured. I've chosen five subject matters where there was an outcome that favored, in whole or in part, everyday people who actively did something about the reality they didn't like. I will update the election section after the 2026 midterms.
Minnesota and Operation Metro Surge
After about ten weeks of sustained resistance by residents from all walks of life, the federal government ended its violent Minnesota immigration surge.
The context. Operation Metro Surge brought thousands of masked federal immigration officers (ICE) to the Twin Cities. Two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by federal agents. Neither did anything wrong. Federal officials falsified what happened, claiming Good and Pretti posed threats to the agents. Multiple angles of cell phone video in both incidents show they were not threats. Officials reported roughly 4,000 arrests during the surge. (Minnesota Reformer)
What people did
- Residents built anonymous neighborhood networks to monitor and document ICE activity. Polls showed nearly two-thirds of Minnesotans disapproved of how ICE was handling its job, and 69% wanted ICE reformed (43%) or abolished (26%), per an NBC News/KARE 11/Minnesota Star Tribune poll (Minnesota Reformer; KTTC).
- Volunteers delivered food and supplies to immigrant families afraid to leave home.
- Mass marches, faith gatherings, and workplace actions drew crowds in subfreezing weather after Good's killing in January.
- The story consumed local and national media, with residents outraged at what was happening in their city. Brutal law enforcement tactics, including yanking a handicapped woman out of her car and a suppression of due process, marred the scene. (MPR News)
- After Pretti's death, congressional Republicans split: more than two dozen, including Sens. Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, called for an investigation, while others stayed silent or backed the administration (ABC News; NPR). Minnesota Republican lawmakers largely supported the operation and did not directly criticize the killings (Sahan Journal).
- Attorney General Keith Ellison, joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul, sued the Department of Homeland Security.
Cancel buttons and Jimmy Kimmel
Viewers hit cancel in large numbers, and ABC put Jimmy Kimmel back on the air six days after suspending him.
The setup. On Sept. 17, 2025, ABC suspended "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" indefinitely over the host's remarks about reactions to the killing of Charlie Kirk. The move came hours after Federal Communications Commission Chair and Trump loyalist Brendan Carr publicly pressured ABC, and as affiliate owners Nexstar and Sinclair said they would pre-empt the show.
What people did
- Subscribers canceled Disney+ and Hulu and posted screenshots urging others to follow.
- Hundreds of entertainers signed a public letter backing Kimmel; unions and elected officials joined protests.
Source: Antenna, via Variety. Excludes bundled and wholesale subscriptions.
Caveat. Disney announced streaming price increases on Sept. 23, the same day Kimmel returned (CNBC). Antenna also found sign-ups for both services were higher in September than in the prior five months (AP). The cancellation totals cover the whole month, not only protesters.
Packed council chambers over data centers
Communities nationwide, across party lines, slowed the AI data center boom: opponents blocked or delayed nearly $200 billion in projects in the first half of 2026 (Gizmodo, citing Bloomberg), and local governments adopted 294 moratoriums from January through July (The Bond Buyer).
The setup. As AI companies raced to build data centers, residents raised concerns about electricity bills, water use, and noise, and many local officials said they had little power to stop projects.
It also came to light that local officials had signed nondisclosure agreements with data center developers, keeping deals secret from residents. (NPR)
What people did
- Organized: Active opposition groups more than doubled, from 396 at the end of 2025 to 833 by March 2026, spanning 49 states. (Data Center Watch; NBC News)
- Packed local meetings: In San Marcos, Texas, residents crowded City Hall until the city council passed the state's first full ban in June 2026. (Spectrum News)
- Pressed statehouses: More than 300 state data center bills were filed in the first six weeks of 2026, with statewide moratorium proposals in 14 states from both parties. (Data Center Watch)
Q1 alone roughly matched the total for all of 2025.
Source: Data Center Watch, via NBC News (Q1) and Bloomberg via Gizmodo (Q2). Totals include delays as well as permanent blocks.
Across the spectrum. An Economist/YouGov poll (Aug. 28–31, 2026) found majorities of Democrats (71%) and independents (66%) and about half of Republicans (52%) would oppose a data center in their community. (YouGov)
Moratoriums are pauses, and investment has slowed. This does not mean data centers don't continue to be built or won't be built. For now, however, the intense national opposition certainly made an impact.
The Target boycott
A boycott led largely by Black shoppers pushed Target to name the boycott as a cause of falling sales, a rare corporate admission.
The setup. In January 2025, Target scaled back its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, including programs supporting Black-owned suppliers. (NPR)
What people did
- Pastor Jamal Bryant of Atlanta's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church launched a 40-day Lenten "fast" from Target. (Fast Company)
- More than 150,000 people signed on; organizers extended it past Easter when Target did not restore its programs. (Fortune)
- Minneapolis organizers ran a parallel national boycott starting in February, holding press events at Target headquarters. (AP via NewsNation)
Turnout, 2025 and early 2026
Off-year turnout in November 2025 broke decades-old records, and early voting for the Nov. 3, 2026 midterms is high. Final 2026 turnout and exit polls on voter motives are not yet available.
November 2025
- Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governor's races; Virginia Democrats gained a trifecta, and California voters passed Proposition 50 to adopt new congressional maps. (NCSL)
- New York City's mayoral race drew more than 2 million votes, the most since 1969, per the city's Board of Elections. (Bloomberg Law)
- Tufts University's CIRCLE concluded that young people played a major role in three high-profile 2025 elections. (CIRCLE)
Spring 2026 primaries
- Georgia voters cast more than 1 million early ballots in the May primary, topping the 2022 record of 857,000. (WABE)
- Nearly 4.5 million Texans voted in the March primaries. This was, according to the Texas Tribune, "a high-water mark for midterm elections in the state’s recent history, driven by electrifying momentum surrounding both parties’ races for U.S. Senate." (Texas Tribune)
More state-level examples
The biggest state-level fights of 2025–26 were over redistricting, where residents used constituent pressure, petitions, and ballot measures.
| State | What people did | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Indiana | Constituents lobbied senators against a mid-decade congressional map; the advocacy group Indiana Conservation Voters reported nearly 20,000 Hoosiers contacted lawmakers (Dubois County Herald). Opponents rallied outside the chamber. | On Dec. 11, 2025, the Republican-led Senate voted the map down despite presidential pressure; several GOP senators cited constituents (NBC Chicago / AP) |
| California | Voters passed Proposition 50 in a November 2025 special election | New legislature-drawn congressional maps through 2030; the first time voters curbed a redistricting commission's power (NCSL) |
The national backdrop. Harvard's Crowd Counting Consortium found the June and October 2025 "No Kings" protests were among the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history (Ash Center).
The common playbook
The cases share a repeatable set of tactics. Beyond courage and numbers, the winning efforts aimed pressure at the specific person or institution that could say yes, and gave them a reason to.
Use economic leverage
Where: Disney+/Hulu cancellations; Target boycott
Why it works: Measurable losses (churn rates, foot traffic, missed earnings) forced public responses (Variety; NPR)
Recruit trusted messengers and win defections
Where: Faith leaders in Minnesota; Republican senators in Indiana; GOP state party on data centers
Why it works: Movements succeed when "pillars" such as business, faith, labor, and civic leaders shift (HKS)
Build cross-partisan coalitions on local stakes
Where: Data centers (water, power bills); Indiana maps
Why it works: Majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans oppose local data centers (YouGov)
Stay nonviolent and film everything
Where: Minnesota monitoring networks; cancellation screenshots
Why it works: The nation wouldn't have known DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and President Trump were blatantly lying about the Pretti and Good deaths had there not been bystander cell phone video.
Taking advantage of blindspots
Organic and organized opposition to data centers took advantage of the lack of political sophistication by AI companies, which didn't expect such pushback.