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The Democratic wave that swept the country last week flipped governorships, state legislatures and control of Congress, while leading to historic election results in places like Mississippi. But beneath those big headlines, the criminal justice system was quietly shifting, too. Now that the dust has (mostly) settled, we’re taking a look at some of the results you might have missed.
Nowhere were the potential consequences for criminal justice more sweeping than in Texas. Democrat Gina Hinojosa's defeat of Gov. Greg Abbott could signal dramatic changes to the state’s approach on issues ranging from immigration enforcement to the death penalty.
Among the biggest questions is the future of Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s multi-billion-dollar border security initiative, which has deployed thousands of National Guard troops and state police officers to the border. Hinojosa has criticized the program as wasteful, Newsweek reported last week. As governor, she could scale back those deployments or redirect state resources away from immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, officials in Houston and Austin immediately began scaling back cooperation with federal immigration officials in the wake of the election.
Hinojosa’s victory could also affect the death penalty in Texas. The governor-elect is personally opposed to capital punishment — a rare position for a politician in a state strongly associated with executions — but her power to change it is limited. Unlike some other states, Texas’s governor cannot unilaterally issue permanent death penalty clemency, as those decisions must go through the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles. Anti-death penalty activists are pushing Hinojosa to use her power to “slow the system down.”
The election could have more direct impacts in the courts. Democrats won three seats on Texas’ nine-member Court of Criminal Appeals, which hears death penalty appeals and decides whether wrongful convictions should stand. The court will remain majority Republican, but among the departing judges is Kevin Yeary, who repeatedly dissented from rulings that declared defendants “actually innocent,” Texas Monthly reported this week. The new composition could make for a dramatic change in a court where just months ago, death row prisoner Melissa Lucio was denied an “actual innocence” ruling in a slim 5-4 decision.
Democrats also flipped the Texas House. This week, newly emboldened Democratic lawmakers began filing what the Texas Tribune called an "ambitious" slate of bills for the 2027 session, including legislation to undo a state law that requires sheriffs to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as an effort forbidding border wall construction at state parks.
Texas represents one of 12 state legislative chambers that Democrats wrested from Republican control nationwide. Six states emerged with new Democratic trifectas, giving the party control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s office.
The changes could be consequential not only for what lawmakers pursue, but also for what they leave behind. In Arizona, where Democrats flipped both legislative chambers, Republican lawmakers in recent sessions had advanced bills requiring greater cooperation with federal immigration authorities, including proposals to make local police departments report certain arrests to ICE. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs had vetoed some of those measures while others stalled. Incoming leaders have promised legislation to offer protections to immigrant families, without yet offering specifics.
Voters across the country also chimed in on the criminal justice system more directly through ballot measures and funding questions. After a summer of national controversy over Flock Safety’s automated license plate readers — cameras that record passing vehicles and feed searchable police databases — voters in York, Maine, and League City, Texas rejected their use. Just two days after the election, city workers in League City were covering all 55 cameras with black bags, disabling them while officials worked to end the contract.
In Chicago, meanwhile, voters sent a different message about a very different kind of police surveillance technology. Roughly 72% voted for a non-binding referendum to restore the use of gunshot detection systems, which use acoustic sensors to alert police to possible gunfire. Mayor Brandon Johnson had discontinued the use of the city’s Shotspotter system in 2024, citing concerns about reliability and overpolicing.
A WTTW/NORC survey released this week found that city residents share those concerns, even as they see benefits to the technology. Majorities worried about false alarms or unjustified arrests. But Black and Latino participants, and those living in sections of the city facing higher rates of gun violence, were more supportive of the technology than other respondents.
For anyone hoping to read the tea leaves on Americans’ appetite for criminal justice reform, the election offered an imperfect guide. Voters in Indiana, Tennessee and Louisiana approved constitutional amendments limiting bail. All three are reliably Republican states. But in Colorado, where Democrats won major victories, voters also approved tougher penalties on crimes involving fentanyl or child sex trafficking.
These results fit an ongoing trend. According to Ballotpedia, all 16 state ballot measures on criminal penalties, sentencing and bail since 2022 have proposed more punitive policies. During the 2010s, less punitive proposals were much more common.
The results were different in several races for local prosecutors, however. Several candidates promising to continue or expand criminal justice reforms prevailed, including in Cumberland County, Maine, Hennepin County, Minnesota, and Forsyth County, North Carolina, where former public defender Amara Hunter ousted a longtime D.A. known for opposing efforts to review potentially wrongful convictions.
Jail construction projects did not fare well on election night. All five local jail funding measures tracked by Bolts Magazine failed. In Oklahoma County, home to Oklahoma City, voters rejected a sales tax to help pay for a new jail, the estimated cost of which has more than tripled from the amount voters approved four years ago. In Dallas, Texas, voters squashed a similar funding increase, where leaders asked for an additional $82 million for a police academy that voters had agreed to spend $50 million on just two years ago.
Voters were willing to authorize spending for broader public safety projects, however. In places like Mesa, Arizona, and Loudoun County, Virginia, voters approved multi-million-dollar outlays for spending on police and fire-fighting upgrades.
Florida voters, meanwhile, approved a sweeping property tax cut that could have significant consequences for local government budgets — and potentially for criminal justice. State analysts project the measure will reduce local revenues by nearly $5 billion in its first year alone, with local law enforcement and fire officials warning of possible staffing cuts, especially in rural areas where it will be more difficult to replace that revenue.
“Amendment 3 is going to take funding, that means it’s going to take deputies off the street,” Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young said in the runup to the election, reported the Tallahassee Democrat.
