Charles Blow Predicted the Blue wave in the South

After Keisha Lance Bottoms and Scott Colom‘s historic wins in Georgia and Mississippi, and another Democratic Senate flip in South Carolina, Charles M. Blow’s bold thesis laid out in his book, “The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto,” was resoundingly validated—five years after he predicted a Southern political awakening as a historic midterm wave reshaped the nation.

In his 2021 manifesto, the former New York Times columnist argued that the 20th-century Great Migration—which saw millions of Black Americans flee the Jim Crow South for Northern and Western cities like New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Oakland from 1910-1970—inadvertently diluted Black political power by dispersing into regions where they remained a numerical minority.

Blow explained that racism existed everywhere, but only in the South did Black voters possess the concentrated population needed to truly dismantle Republican dominance from within. His prescription was a “reverse migration” back to the South to wield decisive power over statewide races—an idea critics dismissed as impractical and “complete hogshit.” Five years later, after the 2026 midterms, his vision materialized.

“’The south got something to say!’” Those were the words of André 3000 of OutKast in 1995 who thought the south was being overlooked and disrespected,” Blow wrote in a special election edition of “How We Win,” an opinion series for the Guardian.

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The author explained how folks should “listen to the South,” whose message was “loud and clear” after a historic midterm election. “One of the big stories of the midterms is that the south is no longer solid Republican territory. The southern strategy has a term limit, and the region’s diversity is now paying political dividends for the Democrats,” Blow said.

Although Blow didn’t explicitly name-drop his book in that Nov. 4 blurb, commentators on social media resurfaced Blow’s book, noting that the Southern midterm outcomes validated his thesis about Black political power in the region.

“Democrats should make serious investments in the South going forward,” one X user wrote on Nov. 3. Another X user seemed to agree, replying how the blueprint was already laid out years prior. “Charles Blow laid it out in The Devil You Know.”

Blow, who himself moved from Brooklyn to Atlanta, pointed to organizing efforts and demographic shifts in states like Georgia and North Carolina as evidence of growing Black political influence in “The Devil You Know.”

Blow wrote that Black Americans had long traded “the devil they knew for the devil they didn’t” by fleeing the South—forced, as he put it, to ask white majorities “to see you, acknowledge your equality, and grant you justice.” His remedy was simple: stop asking and start governing by reclaiming state-level power across the South. On Nov. 3, that blueprint became reality—and the rest of the country is now living in the results.

In South Carolina, Democrat Annie Andrews made history as the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from the state, flipping a seat held by Republicans since 1998, according to the Guardian. Meanwhile, Democrats scored key victories in Iowa and Ohio—states where Republicans have long controlled state government—and swept both the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races in Texas.

The wins delivered a majority of governorships to Democrats for the first time in two decades, allowing them to put up a stronger defense against President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.