It’s Election Day in America, and once again, the question is what kind of country do we want to be?

In state after state, new voting laws have made it harder to cast a ballot. Meanwhile, election workers across the country face threats and trust in the process is eroding.

But there is also new energy and a strong current of change moving through the country. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, leads the mayor’s race. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed and Mallory McMorrow are pushing bold, grassroots campaigns. Progressives like Omar Fateh and Katie Wilson are gaining traction in Minneapolis and Seattle, respectively.

Their popularity says something: voters want affordable housing, clean water, buses that run, health care that works, food that is fresh and cheap. And that demand, more than any single race, may be democracy’s last line of defense.

So today, as Americans vote, The Metro’s Robyn Vincent turns to E.J. Dionne, a New York Times columnist and Brookings scholar, to help read this moment and unpack what it tells us about the future of American democracy.

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