What people missed is that the left-wing challengers were patient, organized and strategic: They picked races they knew they could win, and didn’t overreach. And they have gone nearly undefeated in every race in Allegheny County for several years now.

Six years after the upstart Mr. Pappas won, he is no longer on the ballot; he declined to seek reelection last November after a rocky tenure that included forgoing cash bail and refusing to sign warrants submitted by local enforcement. However, the progressive activist movement that began with him just clocked a clean sweep of local offices in the Democratic primary — shocking both those who had not been paying attention and those who once had the power, but who now found themselves powerless to stop it.

With Tuesday’s election, the push leftward within the local Democratic Party since Trump’s election is more or less complete: The far-left is no longer the fringe.

[That would leave the center ripe for the GOP … if they orient themselves with candidates and messaging that leaned heavily into normalcy and fundamental cultural values. That may in fact be happening at the local and state levels, but the national party is still stuck in the past over the 2020 election. The opportunity costs here are enormous if Republicans don’t seize this opening, and it may be irretrievable soon if they don’t. — Ed]