Women running on affordability powered Democrats’ night of victories 

By

Mel Leonor Barclay , Grace Panetta

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With less than two weeks before the election and the pause on federal food aid looming, Jessica Anderson took to social media to remind voters that she knew the strain many people in her Virginia House district were feeling. A decade earlier, as a young mom in the middle of a separation, she had walked into her local social services office and qualified for SNAP and Medicaid.

Anderson, who won a hyper-competitive race for her Virginia House of Delegates district, said that relating personally to voters’ economic anxieties — many times in personal conversations at people’s doors — was critical to her victory and that of Democrats across the country Tuesday night.

“Humanizing myself and peopl