Virginia hasn’t gone Democratic since 1964. Who knew the way to change the calculus was for Dems to run a biracial nominee who grew up in Hawaii raised by his working class grandparents? A guy who was the son of a Kenyan, polygamist dad and a lefty, globe-trotter, anthropologist mom? A man whose middle name is Hussein? Whose first name is Barack and whose last name is Obama? Surreal.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.