Like blades of grass emerging from under the crusty old snowfall in spring, Democrats are showing signs of life.

This is from Newsday out on Long Island:

Democrat Christine Pellegrino defeated Conservative Tom Gargiulo on Tuesday in the 9th Assembly District special election as the progressive and union-backed candidate pulled off an upset victory for the heavily Republican seat.

“This is a thunderbolt of resistance,” said Pellegrino, who becomes the first Democrat to hold the Assembly seat. “This is for all the supporters and voters who understand a strong progressive agenda is the way forward in New York.”

With all precincts reporting, Pellegrino won 58 percent of the vote to Gargiulo’s 42 percent, according to Suffolk and Nassau boards of election results posted Tuesday night.

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party and Working Families Party had invested heavily in the seat left vacant when Assemb. Joseph Saladino was appointed Oyster Bay supervisor. President Donald Trump had won the district with 60 percent of the vote.

In Georgia where they’re holding a run-off election to Congress to replace Tom Price on June 20, Democrat Jon Ossoff is up by seven points against Republican Karen Handel.

Now, to beat the metaphor to death, there could always come another freeze that kills off the early growth, but these are the elections that really matter in winning back the House and the Senate, proving that the late Tip O’Neill’s point about all politics being local is not just true but vital.

How do you think the hard-core GOP got to where they are?  They started small: county commissions, school boards, city councils, spreading their gospel of fear and loathing, capitalizing on anecdotal local issues — welfare queens!  back-alley abortions!  gays dancing! — and by the time the national Democrats even took notice, we had Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell, and gerrymandered districts that are so safe that they elect idiots like Steve King (R-IA) who sees drug smugglers with calves the size of cantaloupes behind the 7-11, Louis Gohmert (R-TX) casting asparagus, and Blake Farenthold (R-TX) who just acts goofy.

They’re the ones who helped hype the base for Trump and they’ll be the hardest to dislodge, but as we say at the meeting, one step at a time.