Candidates emerged victorious in dozens of pivotal races this week after running on platforms that included support for gun safety measures, and gun violence prevention groups are hailing those successes as a validation of their unprecedented election efforts, which included hundreds of endorsements and tens of millions of dollars in total campaign spending.

The issue of firearms was expected to play a role in the 2018 midterms, but it was unclear how important it would be. Although the gun safety movement has been growing steadily since the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the massacre this February at a high school in Parkland, Florida, gave a surge of momentum to the cause. A new generation of young leaders emerged out of that tragedy, and current and former students crisscrossed the nation ahead of the election to register and mobilize voters around gun violence prevention.

With polls showing that gun policy was an important issue for many Democratic voters on Election Day and with gun safety groups actually outspending the National Rifle Associations lagging political expenditures advocates got an early start on their big night.

In the NRAs home state of Virginia, Sen. Tim Kaine (D) handily defeated GOP nominee Corey Stewart, an NRA-backed county board supervisor and staunch defender of Confederate symbols and monuments. A short time later, Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) widely regarded as an NRA darling fell to Democratic challenger Jennifer Wexton in a battle for Virginias 10th congressional district, which houses NRAs headquarters. Also in Virginia, Democrats Elaine Luria and Abigail Spanberger would go on to defeat GOP incumbents in their U.S. House races.