[Part 1 of 3]
During most election cycles, I remain only moderately aware of internal state races that aren’t in Texas. This time, however, I started looking at races in other states that could impact national elections. While it’s enormously sad that the conduct of democratic elections has become partisan, it is what it is. The prevalence of 2020 election-denying Republicans running in 2022 means that we must consider whether state officials might try to overturn a valid 2024 election in their states simply because they don’t like the result. This three-part series looks at State Legislatures, Governors, and Secretaries of State.
State Legislatures
Control of state legislatures is of paramount importance to the national goals of both parties. These are the bodies that can gerrymander control of the U.S. House at the expense of representative government,. These are the bodies that can turn “The Handmaid’s Tale” into a dystopian reality upon the demise of Roe. These are the bodies that can ban schoolbooks discussing race, sexuality, or inconvenient history. These are the bodies that can claim the power to ignore Presidential elections in their respective states and appoint their own electors to the Electoral College.
Republicans figured out the importance of state legislatures a long time ago and have literally spent decades playing the long game. Democrats have continually failed to provide any party focus or commit any significant national investments toward state-level legislative races. That dichotomy could easily prove fatal to Democrats sooner rather than later.
At the moment, Democrats control both chambers in 17 states; Republicans control both chambers in 30 states – including most of the national swing states. Oops.
So. If control of state legislatures is all that important, why have Democrats largely punted? Well, for the same reason that I’m going to punt: Because it’s hard. Really, really hard.
Across 50 states, there are 1,972 state senators and 5,411 state representatives. That’s just a whole lot of races. My brain hurts even thinking about the Herculean effort involved in cherry-picking the states and races in 2022 that are winnable and that could actually matter with respect to legislative control and 2024 election certifications. Back in 2020, I made an (ultimately futile) attempt to analyze just 30 competitive Texas House races. That was a ton of work to cover only 0.4% of the nationwide state legislature contests. Hence, my personal decision to punt.
That said, and with apologies to Monty Python, I can perhaps punt in a general direction. The Forward Majority Super PAC seems to have the right targeting approach. They claim to have identified short-term opportunities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and Virginia and longer-term opportunities in Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. Furthermore, in a joint effort with The States Project , they are specifically targeting 40 state legislative seats in Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, hoping to win at least 25 of them in order to flip at least one chamber in each state from R to D in November. I don’t have the data to judge their choices, nor do I have any idea how good these folks are at execution. Still, I can certainly applaud the effort!