Upcoming battles for state legislature control intensify

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, effectively ending a federal guarantee of abortion access, raised the stakes for both parties to win power in state capitals. Two years on, fierce battles for control of state legislatures are playing out nationally, to be decided on the same ballots, and likely influenced by, the White House rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Political strategists identify six states where legislative control could flip. For Democrats, state-level gains would be a continuation of their strong election year in 2022, while Republicans want to reverse those blue gains.

Abortion laws continue to be a main motivator for voters in state legislative elections. It’s been that way since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs. A high court majority held that abortion was not a protected right under the Constitution, overturning both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and returned decisions about abortion access back to the states.

A range of other policies also are driving voters to pay more attention to elections for state legislatures, which are in many ways a closer government body to the people. Issues that dominate national headlines such as election rules, school voucher programs, and transgender protections are largely debated and decided in those chambers, far from the gridlock of Washington, D.C., where President Joe Biden and the Democratic-majority Senate are usually at odds with the Republican-controlled House.

In Arizona, the recent Civil War era abortion ban that was revived in the state Supreme Court was then repealed by the Republican-controlled state legislature, though Democrats pledged to undo further restrictions on the procedure. In Michigan, the Democratic majority in both of the state’s chambers ensured the success of a bill that mandated a 100% transition to clean energy by 2040. Both also are key swing states in the presidential race, and legislators’ actions could have a bottom-up political effect on the White House contest.

Targeting goals aren’t just about this election, however, said Abhi Rahman, communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, in an interview. Democrats want to control the majority of state chambers by 2030 so that when the next census happens, they’ll oversee the redistricting process and be in control of drawing the maps. Republicans succeeded wildly at that after the 2010 census, which coincided with a GOP wave year. The Republican State Leadership Committee helped craft legislative maps that still give the party control today.

Republicans control 56 chambers nationwide to Democrats’ 40. The chambers expected to see the most action this election are in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Arizona

Arizona’s House and Senate are both top priorities for Democrats looking to strip the one-seat majority from Republicans, who have maintained a tight hold on the chamber since 1966, with a brief tie in the state Senate in 2000. Their majority has been narrowing in both chambers consistently since 2010. Nabbing legislative majorities would give Democrats a state government trifecta of control, with Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) winning an open-seat race in 2022.

The revival of an 1864 ban on abortion by the state’s Supreme Court thrust the state’s politics back into the spotlight and surely boosted donations and voter motivation, especially after a repeal effort struggled to get off the ground when the Democrats struggled for weeks to get three Republicans on board.

Democrats had hopes in Arizona long before the court’s ruling, though. A strategist with the Arizona Democrats told the Washington Examiner there’s been a demographic and political shift, with young, educated, techy people flocking to the state and voters turning their backs on extreme politicians. The strategist said Democrats have been intentionally recruiting and running centrist candidates, knowing that progressive politics won’t get them far.

“It’s not like people are changing their voter registration in droves,” the strategist said. “It’s 30% Democrats, 30% independents, 30% Republican, but that independent base is really just in broad strokes rejecting the Republican Party because of how sincerely extreme they have been.”

Michigan

With Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) into her second term, Republicans in Michigan are trying to convince Wolverine State voters that a Democratic trifecta is too powerful and should be voted out. As a result, the Michigan House might be the most anticipated flip this cycle. Both state chambers flipped in 2022, giving Democrats a one-seat majority in both the House and the Senate. Since securing a trifecta in the state, the Democrats have been ticking off legislation from what House Republican Leader Matt Hall calls their “40-year pent-up wish list,” which included passing a massive clean energy package, LGBT protections, and repealing “Right to Work” laws.

The GOP’s fundraising arm for state races, the Republican State Leadership Committee, included Michigan in a list of its highest-priority targets — front and center. Hall argued if it’s not the most important chamber this cycle, it’s at least “in the top three.”

“There are very few states where only the House is up, and we’ve only got one way to put that check and balance on our radical governor, Gov. Whitmer — through winning the House,” Hall told the Washington Examiner. “This is going to be tens of millions of dollars spent in Michigan.”

The Republican leader is hopeful the party will secure at least 60 seats in the 110-member chamber, though he said he wouldn’t be surprised if it were more. The breakdown of the seats is 56 Democrats to 54 Republicans, and both parties have recruited candidates to run in every district. Political realignment, he said, is paving the way for his party’s victory.

“President Trump has kind of built a new Republican coalition,” Hall said. “What you’ve seen is a kind of realignment in different communities across the state where some of the areas that were reliably Republican are Democrat now and then areas that were reliably Democrat are Republican now.”

The coalition is built up of blue-collar workers, union members who might’ve once been Democrats, black people who Hall said relate to the “rigged justice system” that Trump says he’s being targeted by, and Muslims who disagree with Biden’s stance on transgender protections.

The rather optimistic outlook comes as the Republican Party in the state has fallen into disarray this year. The party’s state committee ousted its chairwoman following months of disorganization, missed fundraising goals, and intraparty disputes and then had dueling conventions for allocating delegates planned until Michigan courts affirmed the chairwoman had been ousted.

Minnesota

Republicans are looking for hope in Minnesota, attempting to flip a single seat to overcome the 34-33 majority the Democrats hold in the state Senate. This could get easier after the November election, oddly, since Democratic state Sen. Kelly Morrison is running for the western Minneapolis suburbs 3rd Congressional District, held by Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) since early 2019, and from which he’s retiring after an unsuccessful Democratic presidential bid against Biden. If she wins the House seat in November and the state Senate balance otherwise stays the same, there will be a special election for the opening shortly after that, which could decide who will hold the next one-seat majority. In that case, residents can expect to be overloaded by ads as both parties attempt to recover control.

The state is on the RSLC’s list of possible flips, which suggests a rather hefty amount will be invested before the possible special election. Republicans will have to overcome down-ballot support provided by Biden, who won the state with over 52% of the vote in 2020. Biden is polling ahead of Trump in statewide polls, but the margins aren’t as large as last election. Democrats haven’t lost the state in a presidential election since 1972, though the state chambers have switched hands often in that same time.

New Hampshire

Despite New Hampshire’s rather reliable tendency to vote for Democratic candidates for president, the state is under a Republican trifecta and has been since 2020. It’s in Democrats’ sights though, given the close majorities in both chambers. Republicans control the House 201-194 and the Senate 14-10. The parties want as wide of a majority as possible in such a large lower chamber, the biggest in the country, to compensate for the higher chance there will be vacancies throughout the session. Since 2022, four seats have become vacant. These vacancies can introduce midcycle challenges and give unexpected momentum to a party that manages to turn out passionate voters during the offseason, which this year seems to be Democrats.

“We’re only a handful seats away in the state House,” said Rahman, of the DLCC. “There have been many special elections in the House, and Democrats just keep on winning those. And then in the Senate, the chamber is definitely within striking distance, but the state House is definitely our top priority.”

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has rare split chambers, with Democrats controlling the House 102-100 and Republicans in charge of the Senate by a 28-22 margin. Democrats reaffirmed their majority by winning three special elections during this session and now have their sights set on making gains toward an eventual majority in the state Senate by 2026, according to the States Project.

While the House has changed hands slightly more often than the Senate, four times since 1992 compared to zero times, a Democratic majority has only lasted longer than one session once, and that was likely assisted by the blue wave of 2008 that also saw the election of President Barack Obama.

With this in mind, the RSLC has targeted where Democrats show strength, including in mail-in ballots. Of the almost 900,000 Pennsylvanians who requested a mail-in ballot for the April primary, 72% were Democrats. This advantage has plagued Republicans since the state’s election laws were reformed in 2019. Though the GOP supported the measure then, Trump’s accusations of fraud through mail-in ballots after the 2020 election interrupted Republicans’ ability to cut into Democrats’ advantage. This year, however, the RSLC announced an eight-figure investment in the program.

Wisconsin

Newly redistricted maps were signed into law in February by Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) that make it probable Democrats will see a huge boost in seats, with a chance of overturning Republicans’ 64-35 gerrymandered majority. The fight isn’t making its way to the state Senate because only half of the seats there are up for reelection, and in order to win control of the chamber, Republicans would have to lose all but four of the 16 up for grabs on Election Day.

The fight over the state’s maps heated up with the election of liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court in 2023. With her on the bench, the 4-3 liberal majority court threw out maps that had been used since 2011 and were considered some of the most heavily gerrymandered in the country. Republicans who were fearful of any new maps the court would implement decided to preemptively approve one put forward by Evers in February.

If voters behaved as expected, the old maps would’ve handed Republicans a majority with 60 seats. With the new maps, Democrats could see a 52-47 majority. Democrats’ most likely targets will be districts in the Milwaukee suburbs and the Green Bay area.

“We think we’re gonna make gains. It remains to be seen whether or not we’re going to get an outright majority. But we’re pushing to get as many gains as possible,” Rahman said.

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Wisconsin regularly votes for Democratic presidential candidates, having only gone to a Republican once since 1988, in 2016. The state, Rahman said, is “pretty 50/50,” which is why the Republican supermajority in the legislature “wasn’t right.” The strategy this year will be to convince voters to elect a Democratic trifecta, when one party controls both chambers and the governorship, like neighbors Michigan and Minnesota.

In total, the DLCC has raised over $28 million so far in the cycle, more than ever before, and is expecting to reach $60 million by November, according to Rahman. The RSLC reported a haul of $4.2 million in the first three months of 2024, ramping up for a pricey cycle.