Partisan control of at least eight legislative chambers across the country is up for grabs this November, battles that will go a long way in determining the fate of a litany of hot-button issues ranging from abortion to immigration in key battleground states.
Both parties have trained their focus almost exclusively on five states in the final stretch of the campaign: Arizona, where Republicans hold majorities in the state House and Senate; Michigan, where Democrats control both chambers; Minnesota, where Democrats are defending the state House; New Hampshire, where Republicans are aiming to hold on to the state House; and Pennsylvania, where the Democratic-held state House is in play.
In addition, Democrats are also zeroing in on cutting into the GOP’s massive state legislative advantages in Kansas, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
State legislative races traditionally take on a more local flavor. But with many of this year’s most critical contests occurring in presidential swing states, both parties are leaning into national issues.
Democratic groups flush with cash have ramped up their efforts to put reproductive rights at the forefront of many of the races in these states — mirroring a tack taken by the party’s federal candidates, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
Republicans, who in recent decades have held the upper hand in state-level races, are now at a financial disadvantage, but hope that emphasizing issues like the economy and immigration will allow them to either maintain their edge in some states or claw back power in others.
“Sometimes state legislative candidates and national candidates work in concert, and sometimes they work independently of each other. And in this cycle, I would say on many issues, so many of our candidates are working in concert with the top of the ticket,” said Daniel Squadron, the executive director of The States Project, a Democratic-aligned group that plans to spend $70 million on state legislative races in nine states this cycle.
“When people are afraid of extremism and the circus at the top of the ballot, they look to other levels of government for stability, improvements in their lives, and protecting their freedoms,” he added.
The investment by Squadron’s group underscores Democrats’ cash advantage. Forward Majority, a Democratic super PAC, this month upped its spending plans on state legislative races this cycle from $35 million to $45 million.
All of that is in addition to the $60 million allocated for such races by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. (The Democratic National Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union are also throwing money into state legislative races.)
By comparison, the GOP counterpart, the Republican State Leadership Committee, said it remained on track to raise and spend about $50 million this cycle, with no major expenditures planned by any outside GOP-affiliated groups. (Both sides declined to share specific state allocations, and tracking specific state spending is difficult because groups tend to funnel their money to dozens of affiliates and campaigns, which then spend it.)
“We know that we’ll never be able to outspend the Democrats dollar for dollar and that the over $175 million national Democrat outside groups plan to invest will create a significant financial disparity for state Republicans in 2024, but legislative chambers aren’t won on money alone,” said RSLC spokesperson Mike Joyce. “We’re confident Republicans are on the right side of the issues that matter to voters.”
Where state legislative control is at stake
Among the chambers that both parties are focused on, six are considered toss-ups by Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecaster affiliated with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Those are the Arizona House and Senate, the New Hampshire House, the Michigan House, the Minnesota House and the Pennsylvania House.
In Arizona, Republicans narrowly control the state Senate 16-14 and the state House 31-29.
Democrats have focused on reproductive rights, taking aim at some Republican lawmakers who earlier this year voted against repealing the state’s near-total 1864 abortion ban. They’ve also emphasized water access and housing costs in some districts, while allowing candidates in more conservative areas to focus more heavily on border issues and immigration.
“The abortion issue shows up in terms of access to health care: A clinic that may have closed, or shrinking access to specific doctors because of laws on the books,” DLCC President Heather Williams said, referring to messaging in legislative races in states including Arizona. “In other places, that [messaging] focuses on the growth in access happening because of the way that Democrats are expanding access.”
Republicans have largely highlighted immigration and the border in Arizona races. The RSLC recently released ads on behalf of Republicans in three competitive districts that attacked Democrats on those issues.
In New Hampshire, Republicans control the state House 197-191, with one independent member and 11 current vacancies.
Democrats have sought to highlight that the state is the only one in New England without statutory protections for abortion rights in state law or in the state constitution. (In New Hampshire, abortion is banned after fetal viability, or around the 24th week of pregnancy. But reproductive rights advocates note that there is no explicit law on the books that makes it clear that abortion is legal until then.)
Republicans, for their part, have emphasized the issue of crime, with the RSLC releasing ads in two races homing in on drug-related crimes and fentanyl overdoses — an issue with particular resonance in New Hampshire, where the opioid crisis has ravaged many rural communities.
Democrats are also seeking to hold on to narrow majorities in three state Houses in Great Lakes states: Michigan, where they control the state House 56-54; Minnesota, where they control the state House 70-64; and Pennsylvania, where they maintain a one-seat 102-101 majority.
Republicans have leaned into an economic message in all three, while Democrats have taken an array of approaches. In many districts in Michigan and Minnesota, they’ve pushed the accomplishments the party has been able to achieve with a trifecta of power in each state. The laws passed in recent years in Minnesota in particular helped elevate the profile of Gov. Tim Walz, who was selected as Harris’ running mate.
“We are getting out there to tell the story of what this legislative majority did for Minnesotans, to make sure that that is really clear,” Williams said, adding that the same approach is happening in many state House races in Michigan.
In many Pennsylvania districts, Democrats’ arguments are more focused on reproductive rights, voting access and democracy.
Joyce, of the RSLC, listed all three chambers as among the party’s best pickup opportunities, predicting that an economy-based message was most likely to trump an abortion-based one in many districts.
“The top issues on the minds of voters remain the economy and immigration, and the Democrats don’t have any real answers for the American people on those fronts,” Joyce said. “Republicans will continue to focus on these issues since they will ultimately decide who wins in November.”
Other chambers where control is at stake — and where both parties have invested — include the New Hampshire Senate (where Republicans have a 14-10 majority) and the Pennsylvania Senate (where Republicans have a 28-22 majority).
It is not an election year for the Minnesota Senate — where Democrats and Republicans are currently tied at 33 seats each — but a special election is scheduled for November to fill one remaining vacancy. Members of the Michigan Senate, where Democrats hold a 20-18 majority, are also not on the ballot this fall.
Where Democrats want to cut into GOP margins
Democratic groups have targeted at least three other states — North Carolina, Kansas and Wisconsin — where control of a state legislative chamber is not in play, but where they hope to limit the GOP’s power.
In North Carolina, Democrats need to flip just one seat in either chamber to break up Republicans’ supermajority — and the veto override power that comes with it — that they’ve held for much of the last two years.
North Carolina Republicans have used that power to override vetoes from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on legislation regarding abortion access, election administration and LGBTQ rights.
Democrats have said maintaining the governor’s veto power — if Democrat Josh Stein defeats embattled Republican nominee Mark Robinson in the race to replace Cooper this fall — is a crucial element of the party’s ability to drive policy in the state.
“The real governing power that Stein will have will come from his veto. That veto power is contingent on a single seat flipping,” said Squadron of The States Project.
Following the latest scandal to engulf Robinson, down-ballot Democrats and allied groups have moved quickly to tie legislative Republican candidates to him.
Democrats are taking a similar approach in Kansas, where Republicans have used their supermajority in the legislature to override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on a number of conservative priorities.
The calculus is somewhat different in Wisconsin, where new legislative maps — drawn up and signed into law after the state Supreme Court ruled that the prior gerrymandered maps were unconstitutional — are all but certain to shift the balance of power in a state legislature that has been dominated by Republicans for more than a decade.
The old maps heavily favored Republicans (they controlled 64 of 99 seats in the state Assembly and 22 of 33 in the state Senate) even as Wisconsin has been closely divided at the statewide level.
According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis, the new maps have a roughly even split of Democratic- and Republican-leaning state Assembly districts. Democrats predict that all but guarantees a wave of Democratic gains this fall, even as they feel that a majority in either chamber likely remains out of reach in the current cycle.
Democratic messaging in many of those races has focused on the old gerrymandered districts — and the power voters now wield to have their voices heard — as well as on reproductive rights.
“Wisconsin Democrats have done a really great job of storytelling the Republican gerrymander,” said Williams, of the DLCC.
Republicans, for their part, have focused on parents’ role in education as well as on economic issues.
“The economy will continue to be the top issue for voters across the battleground states that will decide the election,” said the RSLC’s Joyce.
