Despite outspending Republicans, Democrats didn’t achieve some ambitious goals in state legislative races. They lost power in Michigan and Minnesota, making some gains in Wisconsin and North Carolina.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Republicans had a good week in state legislative elections. They largely defeated Democrats’ ambitious goals to flip control of several state legislative chambers. The often-overlooked contests have major implications for the laws that govern American lives. NPR’s Ryland Barton is here in the studio with us. Good morning. Thanks for being in the studio.
RYLAND BARTON, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: OK. So so much focus on the presidential election, I really don’t think people were paying as much attention here. What happened this week?
BARTON: So going into Tuesday, one party controlled the entire legislature in all but two states. And when one party’s in charge, it’s really easy for them to pass laws, especially if their governor is from the same party. But now there will actually be a couple more divided legislatures, where chambers are split between the two parties. This all comes at the expense of Democrats, who really didn’t do too well this year. A lot of what we were watching was in the same swing states from the presidential elections – for instance, in Michigan, which ushered in a wave of progressive policies in recent years. Republicans flipped control of the House there, so now the two parties will have to negotiate if they want to get anything done. Republicans also made gains in Minnesota. They padded their majorities in Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina. And we’re still waiting for some results out there, Arizona and Pennsylvania, where control could be determined by the slimmest of margins.
FADEL: So a lot of Republican success. What are Democrats saying?
BARTON: Well, Democrats are basically saying it could have been worse, and it has been worse. Their most recent low point was 2016, when Donald Trump’s long coattails ushered in a new wave of Republican dominance at the state level and put the final nail in the coffin of Democratic legislative power in places like the South. A lot of rural states – they really haven’t recovered fully since then. So this year, Democrats had this lofty goal to try and win control of the Wisconsin legislature, which had new court-ordered legislative maps. And while they didn’t win control, they did win some seats there. They made some pickups in Montana and Ohio, as well.
Probably their biggest deal is they broke apart the Republican supermajority in North Carolina. That means a lot because it means that the incoming governor there, Josh Stein, will now be able to veto bills that come out of the legislature, and the legislature would have a really hard time overriding him. Democrats say they’re playing the long game, that they’re well-positioned to win back some legislative chambers by 2030. That’s a big, critical year. That’s when lawmakers get to draw new political maps during redistricting.
FADEL: What about the issues, Ryland? I mean, any sense of what state lawmakers might focus on going forward?
BARTON: Well, I mean, I think we can expect a lot of the big issues we’ve seen on the national level. They’ll continue coming up on the state level. So abortion, immigration, criminal penalties, more state legislative-focused things like, you know, education, charter schools and school vouchers, property taxes. So many issues like this get settled in state legislatures these days. Louis Jacobson writes about state legislatures for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He says in our congressional gridlock era, more lawmaking is happening at the legislative level.
LOUIS JACOBSON: Even when one party has both chambers of Congress, it’s pretty rare that they’re able to get a lot of legislation passed, which leaves a gap so states can step in and do the things that their citizens want done – even if Congress isn’t doing it.
BARTON: So if you care about politics and governance, it’s always a good time to familiarize yourself with what’s going on in your state legislatures, what’s going on in your state capitals. Because that’s where so much of the actual lawmaking is happening these days.
FADEL: NPR’s Ryland Barton, thank you so much for that reporting and that reminder.
BARTON: Thanks, Leila.
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