Over the past 25 years, Republicans have methodically consolidated power in state legislatures, taking both chambers in every Southern state, flipping long-Democratic Midwestern strongholds and claiming new territory like West Virginia. Heading into the midterm elections, they controlled two-thirds of all state legislative bodies.
Newly energized activists and donors on the left had hoped to begin rolling back that trend this year, and on Tuesday Democrats took a big step, netting about 250 state legislative seats. But their major victories all came in states Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Their road back to simple parity remains long:
Who controls state legislatures
State legislatures controlled by Republicans Democrats or were split.
States highlighted in bold changed status from the previous two years, including in off-year and special elections.
Nebraska is not included because it has a nonpartisan legislature. Minnesota’s legislature was nonpartisan until 1972. States in bold changed status in the previous two years, in some states including off-year and special elections National Conference of State Legislatures, Ballotpedia
Democrats took outright control of seven chambers in six states, leaving Minnesota as the only state with a divided legislature. Those wins are modest compared with 2010, when Republicans captured two dozen chambers ahead of the once-a-decade redistricting process that state legislatures largely control.
“Part of the reason Democrats did not do better on Tuesday was because Republicans mostly drew the lines of the districts they’re still running in,” said Tim Storey, the director of state services for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “That has haunted Democrats the entire decade, getting wiped out in 2010.”
Redistricting is around the corner again, and that’s partly why Democrats have made a bigger push this year. They’re reacting, too, to much of what Republican majorities produced: stand-your-ground gun laws, voter ID requirements, bills limiting the power of unions, and social policies like governing who can use public bathrooms.
“Over the last decade, because there’s no policymaking in Washington, the state of policymaking in America has been set at the state level, and it’s been set by Republicans,” said Drew Morrison, the co-founder of EveryDistrict, a group helping Democratic candidates. “And it’s been set with a pretty aggressive conservative vision of what the world should be.”
Mr. Morrison called Democrats’ gains on Tuesday a “generally impressive haul.” But he said they came on ground the party shouldn’t have ceded in the first place. And Republicans have shrugged off the losses, pointing out that they still hold legislative majorities in all six battleground states Donald J. Trump flipped in 2016.
“The battlefield is very deep into their turf,” said Matt Walter, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee. “They’re still trying to chip away at the thousand seats they lost over the course of the decade, to crawl out from those historic lows.”
Democrats’ more impressive gains this week came in governor’s races, which will help them blunt the effect of some legislatures still in Republican control:
Which party holds the governor’s office
Governorships that were held by a Republican, Democrat or a third party candidate. States highlighted in bold changed status from the previous two years, including in off-year and special elections.
*Races are still undecided. National Conference of State Legislatures, Ballotpedia
Democrats won seven governor’s offices (with races in…
