Republicans have expanded their control of state legislatures in the 2020 election. They flipped both chambers in one state and have gained more than 160 seats overall. Their lead over Democrats thus increased from over 400 seats to more than 700 (about 67 percent). The numbers can still change with shake-ups in election results.
State politics had long been a domain of Democrats up until the 1990s, when they still controlled the southern states, including Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas, and Alabama. That started to change in the late 1990s and 2000s, and particularly in the 2010 midterms when Republicans swept the field and flipped 21 chambers across 15 states, according to data from the National Conference of state Legislatures, a bipartisan association of state legislators (pdf).
Republicans further solidified their lead in the 2014 and 2016 elections, reaching a high of more than 4,200 legislators out of the total of some 7,400. Then they started to lose ground.
The 2020 gains bring the GOP to a total of more than 4,000 seats.
The numbers can differ a bit depending on how independent and third-party candidates are counted. In this analysis, such candidates are counted separately, unless evidence was found that they openly identify or caucus with one or the other major party or won the election on one of the parties’ ticket.
Biggest Gains
The largest boost for the GOP came from New Hampshire, where a gain of 61 seats flipped the control of both chambers to their side. A major gain of 21 seats in West Virginia ensured the party supermajorities in both chambers. Another pair of supermajorities came as a benefit of 15 and 10 more seats in Kentucky and Montana respectively. A gain of 10 seats in Maine wasn’t enough to overcome a strong Democrat majority.
Democrats made some advances of their own. They achieved gains in Connecticut (8 seats), Massachusetts (3 seats), California (2 seats), as well as Colorado and Virginia (both 1 seat).
But they made no advance or even lost ground in other blue states, including New York (lost 2 seats), Illinois (lost 1 seat), Oregon (lost 1 seat), as well as Washington and New Mexico (both no gain).
Democrats’ $50 million campaign (pdf) “to win legislative majorities across the country in GOP strongholds” has failed.
Significance
State power balance has major consequences. States decide much of policy that affects people’s daily lives, in areas such as education, law enforcement, healthcare, housing, and infrastructure. The differing approach to lockdown measures amidst the CCP virus pandemic particularly highlighted the importance of state government, though the measures largely came as executive actions by governors.
Furthermore, congressional district maps are largely decided by state legislators after each census. Democrats have blamed a part of their electoral failures on Republicans’ redrawing district boundaries to their advantage after the 2010 census. Their bid to shift that power to themselves for the 2020 census has now flopped.
Contested Election
The results may still change as the campaign of President Donald Trump and several other groups challenge election results in several battleground states where Trump trails his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Trump has recently suggested the state-level success indicates something was amiss with the results of the presidential race.
“So I led this great charge, and I’m the only one that lost?” he said in a Nov. 29 tweet. “No, it doesn’t work that way. This was a massive fraud, a RIGGED ELECTION!”
Though the campaign’s initial slew of lawsuits was mostly shot down by the courts, the evidence of fraud and other irregularities has gradually piled up, putting the results in question.
