Don’t Call It A Comeback edition

(Forgive me, for I have Substacked. This newsletter's new home is here.)

Hey.

I know it’s been a while.

I missed you!

But I’m back and honestly super excited to share my inaugural TWISA at COURIER Newsroom with y’all! 

• If you’re looking for old editions of this missive for some reason, they all live here. If you’re looking for even older editions, they live here. If you’re looking for REAL old school editions … well, they live in my Sent folder, but I’ll forward them to you if you really want.

Fair warning … The news isn’t any happier than it was way back in April.

With less than two months to go, we’re officially staring down the barrel of Election Day, and it’s actually extremely factual to say that, in this post-Dobbs world, the stakes in state legislative elections all across the country have never been higher.

• Notwithstanding Lindsey Graham’s epic own goal in unveiling a 15-week abortion ban in the U.S. Senate, reproductive freedom–and the lack thereof–is now completely under state control.

• And the abrupt loss of the abortion rights granted by Roe v. Wade has galvanized both progressive and women voters all across the country, making the previously predicted midterm GOP romp a far dimmer prospect for Republicans at every level of the ballot.

• Democratic donations and spending are correspondingly ramping up to take full advantage of this swing in voter enthusiasm.

So, time for a quick quiz. Or just a guessing game, no pressure.

How much money has the Democratic National Committee donated to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), the party committee charged with electing Democrats to state legislatures and winning Democratic majorities that will protect reproductive freedom now that Roe has been overruled?

• $15 million? 

  • Nope, that’s how much the DNC has given to committees that work to elect Democratic U.S. Senators and House members–$7.5 million to the DSCC, $7.5 million to the DCCC.

• $20 million?

  • Nah, that’s how much the DNC has invested in state party infrastructure–most of which goes towards helping elect federal and statewide candidates (don’t get it twisted–governors, attorneys general, and secretaries of state are important, too!).

    • In the vast majority of states, the caucus operations and campaign committees that support and elect legislators operate independently of state parties (partly because of legal constraints, partly because of tradition/old habits–the reasons are as varied as the 50 separate sets of campaign finance laws governing state-level elections).

• $94 million?

  • Sorry, that’s how much Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath raised in her bid to unseat Mitch McConnell in 2020–only to lose to the GOP U.S. Senate Leader 38-58%.

Okay okay, enough with the guessing. 

…but if you guessed a big fat load of nothing, congratulations! 

It’s true; the DNC has donated exactly $0 to the DLCC this cycle.

• The DLCC itself is boasting record fundraising, but the committee continues to trail its GOP counterpart, the Republican State Leadership Committee.

• … although that’s admittedly comparing apples to Volvos; RSLC is an umbrella org that includes 

  • Republican Legislative Campaign Committee;

  • Republican Lieutenant Governors Association

  • Republican Secretaries of State Committee;

  • Ag America (no, not AG–RAGA split off from the RSLC in 2014), which works to elect GOP agriculture officials; and 

  • the ironically named Judicial Fairness Initiative, which helps elect Republicans to state courts.

• Good news on that front, at least–JFI has long lacked a Democratic counterpart, but DLCC is reportedly spending in judicial elections for the first time ever this year.

Meanwhile, while national committees and rich donors continue to give downballot elections short shrift, GOP-controlled state legislatures have wasted little time destroying reproductive freedom in states they control.

• In West Virginia (House: 22 D/78 R; Senate: 11 D/ 23 R), Republican lawmakers passed a near-total abortion ban this week that will go into effect as soon as GOP Gov. Jim Justice signs it.

• The Indiana legislature (House: 31 D/ 69 R; Senate: 11 D/39 R) passed a near total abortion ban last month; it went into effect this Thursday.

• Republicans in South Carolina (House: 43 D/79 R; Senate: 16 D/29 R) got this close to passing a near-total abortion ban earlier this month–and likely still will, it’s a matter of working out some details–but were blocked by the threat of a filibuster.

  • … from a Republican.

    • Because his daughters helped him realize that he shouldn’t vote to make the state’s current six-week (before most folks even know they’re pregnant) abortion ban (which is currently blocked and under review by the state Supreme Court) stricter “because women have rights, too.”

you don’t say

And all this is after GOP lawmakers in 13 states didn’t have to lift a finger to ban abortion after Roe was struck down.

• Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming all have “trigger laws” that functionally banned abortion as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated it as a right.

As an erudite consumer of this missive, surely I don’t have to tell you what else those 13 states have in common.

… but I will anyway

Those 13 states all have GOP-controlled legislatures.

And even with all the money in the world, that probably won’t change any time soon.

• Now that primaries are over and ballots are being printed, we know exactly who’s running for state legislative seats this year–and what party they’re from.

• Thus, we also know how many folks are running for these seats with no opposition from the other party.

• This is not to cast aspersions on anyone or any committee or any group–it’s simply the reality of a world where another round of mostly GOP-controlled gerrymandering resulted in fewer competitive state legislatures.

  • In 22 state legislative chambers across 15 states (23 and 16 if you include Nebraska, which I don’t, because it’s ostensibly nonpartisan), we already know which party will control them, no matter what happens on Election Day, because of the number of folks running unopposed.

• Republicans are guaranteed majority control of 19 chambers:

  • Alabama House

  • Alabama Senate

  • Arkansas House

  • Arkansas Senate

  • Idaho House

  • Idaho Senate

  • Indiana Senate

  • Kentucky Senate

  • North Dakota House

  • North Dakota Senate

  • Ohio Senate

  • Oklahoma House

  • Oklahoma Senate

  • South Dakota Senate

  • Tennessee Senate

  • Utah Senate

  • West Virginia Senate

  • Wyoming House

  • Wyoming Senate

• Democrats are guaranteed majority control of … three.

  • California Senate

  • Massachusetts House

  • Massachusetts Senate

Without a single vote cast!

But lawmakers aren’t the only things folks in some states can vote for.

Fun fact! Twenty-five states have ballot initiative and/or veto referendum processes.

• It used to be 26, but then the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that no petition can meet the state’s congressional district distribution requirement, which stipulates that “signatures of the qualified electors from any congressional district shall not exceed one-fifth (1/5) of the total number of signatures required to qualify an initiative petition for placement upon the ballot.”

• … which is literally impossible, since Mississippi hasn’t had five congressional districts since 2000.

lol

1. Anyway, abortion is literally on the ballot in six states this year–an all-time high!

   • In Kansas, voters already rejected an amendment that would have abrogated any interpretation of the state constitution to establish a constitutional right to abortion.

2. That leaves five states for November:

   • In Kentucky, voters will decide on a constitutional amendment similar to Kansas’.

   • In Montana, voters will likely approve a measure that would classify a born-alive infant as "a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the state ... entitled to the protections of the laws, including the right to appropriate and reasonable medical care and treatment" and require infants that are born alive after an induced labor, a cesarean section, an attempted abortion, or another method to receive medical care.

   • In California, Michigan, and Vermont, voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion rights in those states’ constitutions.

Stay tuned!

Okay, I’m going to leave you with a bit of good news (... sorta) you might have missed a couple weeks back–but mostly just as a reminder of how incredibly important judicial races are (you know, the ones Republicans have a whole party org committed to funding?).

• In the back half of August, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that, because the state legislature was unconstitutionally (racially) gerrymandered, Republican lawmakers maybe didn't actually have the power to approve amendments to the state constitution and put them before voters.

  • The decision, which the court's 4-3 Democratic majority issued along party lines, (mostly)n ends a four-year battle over these amendments–and over the authority of the gerrymandered North Carolina legislature.

    • The majority’s reasoning: Lawmakers who won their seats through unconstitutional racial gerrymandering can’t turn around and submit constitutional amendments that would permanently disadvantage the same groups that were discriminated against in the racial gerrymandering process.

I mean, makes sense, yeah?

• You may recall that, in the long-ago time of 2017, 28 legislative districts were struck down after federal courts found they illegally discriminated against Black voters.

But since when has that stopped Republicans from doing whatever they want? 

• The GOP lawmakers who had been elected under those unconstitutional maps used their ill-gotten legislative gains to place their amendments on the ballot in 2018–one to require photo voter ID and another to cap any state income tax at 7%--which likely wouldn't have been possible without the extra seats the GOP gained by gerrymandering Black voters.

  • Both amendments were ultimately approved, by the by.

• The court stopped short of granting the plaintiffs' requests to strike down the two amendments outright, instead returning the case to the trial court, though its framing of the dispute suggests the state courts will ultimately invalidate the amendments.

  • Needless to say, Republicans both on and off the court were livid over the majority’s ruling.

    • The dissent hurled ferocious invectives at the motives of the majority, and GOP lawmakers were Big Mad. 

    • GOP House Speaker Tim Moore decried the ruling as a "judicial coup" and vowed to fight the decision, including potentially appealing it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But … he might not have to.

(Hence the … sorta above.)

• Republicans have the chance to functionally reverse this ruling at the ballot box in November, when two Democratic seats on the state Supreme Court are up.

  • Democratic Justice Sam Ervin IV faces Republican attorney Trey Allen, while Court of Appeals Judge Lucy Inman is trying to hold onto an open Democratic seat against Republican Court of Appeals judge Richard Dietz.

  • If Republicans win either of these two seats, they’ll regain the court majority that they lost in 2016, paving the way for a reversal not only in this case but in many others—reversals that would threaten a multitude of rights protected over the past several years by that Democratic Supreme Court majority and Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto pen.

so many elections, so little time 

Welp, that’s a wrap for my newsletter comeback!

I appreciate you hanging in.

I appreciate you.

So take good care of yourself, yeah?

You’re important, and we need you.

Now What? edition

Welp.

That certainly wasn’t the election night Democrats were hoping for.

I mean sure, Donald Trump is on track to lose to Joe Biden. Which is good.

But down-ballot races were … more than disappointing.

Because Democrats at every level of government will suffer the consequences of GOP success at the ballot box in a year that ends in zero for the next decade.

As an erudite reader of this missive, I know you understand that state legislative politics and elections aren’t as tidy and straightforward as their federal counterpart.

So let’s discuss what happened on Tuesday and what it means for [[waves hands]] everything.

While results in some statehouses are still shaking out (yeah, I’m looking at you, Arizona), we already know that Republicans successfully defended their majorities in several key chambers.

Specifically,

• Iowa House
• Michigan House
• Minnesota Senate (not set in stone yet but looks likely Dems netted only one seat here)
• North Carolina House
• North Carolina Senate
• Pennsylvania House (also not set in stone but not looking great)
• Texas House 

So what happened?

• Did disaffected Republicans take their ire at Trump out at the top of their ballots and then ticket-split to support GOPers further down?
• Should Democrats have worked harder to tie down-ballot Republicans to Trump?
• Were resources allocated poorly?

I could drop a hot take here, but I respect you too much for that.

The truth is that we just don’t know yet.

All of these things could be true. None of them could be true.

But here are two things that are 100% true:

• Democrats were vying to flip districts specifically gerrymandered to elect Republicans.
• While the disparity wasn’t as severe as in cycles past, Republicans out-raised Democrats and outspent them in several key chambers.

But let’s face it: Even if Democrats flip one or both chambers in Arizona, Election Day 2020 was a disappointment.

Ya know what? I’ll take disappointment over a bloodbath.

Here’s a little perspective.

• Election Day 2010 replaced Election Day 2000 as the most excruciating of my life, and even 2016 wasn’t savage enough to supplant it.
• And 2020 certainly wasn’t.

It’s an oft-forgotten fact that Democrats appeared to be sitting pretty before the 2010 elections.

• They held majorities in 60 chambers.
  • Republicans held just 36, and two were tied.
• But many of those majorities were extremely small.
  • Dems held several chambers by just a couple of seats.

But then the party collectively seemed to forget that redistricting was going to be happening in 2011.

• Republicans, as we know, very much did not forget, and they outspent Democrats three-to-one to target a handful of flippable seats in key chambers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and more.
  • … lots more.
• Republicans flipped 21 chambers in 2010.
• In 2020, they flipped … three.

Don’t get me wrong: A GOP trifecta in New Hampshire is a Bad Thing.

• And this means Republicans get to re-gerrymander that state Senate (and the House, but with 400 seats, that chamber is always a bit of a crapshoot, honestly).
• But federally, this gives the GOP complete control over drawing a whole two congressional districts.

The bad news from Election 2020 isn’t what Republicans won.

It’s what Republicans successfully defended.

• I wrote previously in this space about how the next round of redistricting could shake out for Democrats, depending on the level of success they had in flipping GOP-held chambers this week.
  • Before Nov. 3, Republicans had complete control over the drawing of anywhere from 37% to 45% of all congressional districts nationwide.
    • Democrats would control the drawing of just 10% to 11%.
      • The remaining districts would be drawn via redistricting commissions (with varying degrees of independence), compromises reached in states with divided governments, and/or the courts (when some of those divided governments inevitably deadlock).
  • Sure, this three- or four-to-one advantage would have been lousy—but not as bad as it was in 2011, when Republicans had a better than five-to-one advantage in drawing congressional districts.

Okay, fast forward to, like, now.

Let's talk about how the situation has changed.

… and no, it’s not good.

We’re not even talking pre-election status quo here.

Things definitely got worse for Democrats in the next round of redistricting.

Which means winning a majority in the U.S. House is going to be even harder for Democrats over the course of the next decade.

• Tuesday saw the GOP's redistricting edge expand from three- or four-to-one to potentially four- or five-to-one.

Yes, Republicans may end up drawing five times as many districts as Democrats.

• This puts Democrats on footing almost as lopsided as the aftermath of the 2010 elections, when Republicans won the power to redraw five (and change) times as many House districts as Democrats.
  • You may recall that this huge advantage helped Republicans win the House in 2012 despite the fact that Democratic candidates won more votes.
    • Similar situations played out in several legislatures in key swing states multiple times over the last decade.

Tuesday’s election results create a grave risk of another decade of minority rule by the GOP both in Congress and in statehouses nationwide.

But there’s something else at play in the upcoming round of redistricting that wasn’t a factor in 2011.

• Back then, many new maps in southern states were subject to the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act.
  • … a requirement the U.S. Supreme Court killed in Shelby County v. Holder back in 2013.
    • This ruling also paved the way for a new wave of voter suppression laws, the repercussions of which we’re still dealing with as I type, as votes are still being counted in places like Georgia and Arizona.

My talented Daily Kos Elections colleagues have assembled a super detailed breakdown of how Tuesday’s results impact the next round of redistricting, but here are the crucial toplines:

• Why we still care what happens in Arizona even though they have an Independent Redistricting Commission: 
  • Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
  • House: Republican? (uncalled)
  • Senate: Republican? (uncalled)
    • Arizona has had an independent redistricting commission in place since 2000, but with the U.S. Supreme Court’s newly conservative configuration, the IRC is at a big of risk of being struck down.
      • Republicans in the legislature have repeatedly sought to undermine the commission, so ending the GOP’s control of state government would help insulate and preserve it.
    • If Democrats are able to flip a legislative chamber, the state’s divided government would sort out the aftermath of a ruling or GOP action against the IRC.
      • Perhaps they’d reach a bipartisan compromise!
        • … more likely, though, is that new maps would be drawn by the courts, which tend to favor nonpartisan districts.
• Why we care what happens in Michigan even though they have an independent redistricting commission:
  • Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
  • House: Republican hold
  • Senate: Republican (up in 2022)
    • In 2018, Michigan voters approved a ballot measure establishing a redistricting commission, stripping the legislature of its power to draw district maps for itself and for the U.S. House.
      • Republicans in the state have been assailing it from go, and like Arizona’s commission, it’s at risk of being destroyed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
      • But even if it survives, litigation over the eventual maps the commission produces is likely, which is why it's critical that Democrats just gained a 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court.
• Minnesota:
  • Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
  • House: Democratic hold
  • Senate: Republican hold(?—uncalled as of this writing)
    • Democrats appear to have fallen just short in their bid to win trifecta control in Minnesota, though final tallies have yet to be announced.
    • The state currently has nonpartisan maps drawn by a court and is poised to again after 2020.
      • But racial segregation in the Minneapolis area creates a “geography penalty” that harms Democrats, which means even ostensibly nonpartisan maps have the effect of functioning like GOP gerrymanders.
        • Case in point: Hillary Clinton and Democratic candidates won more votes statewide than Trump and Republicans in 2016 but failed to win a majority of seats in the state Senate.
        • That seems to have happened to Senate Democrats again this year.
• New Hampshire:
  • Governor: Republican hold
  • House: Republican flip
  • Senate: Republican flip
    • Yeah, didn’t think I’d be talking about this one.
      • On Nov. 3, Republicans unexpectedly regained their gerrymandered majorities to win full control over redistricting.
• North Carolina:
  • Governor: Democratic hold (but super irrelevant in this context)
  • House: Republican hold
  • Senate: Republican hold
  • Bonus! Supreme Court: Democratic hold
    • Battles over redistricting are set to continue after Republicans not only maintained their majorities, but also unexpectedly gained seats. And although Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper won reelection, it totally doesn’t matter: he’s unable to veto most key redistricting bills.
      • But it gets worse!
    • Republicans ousted at least one Democratic incumbent on the state Supreme Court and lead in two uncalled races where absentee and provisional ballots will decide whether Democrats majority stays at 6-1 or narrows to 5-2 (or even 4-3).
      • This matters because state courts curtailed the GOP's gerrymanders last year.
      • But while those rulings curbed the GOP’s worst map-drawing excesses, they didn’t entirely eliminate the problem.
        • Further, state-level judicial review is not guaranteed to succeed again given the increasingly radical stances taken by the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Pennsylvania:
  • Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
  • House: Republican (uncalled but likely) hold
  • Senate: Republican (uncalled but likely) hold
    • While many mail ballots that lean heavily Democratic are yet to be counted, Democrats are unlikely to win either chamber even if they win more votes statewide—which is precisely what happened in 2018 and 2012.
    • While Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has a Democratic majority that issued a ruling striking down the GOP's congressional gerrymander in 2018, it may not get the chance to draw a fair map of its own, especially if the U.S. Supreme Court interferes.
    • However, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf may block Republican legislators from passing an extreme congressional gerrymander.
• Texas:
  • Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
  • House: Republican hold
  • Senate: Republican hold
    • I mentioned in this space last week that Republicans were pumping tons of late cash into these state House races, and WOW did that effort pay off.
    • Texas is arguably the most important state for Republican congressional gerrymandering, and Democrats failed to make the big gains needed to flip the state House to break the GOP’s trifecta control of the state.
      • But wait, it gets worse!
        • Democrats also failed to lay the groundwork for striking down gerrymanders later this decade after Republicans swept all four seats up this year to maintain their 9-0 state Supreme Court majority.

Sigh.

tl;dr— 

• This round of redistricting might not be as bad for Democrats as the last round, but it’s not shaping up to be much better.
  • And depending on SCOTUS interference, it could arguably be worse.

Okay, one more piece of lousy news before I remind you (… and myself) that last night wasn’t a total disaster.

• Democrats failed to break the Republican supermajorities in the Kansas House and Senate, leaving an increasingly conservative statehouse GOP with the power to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes.

But on to less terrible news!

• Democrats in Wisconsin successfully defended against the GOP’s bid to win supermajorities in both legislative chambers.
  • Wisconsin Republican lawmakers will continue to be awful, but at least they can’t override Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ vetoes.
• In Delaware, Democrats won a Senate supermajority, giving them supermajorities in both chambers.
• In Maine, Democrats defeated the Senate GOP leader, expanded their majority in the chamber, and defended their House majority.

And while Republican legislators in many states will now have to deal with newly elected QAnon believers in their caucuses, Democrats celebrated a lot of positive firsts.

• David Ortiz in Colorado HD-36 will be that state’s first out bisexual legislator.
• Iman Jodeh in Colorado HD-41 will be the state's first Muslim lawmaker.
• Sarah McBride in Delaware SD-01 will be the country’s first transgender state senator.
• Shevrin Jones in Florida SD-35 will become the state’s first LGBTQ state senator.
• Michele Rayner in Florida HD-70 will be the first Black LGBTQ woman in that state’s legislature.
• Kim Jackson in Georgia SD-41 will be the state’s first openly LGBTQ state senator.
• Stephanie Byers in Kansas HD-86 will become both the first openly transgender member of the Kansas legislature and the first Native American transgender legislator in the country.
• Ricky Hurtado in North Carolina HD-63 is the first Latino Democrat elected to that state’s legislature.
• Jabari Brisport in New York SD-25 will become the state’s first LGBTQ legislator of color.
• Mauree Turner in Oklahoma HD-88 will become the state’s first Muslim state legislator and the nation’s first nonbinary state legislator.
• Torrey Harris in Tennessee HD-90 will be the state’s first openly LGBTQ state lawmaker.

This list is in no way exhaustive—feel free to hit me up with other cool Democratic state legislative first you know of!

So, after a decade of trying to slog their way back to majorities in legislative chambers designed specifically to preserve GOP control, Democrats came up short in the most consequential election of the decade.

I’ve already discussed why this is bad for redistricting purposes, but it sucks for other important reasons, too.

Such as:

• Abortion rights are under existential threat by the new 6-3 conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Without a majority in the U.S. Senate, Democrats won’t be able to rebalance the court to counter the seats stolen by the GOP.
  • If the new SCOTUS erodes or overturns Roe v. Wade, it will fall to states to protect women’s access to full reproductive healthcare and the right to obtain an abortion.
    • Are GOP-controlled legislatures going to safeguard that right?
      • Not bloody likely.

Or try this on for size:

• Fast forward to late January 2021. Joe Biden has just taken office.
  • Some of his first acts as president involve undoing Trump’s numerous terrible executive orders and replacing those regressive, racist, anti-environmental, anti-equality, etc. measures with his own—many reinstating EOs from the Obama era, others implementing his own forward-looking policies.

But wait!

• In statehouses across the country, Republican-controlled legislatures are just starting their sessions.
  • And one of their first orders of business is to do everything they can think of to stymie President Biden’s efforts to undo the damage wrought by Trump.
    • They’ll pass laws specifically designed to thwart policies set forth in the EOs.
    • They’ll command their state attorneys general to sue the Biden administration over policies they don’t like.
    • They’ll blame him for governing challenges resulting from their own or Trump’s mismanagement of everything from the coronavirus pandemic to state budgets.
      • And then of course they’ll also draw legislative districts that preserve their own majorities and congressional districts that erode Democratic power.

I have one wish for an incoming Biden administration:

Don’t make Obama’s mistake of neglecting state legislative politics and elections.

The cost to Biden’s own policy priorities would be high.

The cost to the future of Biden’s party is much, much higher.

Read more here!

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Master Debater edition

Just over a week to go. And while campaigns all the way down the ballot are still breathlessly raising and spending money and doing every kind of (safe!) outreach to voters they can think of in the closing days of this election, more than 40 million Americans have already cast their ballots. Nevertheless, two weeks from today, we’ll almost certainly still be waiting to learn which party will win majority control of key legislative chambers just in time for the 2021 round of redistricting. Sorry [[ducks whatever you probably want to throw at me]] Even in a … well, let’s just say “normal” year, dozens and dozens of state legislative races across the country are decided by 500 votes or fewer—sometimes far fewer. (Raise your hand if you remember the 2017 debacle that kept the GOP in control of the Virginia House of Delegates for an extra two years.) That means no early calls. Every vote will need to get counted before a winner is declared—including absentee/mail-in and provisional. And as I’ve pointed out in this space previously, counting those ballots—with the removing from envelopes and unfolding and matching signatures and whatever other validation measures a particular state requires—takes way more time than counting votes cast in person. Add to that all the legislative chambers that Republicans could lose majority control of by just a seat or two— Especially Arizona House (Dems need to flip two for a majority) Arizona Senate (Dems need to flip three) Michigan House (Dems need to flip four) North Carolina House (flip six) North Carolina Senate (flip five) Pennsylvania House (flip nine) Texas House (flip nine) I’m exempting Minnesota Senate (flip two) from this list because I legitimately think it won’t be all that close. [[knocks on all the wood]] Also I’d add Iowa House (flip four)—especially in light of the fact that nine legislative races in the state were decided by fewer than 500 votes just two years ago. All told, 44 states are electing 5,875 state legislators on Nov. 3. We’ll know if a couple of those key chambers flipped (or didn’t) by the time we go to bed on election night (… okay maybe you don’t stay up until 4 a.m. for these things), but definitely not all. So hold on to your butts, folks. But hold on to them patiently. Election week is going to be a journey. Clip ‘n’ Save: Here’s a thing to bookmark for election night: A handy new spreadsheet via my Daily Kos Elections colleagues that not only highlights the most flippable seats in the above chambers, but also includes the Kansas House and Senate, where Democrats could break Republicans’ veto-proof supermajorities (a constant vexation for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly). The reason I’ll definitely have the spreadsheet open on one of my monitors on election night? Even when you’re just looking to flip a handful of chambers, that’s still a lot of seats to keep track of winning and losing. In the above listed (excepting Kansas), that’s a total of 890 seats! Add Kansas and you’re trying to keep track of 1,055 separate races. But in the end, majority control of these chambers comes down to just a handful of seats in each. This cheat sheet is a little on the over-inclusive side, but if there’s one lesson to take away from the Trump era, it’s that absolutely nothing is off the table. Anything can happen. So yeah. Keep an eye on these. Everything Is Terrible, part 894,331: One of the key strengths of the candidates Democrats are running for state legislatures across the country is their diversity. So of course some white people want to turn that into a liability. Over the weekend, three Black candidates (incumbent state Rep. Marshall Bullock, aspiring state representative Chokwe Pitchford, and county commission candidate Rayonte Bell) in Michigan were engaging in some safely socially distanced door-knocking when someone in the “overwhelmingly white” community of St. Joseph called the police on the men. The caller claimed that “three suspicious Black men” were “walking up to homes and peeking into windows,” which was not at all what these guys were doing—nor is that even remotely how one canvasses, COVID-19 or no COVID-19. Like all properly trained canvassers these days, they rang doorbells and then took several steps back from the doors to be at a safe distance when they (hopefully) spoke with the homes’ occupants. Thankfully, the officers (one white and one Black) were “friendly and not intimidating,” according to the candidates. Pitchford (a Daily Kos endorsee) is working to flip the historically Republican HD-79 as part of Democrats’ larger effort to win a majority in the Michigan House of Representatives. The View From Up Here: Obviously most folks’ focus right now is (and should be!) on winning ALL THE ELECTIONS on Nov. 3. But when you’ve been doing state politics as long as I have, you take a longer view. And when you remember chamber after chamber after chamber after chamber after chamber—21 total—flipping to Republican control on Nov. 2, 2010, you may end up, like me, (… okay you probably don’t want to end up like me) sharply focused on the implications of this year’s election results on a whole host of things in the long term. What does Democratic or divided control of various states mean for the next president? How will state legislatures be equipped to stymie—or take advantage of—rulings from a super-conservative U.S. Supreme Court? And—both most immediately and with implications for political power for the next ten years—what about the next round of redistricting? Glad you asked! As things stand now, right now, as you’re reading this (providing you’ve gotten around to it before Election Day), Republicans have complete control over the drawing of anywhere form 37% to 45% of all congressional districts nationwide. Democrats would control the drawing of just 10% to 11%. The remaining districts would be drawn via redistricting commissions (with varying degrees of independence), compromises reached in states with divided governments, and/or the courts (when some of those divided governments inevitably deadlock). Sure, this three- or four-to-one advantage is bad, but it’s not as bad as it was in 2011, when Republicans had a better than five-to-one advantage in drawing congressional districts. But on Nov. 3, Democrats have an opportunity to deny the GOP total control over drawing a heap of those districts—specifically in places like North Carolina and Texas. They also have the opportunity to increase Democratic leverage in Pennsylvania and protect independent redistricting commissions in Arizona, Iowa, and Michigan. Bonus: Possible total control over redistricting in Minnesota if Democrats flip the state Senate and pick up a governing trifecta in the state. And, well, while we don’t know how reapportionment is going to shake out (who’s excited for Redistmas? … well, whenever it happens this time around), we do know that those states have a slew of congressional districts among them. So whichever party does or doesn’t control the map-drawing process in each state is going to have a massive impact on which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives through 2030. As apportionment currently stands, depriving Republicans of complete control of redistricting in North Carolina by flipping either the state House or Senate would prevent them from drawing 13 districts to suit their partisan whims. Taking away complete GOP control in Texas by flipping the state House would prevent them from gerrymandering 36 districts. Increasing Democratic leverage in Pennsylvania by giving the Democratic governor an allied chamber would boost the prospect of fair maps in 18 districts. Protecting commissions in Arizona, Iowa, and Michigan would insulate nine, four, and 14 seats, respectively, from GOP meddling. And flipping the state Senate in Minnesota would give Democrats complete control over the drawing of another eight congressional districts. Again, these state-by-state numbers are subject to change (and almost certainly will) next year, but not by a ton. (If you’re into this stuff, you should definitely check out this amazing state-by-state breakdown of how redistricting functions literally everywhere in the country, courtesy of your very smart friends at Daily Kos Elections.) So that’s a whole lot of long-term potential partisan impact on Congress that’s going to be determined by just a few handfuls of state legislative seats on Nov. 3. And that’s to say nothing of the other outsized impacts state legislative control has on other stuff, from candidate benches to policy incubators to … well, hopefully I’ll have some time to get into that next week.