Democrats took to the streets to celebrate over the weekend, but the jubilee may be short lived — for multiple reasons.
The party’s now well-known trouncing in state legislative races on Election Day will have another effect on the long-term balance of power beyond simply ensuring a more conservative direction of law-making over the next two years: It means Republicans will largely be drawing the new state and congressional districts, allowing them to do so in a manner favorable to their election prospects in this decade.
This could keep the Democrats the minority party in these states and improve Republicans’ odds of taking over the House in 2022, which is within sight after Democrats’ poor performance on November 3 resulted in the thinnest House majority in two decades.
Despite spending millions of dollars, Democrats did not flip a single state legislative chamber in their favor. The party remains completely shut out from the redistricting process in key states such as Texas, North Carolina, and Florida, which together could have a combined 82 congressional seats by 2022.
Republicans will likely have total control over the map-making process for 181 districts, while Democrats will draw the maps for 76 districts, according to statistics tallied by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
President Trump’s popularity played a key role in this Republican victory. Unlike 2018, in which President Trump was not on the ballot and Republicans lost their House majority, the president’s name at the top of the ticket this time around was a boost to members of his party.
It’s clear that Trump isn’t an anchor for the Republican legislative candidates. He’s a buoy,” said Christina Polizzi, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, on Wednesday. “He overperformed media expectations, Democratic and Republican expectations, and lifted legislative candidates with him.”
In addition to picking up seats in the House, Republicans appeared to hold onto the Senate (although it remains to be seen how January’s Senate runoff in Georgia will affect the current balance of power), claimed the governorship in Montana, and flipped New Hampshire’s legislature.
“The results that we saw last night and that will continue to come out throughout the day today and the rest of this week will put the Republican Party in a position where we’re able to secure a decade of power across the country,” said Austin Chambers, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee. “And it’s something that the Democrats were desperate for, and they came up well short.”
Democrats failed in all of their top targets, including in blue Minnesota, which was seen as their most promising potential win in this cycle.
Politico notes:
Nationally, Republicans are touting the legislative election results as an even bigger victory for the party than 2010, when the GOP flipped 22 state chambers. State legislative and other Republican operatives have repeatedly noted how DLCC, a new group called Forward Majority and other outside interests spent major sums of money to secure down-ballot wins and came up with nothing to show for it.
Forward Majority, for example, spent more than $32 million in an effort to flip state legislative chambers in Florida, Texas, Arizona and North Carolina. Democrats needed to win four seats to flip Florida’s state Senate — and they were targeting key state House races in an effort to shrink the GOP majority there.
Devastated Democrats are playing the blame game. Florida State Representative Anna Eskamani, seen as a rising start in the party, says insufficient field operations contributed to their failure in the Sunshine State. “A lot of money is spent in states like Florida, but how are they spending it? Don’t just invest in television ads. Invest in field.”
In some places, the blow of any one party controlling the legislature is softened by the creation of redistricting commissions, as is the case in Michigan (where Democrats control the lawmaking body) and in Virginia (where Democrats are in charge).
Democrats did score some wins, however. In Ohio, Democrats reduced the conservative majority down to 4-3 on the Supreme court. In Michigan, they are now in position to create a liberal majority on the court, which could take up challenges to the redistricting commission. They also blocked a supermajority in the Wisconsin legislature that could have overridden Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ veto.
For the moment, Democrats claim they’re already looking at 10 years to come back after the next census. “We need to go back and start investing directly into states to build from the ground up,” Polizzi said.
