Source: Politics<\/p>\n
As Democrats regroup after the 2024 election, some are finding cautious optimism in an unlikely place: state legislatures.<\/p>\n
While the party faced disappointing results such as losing the Michigan state House, it did not face the kind of devastating wreckage down-ballot that often accompanies other national elections.<\/p>\n
The state legislative results were far from a triumph for Democrats. But they stand apart from the presidential race, in which Vice President Kamala Harris lost every single swing state \u2014 including states where Democrats made gains in state government or preserved their majorities. Democrats held onto a one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House, flipped 14 seats in Wisconsin under new electoral maps, and broke the GOP supermajority in North Carolina, giving weight to Democratic Gov.-elect Josh Stein\u2019s veto power.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just can’t recall an election that we have been in the same presidential battlegrounds and have been able to maintain the successes that we did have, and mitigate the losses in the way that we did,\u201d said Heather Williams, the head of Democrats\u2019 state legislative campaign arm. \u201cTo be able to hold our own in Pennsylvania and maintain that majority with the losses up-ticket, there’s definitely stuff to learn from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the kind of sweeping dominance that Democrats had hoped for this election cycle, but strategists focused on these races say those results prove Democrats have figured out what it takes to be successful in the states.<\/p>\n
Republicans find the idea laughable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know how anyone over there could look at this as anything other than an utter disaster,\u201d said Republican State Leadership Committee President Dee Duncan, who is stepping down from his role at the end of the year.<\/p>\n
While Democrats acknowledge they fell short, they see this year\u2019s results as laying the groundwork for upcoming cycles \u2014 even if they can\u2019t help what\u2019s happening at the top of the ticket.<\/p>\n
“We know that cycle after cycle we build the best sailboat we can in state legislatures but we don’t control the wind at the higher level of the ballot,\u201d said Leslie Martes, chief strategy officer for Forward Majority, a PAC that spent $45 million this cycle on supporting Democratic state legislative candidates.<\/p>\n
One lesson down-ballot Democratic groups are emphasizing: They need more money and attention from the rest of the party.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we are obviously encouraged by Democrats\u2019 resilience in state legislative races, we should also be clear about one thing: this overperformance happened in spite of the national party\u2019s efforts at the state legislative level, not because of them,\u201d reads a post-election memo from Democratic group the States Project shared exclusively with POLITICO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Founded in 2017 by former New York lawmaker Daniel Squadron and Democratic donor Adam Pritzker, the group has emerged as a top player<\/a> in Democratic state legislative circles \u2014 spending more than $70 million on electing Democrats this cycle.<\/p>\n \u201cPut simply, national Democrats continue to overlook and underfund state legislative campaigns,\u201d the memo reads.<\/p>\n Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, had also forewarned a lack of investment<\/a> in the leadup to the election.<\/p>\n It\u2019s routine for committees to sound the alarm over money problems \u2014 and it is a particularly perennial complaint down-ballot, a level that often gets overshadowed.<\/p>\n Democrats credit a record amount of money poured into these races as one of the main reasons why their state legislative candidates largely bucked national electoral trends. The DLCC received $2.5 million from Harris\u2019 campaign and the Democratic National Committee \u2014 a historic sum, though still a tiny amount considering the massive political spending further up the ticket. The DNC also put more than $260 million into state parties this cycle \u2014 money that, in part, went toward these down-ballot races.<\/p>\n In a key race for the Pennsylvania state House majority, eight-term Democratic state Rep. Frank Burns, running in a heavily Republican district, put in more than $4 million on advertising, while Republicans spent $2.5 million, according to ad tracker AdImpact. Two years ago, total spending was $1.5 million.<\/p>\n