schmidlap
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- Oct 30, 2020
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Much of the celebration has been over Democrats retaining control of the Senate and incurring far fewer losses in the House than was anticipated or is customary in a midterm election for a Party controlling all branches of national government, especially when the President has low approval.
The showing on the state level is every bit as impressive, if not more so, as FiveThirtyEight reports:
The showing on the state level is every bit as impressive, if not more so, as FiveThirtyEight reports:
For the first time in years, more Americans will live in a state fully controlled by Democrats than in one fully controlled by Republicans. Thanks to their wins in gubernatorial or state-legislative elections, Democrats took complete control of three new state governments in the 2022 elections: Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont.
They also kept full control of state government in four of the five states where they were in danger of losing it.
Republicans, on the other hand, didn’t flip a single legislative chamber from blue to red. This is the first midterm election since at least 1934 that the president’s party hasn’t lost a state-legislative chamber.
Democrats flipped the Maryland and Massachusetts governorships and maybe the Pennsylvania state House.
Democrats’ most significant win was probably Michigan. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was reelected, and Democrats took control of the state House for the first time since 2011 and the state Senate for the first time since 1984.
In Minnesota, Democrats kept the governor’s office and state House and flipped the state Senate from red to blue, gaining complete control of state government for the first time since 2013.
In Vermont, Democrats and Progressives, a liberal third party, now control a supermajority of vote in the State House… They already had a supermajority in the state Senate, so they can now override vetoes from Republican Gov. Phil Scott.
Democrats didn’t take complete control of state government in Pennsylvania (as expected, they fell short in the state Senate). Still, they set themselves up to do so in 2024 by gaining at least 11 seats in the state House — which they are on the verge of flipping. As of Nov. 16 at 4 p.m. Eastern, Democrats had won 101 House seats, and Republicans had won 100. Control of the chamber will be determined by the outcomes of the two races that are still to close to call.
Democrats lost total control of just one state government this year. In Nevada, Republican Joe Lombardo defeated Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in the gubernatorial race. But, notably, Democrats kept their grip on Colorado, Maine, New Mexico and Oregon after winning the governorship and state legislature in each.
