Intelligencer reports that 2020 was a disaster for Democrats with expensive and ambitious efforts to flip state legislative chambers. As Politico reports, it seems to have gone pretty badly for the Donkey Party way down-ballot:
An abysmal showing by Democrats in state legislative races on Tuesday not only denied them victories in Sun Belt and Rust Belt states that would have positioned them to advance their policy agenda — it also put the party at a disadvantage ahead of the redistricting that will determine the balance of power for the next decade …
By Wednesday night, Democrats had not flipped a single statehouse chamber in its favor. And it remained completely blocked from the map-making process in several key states — including Texas, North Carolina and Florida, which could have a combined 82 congressional seats by 2022 — where the GOP retained control of the state legislatures.
After months of record-breaking fundraising by their candidates and a constellation of outside groups, Democrats fell far short of their goals and failed to build upon their 2018 successes to capture state chambers they had been targeting for years.
The report further states, “…the same disappointing suburban results that hurt Democrats in U.S. House races kept them from making the expected gains in state legislative contests as well. Indeed, as the National Conference of State Legislatures reports, the power dynamics in state governments in 2021 are likely to be the same as those in place right now.”
That’s one bit of hope in this whole insane election.
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