Elections Go Beyond the Federal Level: Reviewing State Results
By Geoff Pallay, editor-in-chief of Ballotpedia
You’ve likely seen a variety of analyses in the days since the mid-term election. While much attention tends to be devoted to federal results, the state-level outcomes are just as significant to understand. I’d like to walk through the basic Ballotpedia breakdown of these state-level election results.
Following Tuesday’s midterm elections, 98.2 percent of Americans have one party controlling their state legislature. Either Democrats or Republicans hold a majority in both the senate and house in every state with the exception of Minnesota. Democrats control 18 legislatures while Republicans control 30.
For residents in 36 states, single-party control expands further when you take into account who controls the governor’s mansion; we call these states trifectas. Since we coined the term in 2010, we’ve been tracking states where one party holds both chambers in the state legislature and the governor’s office. Trifectas make it possible for one party to advance its policy goals without much support from the minority party and are a sought-after goal of party leadership.
Before this election, Democratic Party groups were on-record that a major goal of theirs was to break and gain new trifectas. Similarly, Republicans aimed to defend their territory.
Democrats emerged from Tuesday’s elections with a net gain of six government trifectas while Republicans lost four trifectas. Republicans still hold eight more trifectas than Democrats (with Georgia’s gubernatorial race still too close to call). As the totals now stand, Democrats have 14 trifectas, Republicans have 22, and 13 states are divided (down from 16 divided states before the midterms). Eleven state governments underwent changes to their status as trifecta states.
Before the election, Republicans held 26 trifectas, versus eight for the Democrats and 16 with divided government. Now the score is 22 GOP trifectas and 14 Democratic, with 13 divided. Republicans could bump their total up to 23 if they can hold on to their trifecta in Georgia, which hinges on a still-too-close-to-call gubernatorial race.
This outcome is similar to the trifecta balance following the 2014 midterm election, which left Republicans with 24 trifectas, Democrats with 13, and 13 divided.
With redistricting coming in 2021, attention will shift to the 2020 election cycle, as both parties look to shore up majorities and seek trifectas to control map-drawing. Republicans flipped 21 chambers in 2010, setting them up to have more control over the 2010 Census redistricting processes. Many states that didn’t flip saw tightened partisan balances, which makes the 2020 cycle likely to be even more competitive.
Democrats took away at least seven gubernatorial seats currently held by Republicans—and potentially eight, pending the outcome of the Georgia race. The 2018 results increased the total number of Democratic governors to at least 23 and reduced the Republican total to at least 26. The last time the Democratic Party had more than 20 governorships was in 2010, when they held 26 heading into that cycle. Republicans entered 2010 with 23 governorships and increased their total to 29.
The 2018 outcome includes two Republican incumbents defeated in Illinois and Wisconsin, plus five open seats held by Republicans lost in Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, and Nevada. A lone Republican pickup was in Alaska.
Republicans appear to have taken the Alaska House of Representatives, the only state legislative chamber flipped by the GOP during Election 2018. That’s the smallest number of Republican takeovers since before the 2010 election. It was a better night for Democrats, flipping six state legislative chambers—their best performance since the 2012 elections.
Still, it was a relatively quiet year. Twenty-two state legislative chambers flipped in 2010 (all but one went from Democrats to Republicans), and nine flipped in 2014 (all went to Republicans).
Republicans now control a total of 62 state legislative chambers (32 senate, 30 house), and Democrats control 37 (18 senate, 19 house).
Minnesota will be the only legislature that is divided (Republicans control the Senate and Democrats have the House). We’re still crunching the numbers, but as of now, it looks like Democrats lost seats in 13 chambers while Republicans lost seats in 54.
More than $1 billion were contributed to campaign supporting or opposing the 167 ballot measures in 2018.
Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana and removed legislative redistricting authority from the lawmakers elected by those same voters. At least two other states passed measures liberalizing marijuana use, and three rejected such measures. There were 14 additional states with redistricting and election law changes on the Election 2018 ballot.
Floridians approved a measure restoring the right to vote to convicted felons who have completed their sentences.
Three measures to support the expansion of the Medicaid population or funding passed in Idaho, Nebraska, and Oregon. Montana voters rejected Medicaid expansion. As of this writing, a vote in Utah is still undeclared.
State sessions kick into gear the first week of January. What that will bring for state policy decisions is what we’ll all be watching as the year changes to 2019.
The much anticipated wave election working against Republicans failed to materialize. Having analyzed every national election since 1918, Ballotpedia defines a wave election as one in which results fall within the top 20th percentile of worst historical outcomes against the party of the sitting president.
A wave hitting the US House would be the president’s party losing 48 or more seats. As of this writing, with more than a dozen seats still without a declared winner, the very most the GOP will lose is 38.
Republicans have increased their U.S. Senate majority by at least one seat, and with two results still undeclared, they could yet gain as many as three. A wave election in 2018 would have Republicans losing at least seven seats. Republicans lost eight seats under President Bush in 2008, and Democrats lost nine under President Obama in 2014.
