Democrats take legislatures in Michigan, Minnesota and eye Pennsylvania

Democrats took control of the Michigan legislature this week, handing the party full power over the state government for the first time in nearly 40 years as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer beat back a Republican challenger Tuesday night.

In Michigan and elsewhere, Democrats not only held onto governorships in battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Kansas but also outperformed expectations in many key statehouse races, delivering a blow to Republicans who have dominated many of the chambers for a decade or more.

Democrats flipped the Republican stronghold in the Minnesota Senate, notching a trifecta as Democratic Gov. Tim Walz won reelection. The unified government in St. Paul opens the door for Walz and his allies in the statehouse to reach a deal on how to spend a $12 billion budget surplus. The Legislature adjourned earlier this year after gridlock stalled spending negotiations.

Democrats are also threatening the Republican majorities in the Pennsylvania House and Senate. And while results in Arizona — another top target for Democrats — remain unclear, Republicans just hold narrow two-seat majorities in both the Arizona House and Senate.

“Republicans had everything in their favor: record fundraising and a midterm political environment under a Democratic president, and they have little to show for it,” Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Jessica Post said in a statement. “This election should have been a landslide for Republicans — instead Democrats fended off the so-called 'red wave' in the states and gained critical ground for the decade ahead.”

The DLCC and Democratic-aligned PACs like Forward Majority and the States Project have set their sights on winning back seats by pouring millions of dollars into races in battleground states.

Still, the GOP controls the majority of state legislatures. On Tuesday night, Republican legislators in Florida locked in supermajorities in both houses and without a clear winner in Congress, conservatives in the capitals see themselves as the political frontline.

"With minimal gains at the federal level, the Republican power we held and gained last night in the states will be all the more important for stopping Joe Biden’s disastrous agenda," Republican State Leadership Committee communications director Andrew Romeo said in a statement, noting how the GOP built supermajorities this week, including in the North Carolina Senate, Wisconsin Senate and Iowa Senate. "We know that last night was just the beginning of the radical left’s full-throated assault that they will mount against our GOP majorities in the coming decade, and the fight to stop socialism in the states continues.” 

As the election results were finalized early Wednesday morning, Democratic leaders in Michigan attributed the upset to strong forces at the top of the ballot: the popularity of incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who landed a comfortable reelection, and a high-profile ballot initiative establishing a constitutional right to abortion, which also succeeded. Democrats also benefited from a new congressional map drawn by an independent commission.

Get Out the Vote organizers also say that election victories can be directly attributed to years of planning across rural communities and among working-class voters of color, a game plan that they hope will be emulated in other states as Democrats attempt to claw back state-level power in GOP strongholds.

“Long term organizing matters,” said Art Reyes, executive director of the grassroots group We the People Michigan. “For us we have been steadily organizing for the last five years, this is about actually making sure we’re building long term organizing capacity that doesn't sweep in and out. It's not about building sandcastles.”

Democrats flipped the Michigan Senate with the help of the election of a progressive candidate in a newly created district including Grand Traverse County, a rural part of the state known as the “cherry belt” with a strong agriculture presence.

Democratic candidate Betsy Coffia won that district in large part by an organizing strategy that involved migrant farmworkers who were campaigning for her on behalf of a statewide campaign for everyone to qualify for a driver's license, regardless of immigration status. Undocumented migrant workers hosted house parties, phone banks and community events and urged their family members who could vote to show up at the polls.

“They organized them to turn out in force," Reyes said. “We’re seeing in a community where migrant farm workers who often have been treated as invisible, they just flexed their organizing power and helped to flip the seat that flipped the statehouse.”

Democrats in Michigan are anticipated to try to use their newfound power to support the reenergized labor movement by repealing the state's right-to-work status.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats are hopeful that the party's success at the top of the ticket with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman's election to the Senate would trickle down to local offices. As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats had picked up nine seats and results were outstanding in a handful of races that will determine the balance of both chambers.

Pennsylvania Democrats have not held a majority in either the House or Senate since 2010, the bruising midterm cycle when Republicans swept statehouse races and took over 21 chambers.

It may be days or weeks before the final results are known in Arizona. Yet early returns looked promising for Democrats. It will come down to five districts, the most competitive of which is located in Mesa in a race that's drawn national attention.