Races for state legislatures are different from congressional elections. The money is far less, the districts are smaller and the maps are more unwieldy, with each state carved into dozens of districts.
But this year, they’ll still be hot battlegrounds, since whoever controls statehouses has the power to shape critical issues like voting rules, abortion access and much more.
Forward Majority, a Democratic super PAC that focuses on state legislative races, has distilled the sprawling state legislative landscape into a simple road map: 41 districts that the group says “are essential to protecting our democracy” in a memo shared exclusively with the Times.
The path, Forward Majority argues, runs largely through the suburbs in four battleground states with close margins in their legislative chambers: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They will focus almost exclusively in the suburbs around the biggest cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Detroit and Milwaukee.
The group’s founder, Vicky Hausman, said in an interview that state legislative races could prove a salve for President Biden in states where his approval ratings are sagging. The hope, she explained, is that voters who care deeply about an issue like abortion rights will come out to vote for a state senator — and then the president.