MUST-WATCH MIDTERMS — State legislatures increasingly shape American politics — from Covid to culture wars. In 2022 alone, statehouses have become the primary battlegrounds for abortion rights and gun legislation. But paramount among Democrats’ concerns is what the GOP domination of state legislatures — there are 30 states where the Republicans control both chambers — might mean for the 2024 presidential election.
Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania are among the states where President Joe Biden won most narrowly in 2020. And GOP legislative leaders in each of these three states tried to push officials to overturn the results in former President Donald Trump’s favor.
That’s why one Dem group, Forward Majority, is prioritizing state legislative races in these three states in 2022. It believes the 2024 presidential election is on the line in November 2022.
Forward Majority has identified 40 statehouse races, with the goal of winning 25 of them. Just that many could flip at least one chamber of the legislature in each of the three key states, according to the group’s analysis.
“I think we can all agree that there are very likely to be hotly contested and disputed election outcomes in battleground states in 2024,” co-founder Vicky Hausman said in an interview with Nightly. “Democrats must win state legislative power in key states to prevent the worst threats to election subversion.”