In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. The update -includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.
Across 15 possible battleground states, nearly every Democratic state party group is hitting higher quarterly fundraising totals or holding more cash on hand in their federal accounts than they did at this point during the 2016 presidential campaign, and a majority of them did both, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission filings and in interviews with party officials. Many of these state parties — responsible for field operations and coordinating a ticket-wide campaign — are seeing three, four or five times the amount of cash they did before.Louis Jacobson, Cook Political Report:
If the arc of the 2020 election continues as it has for the past few months, the Democrats can look forward to gains in the state legislatures.
This is the conclusion of our second handicapping of state legislative control this election cycle; we published the first on Jan. 15. We're shifting eight chambers, six of which are currently held by the GOP, in the Democrats' direction.
Our rating shifts are dictated by a national political environment in which President Donald Trump's chances of winning a second term have deteriorated amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic downturn, and racial justice protests following the death in police custody of George Floyd.
In the key midwestern battleground of Michigan, a surge by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads us to shift the state House – the only chamber being contested in the state this cycle – from Lean Republican to Toss Up. We're also shifting towards the Democrats three chambers in southern presidential battleground states where Biden is running tight with Trump. In North Carolina, we're shifting the House from Likely Republican to Lean Republican, where it joins the state Senate, which had already been in the Lean Republican category. In Georgia, we're shifting both chambers from Likely Republican to Lean Republican. As a precaution, we're shifting both chambers in Ohio from Solid Republican to Likely Republican, following the arrest of the Republican House speaker. Finally, we're moving the Connecticut House and Senate, both currently controlled by the Democrats, from Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic.
