A significantly overlooked Election Day victory for Republicans could have positive ramifications for the party for the next 10 years.
Yes, President Trump’s re-election efforts have run into numerous problems, but Republicans have likely held on to power in the Senate while surprisingly flipping several seats in the House of Representatives.
But it’s at the state level that the GOP may have experienced their most powerful victory thus far. Democrats banked heavily on an effort to win seats in state legislative chambers in 2020, only to be thoroughly rebuked by the GOP.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Democrats come up short in bid to flip state legislatures, despite national groups outspending Republicans https://t.co/VrKY6suBeZ via @WSJ
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) November 5, 2020
Republican Election Victory at the State Level
The Washington Post reported just days before the election that the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) was “hoping to flip as many as seven legislative chambers this year” in an attempt at creating “a wall of power.”
Not only did the GOP resist those efforts (the progressive party has yet to flip a single chamber), but they managed to gain a majority in both chambers of the New Hampshire Legislature.
It was a historic failure for Democrats, as Fox News reports, adding, “The last time fewer than five legislative chambers slipped was in 1946.”
Republican State Leadership Committee Deputy Executive Director David Abrams mocked Democrats for spending millions to flip state chambers. “So far, they don’t have a damn thing to show for it,” he gloated.
Joe Biden's win would give Democrats 4 years of power. State legislatures could give them 10. https://t.co/7QYqVIBL2i – @PhilMcCausland
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 31, 2020
Republicans with a Decade of Power
The defense of state legislatures is a major victory for the Republican Party, with effects that can reverberate for a decade or more. The reason? Redistricting.
“Down-ballot races could define North Carolina politics — and those in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and even Texas — for the next decade,” NBC News reported just prior to the election, explaining why Democrats were desperate for the win. “That’s because the winner will have the power to redraw state electoral maps now that the 2020 census is done,” they added.
Republicans are poised to utterly dominate 2020s redistricting, see here for my state-by-state guide: https://t.co/6ZxK7KNI3u
NPR's story below is 1 of 4 key reasons why GOP gerrymandering is set to become even more potent than last decade, & I'll have a new post out on it soon https://t.co/QajSbNYYSV pic.twitter.com/ZUGFFL1N6N
— Stephen Wolf (@PoliticsWolf) November 6, 2020
Politico reports that Democrats’ “abysmal showing” in the election “put the party at a disadvantage ahead of the redistricting that will determine the balance of power for the next decade.”
Another Repudiation of Obama-Biden?
It’s impossible to note the significant defeat for Democrats at the state-level without noting the similarities the last time it happened at historic levels.
In 2015, the Washington Free Beacon revealed that Democrats “lost 12 governorships … 30 state legislative chambers and more than 900 state legislative seats.”
Former President Barack Obama introduces Joe Biden at campaign event in Flint, Michigan pic.twitter.com/gWUKExXBdt
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 31, 2020
Obama would frequently remind voters that while he wasn’t on the ballot in 2010 or 2014, his policies were.
The American electorate responded by delivering historic losses for the Democrat Party at every single level of government. Now they’ve delivered historic losses at the state level yet again.
Obama, of course, spent a significant amount of time on the campaign trail for Biden in recent weeks.
Perhaps it was a good reminder to voters about a legacy of failure, at least when it came to state votes.
Cross posted at the Mental Recession
