Executive Summary

Given the top of ticket performance, Democratic candidates in many battleground state legislatures performed better than expected this year. As our prior research has demonstrated, typically the winning Presidential candidate ushers in lots of down-ballot co-partisans. Given Donald Trump’s state-level wins, we would have expected to see significant Republican gains in state legislative battlegrounds. But that didn’t happen uniformly. In fact, Democrats held on to narrow majorities in key chambers like the Minnesota Senate and Pennsylvania House, picked up seats to break Republican supermajorities in Wisconsin, North Carolina and even Montana, and picked up seats in the Georgia house – all in states that Trump carried at the state level. 

The story was not all positive for down-ballot Democrats, who narrowly lost control of the Michigan House and Minnesota House. But Democrats had significantly more success at the state legislative level than historical trends around Presidential coat-tails and down-ballot roll-off would have predicted.

While we won’t be able to fully analyze the results of the election until all states have finalized their counts, and until the voter file is processed, we offer below a preliminary analysis of a few key trends and findings given the information we have now. We will update this analysis with additional information as it is available.

Partisan Control of State Chambers: Post-2024 Election

Democrats preserved their majorities in several state chambers, including their extremely narrow one-seat majority in the PA House, and flipped seats that allowed them to break supermajorities in Republican-controlled chambers. Unfortunately, Republicans gained the majority in the Michigan House and the Minnesota House.

A few positive chamber-level developments:

• Democrats maintained a majority in the Minnesota Senate. 
• Democrats maintained a 102-101 majority in the Pennsylvania House.
• Democrats in Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and California retained legislative supermajorities. 
• Democrats broke a Republican supermajority in Montana.
• Democrats broke a GOP supermajority in the North Carolina House.
• Democrats broke a GOP supermajority in the Wisconsin State Senate.

A few chamber-level setbacks:

• Republicans in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming, Kansas and Kentucky retained legislative supermajorities. 
• Republicans broke a Democratic supermajority in Vermont. 
• South Carolina Republicans gained a legislative supermajority.
• Republicans gained a majority in the Michigan House.
• Republicans gained at least a tie in the Minnesota House (the chamber is uncalled).

Total chambers held and net seat gains/losses by party

Post-election results (as of Nov. 19) show that in total, Democrats now control 39 state legislative chambers, Republicans control 57 chambers, power-sharing coalitions control two chambers, and one chamber, the MN House, is still uncalled (final chamber control will depend on the outcomes of two recounts). These numbers reflect a net loss of 2 chambers for Democrats and a net gain of 1 chamber for Republicans—potentially 2, depending on the MN House. Nationwide, Democrats now hold 44.11% of all state legislative seats (a decrease of 0.60%), and Republicans hold 54.97% of all seats (an increase of 0.65%).  

Surge and decline is a phenomenon where members of the president’s party tend to win seats in Congress in the year the president is elected, but they tend to lose seats in midterm years. Our research analyzing the strength of the surge and decline pattern at the state legislative level found that while the president’s party did gain state legislative seats in 2012 and 2016, the Democrats actually had a net loss of seats in 2020 (see Table 1). This runs counter to the trend, since presidents generally help to sweep their downballot co-partisans into office during presidential elections. At the state legislative level, the surges in presidential years have also been smaller and less uniform than the sharp declines that we observe in midterm election years. In this year’s election, the pattern is consistent with surge and decline theory—Trump’s Republican co-partisans gained seats while Democrats lost seats—but the shifts are smaller than they were in 2020.

Table 1: State legislative seat gains and losses by party in recent presidential elections

*Note: 2024 results are current as of 11/19/2024 but are subject to change before they are declared official.

Downballot Roll-Off: Higher than Expected Among Republicans

In our prior research, we identified a long-term trend of downballot roll-off, which happens when people vote for a candidate at the top of the ticket, but then decline to vote, or “roll off,” in races that are farther down the ballot, including state legislative contests. We also found that roll-off has a clear partisan skew: Democratic state legislative candidates almost always receive far fewer votes than the Democrat at the top of the ballot, but this is not typically true for Republicans, who sometimes even receive more aggregate votes for state legislature than for their top of ticket candidate.

Ballots are still being counted in several battleground states, but the preliminary vote totals that are currently available indicate some interesting deviations from the historical patterns and what we might have expected this year.  For one, we see the largest Republican roll-off rates of any of the last 3 presidential elections in nearly every chamber analyzed so far: AZ Senate, GA Senate, MI House, NC House and Senate, NV House, and PA House. In the MN House, state legislative Republicans received more votes than Trump (consistent with the pattern in that chamber), but the differential is much smaller this year. Second, while roll-off levels historically among Democrats are much higher than Republicans, there were some significant deviations this year – including that Democratic state legislative candidates in both the Senate and the House in North Carolina actually received more votes than Harris did.

NC House & Senate: We’re seeing some interesting and unexpected differences between the parties’ performance in terms of roll-off, vote shares, and chamber majorities.

• Statewide, Kamala Harris received 2,683,995 votes. NC Democratic candidates collectively received more votes than Harris, both in the state house (10,530 more votes) and in the state senate (6,606 more votes). See Table 2 below. 
  • In both 2016 and 2020, it was the exact opposite: NC state legislative Democrats received far fewer votes (hundreds of thousands!) than the Democratic presidential candidates.
• Donald Trump received 2,875,538 votes statewide. NC Republican candidates received fewer votes in the state house (365,047 fewer votes than Trump) and in the state senate (356,730 fewer votes than Trump).
  • Again, the amount of roll-off by party is contrary to expectations: Republicans saw less state legislative roll-off in both 2016 and 2020 than Democrats did, not more.

In short: NC state legislative Democrats outperformed Harris, collectively receiving more votes than she did in the state. By this metric, NC state legislative Republicans underperformed Trump.

• We can’t know for sure how many voters split their tickets vs. rolled off, but ticket-splitting could be a factor—meaning that some number of NC voters cast their ballots for Trump but then voted for a Democrat for state house.  

Unfortunately, the NC Republican gerrymanders worked: state legislative Democrats in NC won a greater share of the overall vote, but they hold fewer seats. Of the total votes cast for state house candidates, Democrats won 51.1% of the votes, but only hold ~40% of the seats. In the senate, Democrats won 50.69% of the votes, but again only hold ~40% of the seats.

• This indicates a serious gap between vote share and seat share in NC: state legislative Democrats won a majority of votes, but only hold roughly 40% of the seats in both chambers.
• NC Republicans’ gerrymandered maps have effectively diluted Democratic voting strength.

PA House: Here the roll-off patterns by party are more typical, but the state chamber outcomes are much better for Democrats than would be expected. PA state house Democrats underperformed Harris in terms of raw votes, but they preserved their one-seat majority.

• Statewide, Kamala Harris received 3,296,110 votes. PA Democratic candidates in the state house captured 2,919,000 votes—377,110 fewer votes than Harris.
  • This is consistent with the amount of Democratic roll-off we observed in PA in 2016 and 2020.
• Donald Trump received 3,449,314 votes statewide. PA Republican state house candidates received 3,272,973 votes—176,341 fewer than Trump. This indicates roll-off, but the amount is much smaller than on the Democratic side (again, consistent with the pattern we’ve seen in past elections).
  • Interestingly, in 2020, PA state house Republicans outperformed Trump: They received ~40k more votes than he did. This year, state house Republicans underperformed Trump.
• Vote share: Even though PA Democrats underperformed Harris, they were able to hold their one-seat majority in the chamber. This was true even though they received only 47.02% of the total votes cast for state house candidates, compared to Republicans’ 52.73%. This may seem like a riddle.
  • We think this is explained by the fact that, in the races they won, Democrats tended to win by fewer votes (a smaller vote share) than Republican winners did, on average. In contested races that Democrats won, their average vote share was 58.73%. In contested races that Republicans won, their average vote share was 64.56%. 
  • Democratic winners’ margins were smaller than Republicans’, which may help explain why they received fewer votes overall but were able to hold their seats. 

Table 2: Roll-Off in Battleground Chambers in 2024

Note: Vote totals are current as of 11/7/2024, but are subject to change before they are declared official. Negative values indicate more votes cast for state legislative candidates than for President. Roll-off at the chamber level cannot be measured for chambers where only a fraction of the seats were up for election (NV Senate, PA Senate, WI Senate) or for chambers with multi-member districts where voters are allowed to vote for more than one candidate in a district (AZ House, NH House). Future analyses of roll-off will include only contested state legislative races, as the necessary data become available.

For purposes of comparison with the last two presidential elections, roll-off numbers by party and state chamber are displayed in Table 3: 

Table 3: Chamber-level Roll-off in 2016, 2020, and 2024

Note: Negative values indicate more votes cast for state legislative candidates than for President. These are the chambers where we have roll-off data for all 3 elections. An * indicates vote totals are still being compiled.

Votes to Majority: Extremely Narrow Margins Determine Party Control

In chambers where the outcome of a single race had the potential to change partisan control, we identified the races with the narrowest vote margins. Less than 500 votes allowed Democrats to hold the PA House, and fewer than 200 votes allowed them to break the GOP supermajority in the NC House.

• To preserve their 102-101 majority in the PA House, Democrats could not lose a single one of their seats. Sean Dougherty, the Democrat with the narrowest win margin in the chamber, won his district by 483 votes (0.008% of all votes cast for candidates in that chamber).
• Democrats needed to flip one seat to break Republicans’ supermajority in the NC House. Bryan Cohn, the Democrat with the narrowest win margin in the chamber, won his race by 182 votes (0.003% of all votes cast for candidates in that chamber). In the next closest race, Dante Pittman won by 871 votes (0.02% of votes in that chamber).
• Democrats also needed to flip just one seat to break the Republican supermajority in the WI Senate. Jody Habush Sinykin defeated a Republican incumbent and won her race by 1,788 votes (~0.1% of all votes cast for candidates in that chamber).
• Democrats had a one-seat majority in the MN Senate. Democrat Ann Johnson Stewart won her special election by 2,822 votes, keeping control of the chamber. 
• Democrats had a one-seat majority in the MI House. Democrat Jenn Hill lost by 1,342 votes, losing the party’s majority (0.02% of all votes cast for candidates in that chamber).
• Democrats had a 6-seat majority in the MN House. To keep the majority, they could lose only 2 seats, and losing 3 seats would mean a tied chamber. In the 3 races that Democrats lost by the narrowest margins, the candidates lost by 159 votes (District 3B), 327 votes (District 41A), and 510 votes (District 41B)—a total of just 996 votes across 3 races (0.03% of all votes cast for candidates in that chamber).

Democratic Presidential vs. State Legislative Performance: Democrats Held or Gained Seats in States Harris Lost

In a legislative chamber, where partisan control is determined by the number of seats won rather than candidates’ overall vote share, it is perhaps more informative to measure the change (gain or loss) in seats held by each party. Past research on the surge and decline phenomenon suggests that Democrats should not have expected to pick up any seats in an election where the Republican party carried the presidency—in fact, it would have been consistent with the pattern if they had lost seats across the board. However, in several battleground chambers where Donald Trump won the vote statewide, Democratic state legislative candidates either held all of their seats or made gains. They kept their majority in the PA House and lost none of their seats (net) in the PA Senate, GA Senate, and NC Senate. In Wisconsin, where Trump won roughly 30,000 more votes than Harris, Democrats gained 10 seats in the Assembly and gained 5 seats in the state Senate, breaking Republicans’ supermajority and making significant inroads in the chamber.

Table 4: Democratic Seats Gained in Battleground States Trump Won

Note: In the GA House, the races in districts 105, 128, and 145 are still uncalled. If the most recent vote totals/results hold, Democrats will end up gaining 2 seats.

Celebrating Historic Firsts in our State Houses

Beyond the chamber-level results described above, there are also tremendous successes and achievements to be celebrated in individual state legislative races, including several historic firsts elected to our state houses. Here are just a few:

• Amaad Rivera-Wagner became the first LGBTQ+ person of color elected to the WI state legislature
• Cindy Nava is the first former DACA recipient to be elected to state legislative office (NM Senate District 9)
• Two Gen Z Democrats, Bryce Berry and Gabriel Sanchez, have been elected to the GA House of Representatives
• Molly Cook is the first woman to represent her district and the first openly LGBTQ+ state senator in TX
• Patty Kim is the first AAPI woman in the PA Senate**
• Kristin Alfheim is the first openly LGBTQ+ woman to serve in the WI Senate**
• Mai Xiong is the first Hmong American elected to the House in MI**
• Aime Wichtendahl is Iowa’s first transgender state lawmaker
• Hanadi Nadeem (Nevada AD 3) is the first Muslim woman elected to the NV state legislature
• Yara Zokaie is the first Iranian to serve in the CO state legislature
• For the first time in history, NM has a female-majority state legislature
• Rashaun Kemp is the first openly gay Black man elected to the GA state legislature
• Huldah Momanyi Hiltsley, elected to the MN House, is the first Kenyan state representative in the U.S.
• Lorena Austin is the first openly nonbinary legislator re-elected to the AZ state house
• Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox is the first Indian American in the CT state senate

Thinking about the “Why”

This memorandum has set out a preliminary assessment of some of what happened at the state legislative level in the 2024 elections. But it does not set out the “whys.” Beware reductive analyses that point to just one factor leading to election outcomes, or that claim easy explanations for complex phenomena like voting behavior. We will need to wait for all votes to be counted, the voter file to be released, and to collectively engage in debriefs within and between our communities in listening and learning sessions before offering broader analyses of this year’s results. 

But here are a couple of factors we already know for sure. First, as usual, the wins and losses for state legislative seats and entire chambers were tiny. Just 1,300 votes in one district cost Democrats control of the Michigan House. Democrats held on to the majority in the PA House by less than 500 votes in one district. And just 182 votes in one district gave Democrats the one seat needed to break the Republican supermajority in the North Carolina House. Second, these wins – that bucked historical conventions and ushered in reflective, historic leaders into our state houses – would not have been possible without the incredible campaign support from Sister District staff, the organizing work of Sister District staff and volunteers, our friends and allies at other grassroots organizations, and the important year-round community-based organizing that our State Bridges partners continue to do – all of which helps voters feel connected the importance of state and local issues, and their critical role in casting their votes to build progressive political power. 

Finally, let us close with a reminder of the long view. Our efforts to build progressive power in state legislatures are constant and permanent, and will persist beyond any given year’s electoral results. This year’s state legislative results are a bright spot in a very bleak national landscape at the moment. But we’re in it for the long haul. We’ll keep supporting candidates, year-round organizers, and legislators. And we will also continue to work hard to expand our collective progressive imagination about how and why states matter. In the months and years to come, the importance of state power will only increase – and we’ll be in the fight to ensure it is directed toward doing the most good for our families and communities.