The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, an arm of the party that supports candidates in state legislative races, is performing the biannual ritual of warning activists and voters that a single-minded focus on federal races risks losses for the party down-ballot.
In a memo released Thursday, the DLCC said that even success at the top of the ticket might not stave off the loss of hard-won majorities in Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, nor guarantee victory in Wisconsin, Arizona and New Hampshire, where Democrats are hoping to win majorities for the first time in years.
"The consequences of the 2024 elections will change the landscape of freedoms and rights for tens of millions of Americans — the stakes couldn’t be higher. But there’s still a critical window to overcome the challenges posed by ballot roll-off," the memo said, referring to the tendency of some voters to "roll off" the rest of the ballot after filling out the races near the top.
Federal races generally receive much greater attention than their state legislative counterparts. But the tendency to leave part of the ballot blank is one that affects Democratic voters far more than it does Republicans. According to data compiled by the Sister District Project, only 37% of 2020 GOP candidates under-performed former President Donald Trump, while 80% of Democratic candidates trailed President Joe Biden by as much as 4%.
Internal data by the DLCC shows that the 2024 election is gliding along a similar trajectory to 2020, where Biden won decisively over Trump but failed to protect the party from losing over 100 state legislative seats and two chamber majorities.
Former President Barack Obama faced similar difficulties in his 2012 re-election bid. Democrats recovered in 2022 and early 2023 to snatch narrow majorities in the Minnesota Senate, the Pennsylvania House and both chambers of the Michigan state legislature, with many key races being decided by less than a hundred votes. Democrats now hold the advantage in the Pennsylvania House by just one seat, while the Minnesota Senate is evenly divided after a vacancy; money spent on races like those is far more impactful than an equivalent amount added to Vice President Kamala Harris' $540 million campaign pile.
All of those flipped chambers are at risk of falling into Republican hands, especially if Democrats fail to overcome historic problems of ballot roll-off and a large funding gap to reach a $60 million budget the DLCC estimates is needed to keep the party's hopes alive. The Democratic-controlled Minnesota House and both chambers of the Alaska legislature (where some Democrats coalition with Republicans to form a majority) are also on the line, while Republicans are fighting to hold on to their two-seat majorities in the Arizona House and Senate and both chambers in the New Hampshire legislature. Though the Minnesota Senate is not up for regular elections this year, a special election scheduled for November will decide control.
To push Democratic candidates over the line, the DLCC and its allies are pouring money into key states to support candidates with TV, mail and digital ads. But the Democratic group, which has raised $35 million this cycle as of the end of Q2, has a long way to achieving parity with the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has raised $62 million. The DLCC stressed that while there is still time to turn things around, the window is closing, and when it does, even a Harris victory cannot easily overcome the passage of GOP laws at the state level.
"The rights of tens of millions of Americans rest in our state legislatures, and as Donald Trump desperately tries to win back the White House, we know his MAGA allies are on the march in the states," the memo concluded. "Investing in state legislatures to build Democratic power is the strongest way to defend our future."
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