One weakness that the Democratic Party has had over the years is getting loosely attached Democratic voters to think beyond the current election.  But many components of the political system elect members in staggered elections (e,g,, the U.S. Senate); so gaining the ability to pass your legislation requires a multi-year plan.

While in the weeks ahead, posts on this site will undoubtedly focus on the race for power in D.C., this post is about the other offices that will be on the ballot in November — state positions.  In less than nineteen months, residents of the U.S. will receive and then return their census forms for the 2020 census.  In slightly over two years, the Census Bureau will release the numbers from that census to the states which will then begin anew the process of drawing the political maps that will control U.S. House (and state legislative elections) between 2022 and 2031.  And some of the people elected at the state level this November will still be around in 2021 to vote on these new maps.

The big office in most of the states is governor.  There are 36 governor’s offices up for election this cycle with Republicans currently holding 26 of them.  In 34 states, the term of office is four years; so the winner this year will be around in 2021.  (In two states — New Hampshire and Vermont, both held by Republicans — the term of office is two years; so we will get another shot at removing the Republican in 2020 and only New Hampshire is likely to have multiple congressional seats after the 2020 census.)   In some of these states — Arizona, California, and Iowa — the redistricting process minimizes the influence of the governor or legislature; so, while — for other reasons — holding California and picking up Arizona and Iowa would be useful, they will not have a big impact on redistricting in 2021.  There are also some states that currently only have one representative in Congress eliminating the need for Congressional Districts — Alaska (Independent); South Dakota (Republican), and Wyoming (Republican).  Even after eliminating these states, you have twenty states held by Republicans and eight states held by Democrats in which the winner of the 2018 election for governor will be around in 2021 and have the power to veto or sign any proposed congressional map. Continue Reading...