Inside Democrats' Strategy For Winning Back Statehouses — In 2024 And Beyond

The end of the decade will see redistricting votes in statehouses nationwide, and Democrats want to maximize their ability to influence those decisions.

Democrats at the state level are pursuing an ambitious six-year plan to control half of state legislative chambers by 2030, according to a new strategy memo released Monday and shared first with HuffPost.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the party arm in charge of winning state-level elections, plans to dedicate roughly a third of its 2024 spending to building up power in chambers it does not expect to capture this year but could flip in future cycles.

Among its ultimate goals is to revive Democrats’ ability to wield influence during end-of-the-decade redistricting conversations. Republicans have all but dominated the process for the last decade, allowing them to severely gerrymander swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and keep a stranglehold on power.

“State power is so incredibly important for moving the president’s agenda, for moving our party’s agenda forward,” said Heather Williams, the committee’s president. “But state legislative majorities aren’t won in a single cycle.”

The DLCC and other Democratic groups focusing on the states are playing catch-up. Republicans currently control 57 state-level chambers to Democrats’ 41, and they enjoy complete partisan control of both chambers and the governor’s mansion — known as a trifecta — in more than two dozen states. Until a few years ago, Republicans vastly outspent Democrats in state-level races. At the peak of the Redistricting Majority Project, or REDMAP — a secret, multiyear project of the GOP to dominate redistricting — Republicans controlled 68 chambers.