Power-Building Strategy: Draw an 8–0 Democratic congressional map as part of the redistricting process.
Democrats in Maryland: Pass the 8–0 map. Why not? Republicans just made it illegal to give people waiting in line to vote in Georgia water.
The deafening silence from congressional GOP leaders as state Republicans like those in Georgia pass restrictive voting measures that no longer even attempt to hide their racist intent tells you everything you need to know about what Republicans think about democracy reform.
Maryland’s current 7–1 congressional map resulted in one of the cases that led to the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision…
Power-Building Strategy: Pass the National Popular Vote Compact.
Three times in American history has a Presidential candidate been elected without winning the popular vote. Each time it has divided the nation and resulted in a dangerous policy outcome — the end of Reconstruction, the unwinding of the Kyoto Protocol and the launch of the Iraq War, and the dangerous and criminal presidency of Donald Trump.
In the wake of the 2020 election, we missed a chance at a meaningful state legislative strategy to get the National Popular Vote Compact passed in enough states to ensure the popular vote winner becomes…
Power-Building Strategy: Use Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards’s leverage to create an additional Black congressional district.
As with Governor Beshear’s election in Kentucky that we highlighted yesterday, Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards’s re-election in 2019 was a bright spot for Democrats in the South.
That year, Governor Edwards ran a locally-focused campaign that highlighted his track record of delivering for the people of Louisiana, and it paid dividends at the ballot box.
Governor Edwards is term-limited and will not be able to run for re-election in 2023. With him in control of the governor’s mansion, it is critical that he…
Power-Building Strategy: Flip KY-6 blue.
Kentucky is another state where the Democratic brand is heading in the wrong direction. Despite Mitch McConnell’s unpopularity (even within the state), Amy McGrath’s $100 million couldn’t unseat him in 2020. Democrats got shellacked at the state legislative level, losing 15 seats.
A bright spot in recent election history was Democrat Andy Beshear’s 2019 gubernatorial win. In a de-nationalized political environment, Governor Beshear was able to run a campaign focused on Kentucky and the unpopular former governor Matt Bevin, building on his work as Attorney General and the Beshear name.
Our strategic recommendation for Kentucky…
Power-building strategy: Continue to grow with college-educated voters.
Kansas, once a Republican bastion, has seen Democratic gains over the last half-decade due to an extremely unpopular Republican agenda and the growing college-educated suburban population. It shifted five points leftward from 2016 to 2020 and elected a Democratic governor in 2018.
In our 2040 Project, we do not predict that Kansas will become a Senate battleground in the next 20 years, but there are steps that we can take to accelerate Democratic growth in the state.
In 2020, EveryDistrict invested in state legislative races in Kansas with the goal of breaking…
Power-building strategy: Rebuild with non-college white voters.
In the Senate section of the 2040 Project we give an overview of the demographics of battleground states, and Iowa has the distinction of having the second largest population of non-college white voters (after West Virginia).
Collapse in support from this key population in recent elections has caused this once-battleground state to take a hard-right turn. In 2020, Democrats were not able to secure a statewide win and lost two congressional seats. …
Power-Building Strategy: Flip IN-5 blue.
Gains among college-educated voters in 2018 powered Democrats to a large congressional majority. In 2020, districts like IN-5, where over 45% of voters are college-educated, were next on the list for Democrats to flip.
With an incumbent retirement, IN-5 seemed like a strong flip opportunity. 538 rated it as a toss-up, and many polls had the Democratic candidate ahead. But on election night, the GOP candidate won by four points.
Despite this loss, IN-5 has still continued to trend blue; while Romney won the district with 57.5% of the vote in 2012, Trump only carried…
Power-Building Strategy: Draw a 14–3 Democratic congressional map as part of the redistricting process.
Democrats in Illinois currently hold 13 congressional seats to the GOP’s five. Illinois is likely to lose a congressional seat during reapportionment, and when that happens, the new maps for the next decade could likely sustain a 14–3 map.
The Democratically-controlled legislature is responsible for drawing congressional and state legislative districts. We firmly believe that they should press their advantage in this blue state.
While we broadly support fair districts — and support the passage of HR 1 that would do so for every congressional district…
Power-Building Strategy: Build support for popular, progressive policies using ballot initiatives.
In the Red States section of the 2040 Project, we highlight Idaho as a model for how to use ballot initiatives to advance progressive power and build for the long term.
In 2018, Reclaim Idaho successfully got Medicaid expansion on the ballot after years of the legislature refusing to take action. On Election Day, it passed with 61% of the vote.
Now, Idaho is not the only red state that has used this process to pass Medicaid expansion in the face of legislative inaction from GOP-dominated states. But what…
Power-Building Strategy: Commit to a broad pro-voter agenda.
Hawaii does a pretty good job of electing Democrats. In 2020, Democrats decreased the number of Republicans in the legislature from seven to five.
Hawaii falls more on the Colorado end of the voting rights spectrum and generally makes it easy for voters to cast their ballots. The biggest area where Hawaii has fallen behind is in Automatic Voter Registration (AVR). Hawaii does not have AVR, and despite bills being introduced to implement this in recent years, those bills have failed to pass.
Voting Rights Lab is a great resource for finding voting rights bills in state legislatures, and they’ve identified a number of pro-voter bills moving through the Hawaii legislature right now.
How you can advance a 50-state strategy in Hawaii:
- Call on Hawaii state legislators to pass Automatic Voter Registration and support legislation that advances pro-voter policies.
