News: The ’24 race begins in 3 states in ’22

Monday, June 6, 2022

The ’24 race begins in 3 states in ’22

Jun 06, 2022

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Voters wait in line at a polling location.

Voters wait in line at the Surprise Court House polling location on Nov. 3, 2020, in Surprise, Ariz. | Christian Petersen/Getty Images

MUST-WATCH MIDTERMS — State legislatures increasingly shape American politics — from Covid to culture wars. In 2022 alone, statehouses have become the primary battlegrounds for abortion rights and gun legislation. But paramount among Democrats' concerns is what the GOP domination of state legislatures — there are 30 states where the Republicans control both chambers — might mean for the 2024 presidential election.

Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania are among the states where President Joe Biden won most narrowly in 2020. And GOP legislative leaders in each of these three states tried to push officials to overturn the results in former President Donald Trump's favor.

That's why one Dem group, Forward Majority, is prioritizing state legislative races in these three states in 2022. It believes the 2024 presidential election is on the line in November 2022.

Forward Majority has identified 40 statehouse races, with the goal of winning 25 of them. Just that many could flip at least one chamber of the legislature in each of the three key states, according to the group's analysis.

"I think we can all agree that there are very likely to be hotly contested and disputed election outcomes in battleground states in 2024," co-founder Vicky Hausman said in an interview with Nightly. "Democrats must win state legislative power in key states to prevent the worst threats to election subversion."

Since Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016, Forward Majority has poured $50 million into these often underfunded state-level races, Hausman said, but not just for campaign purposes. Its strategists also use the funds to track down potential Democratic voters and add them to voter rolls in rural and suburban areas where these voters aren't often targeted.

The group has identified more than 500,000 unregistered, likely Democratic voters in suburban and rural areas in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. These are areas where Democrats often lose but that are key to controlling state legislatures, Hausman said.

Hausman and David Cohen, an Obama campaign alum, founded Forward Majority in 2017 after Trump was elected president. The group has had some success so far, helping flip 65 state-level seats in Republican-controlled chambers across the country and win the chambers in Virginia, Hausman said.

Here's a look at the statehouse races in these three must-watch states, with insight from Louis Jacobson's analysis in Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia.

Arizona: In 2020, the balance of power in the state Legislature was determined by just 3,000 votes, according to Forward Majority's analysis. The group has the goal of registering 16,000 likely Democratic voters in the state.

The Arizona Legislature also happens to be one of the most narrowly divided in the nation, according to Jacobson, who rates the battles for state legislatures. Democrats would need only one seat to move each chamber to a tie, and two seats to flip control in each chamber.

But redistricting helped Republicans, Jacobson says, and Republicans could gain seats in both chambers as a result. For Arizona, Jacobson rates both the Senate and House as "likely Republican."

Pennsylvania: Like Arizona, Pennsylvania is a state where Trump's cries of a rigged election have been nurtured by congressional and state legislators, as POLITICO's Charlie Mahtesian wrote in Nightly a couple of weeks ago. In 2020, Statehouse control came down to 22,500 votes. Forward Majority is working to register 26,400 voters.

Even so, both the House and Senate will likely remain Republican, according to Jacobson. The breakdown right now is 113-90 and 28-20, respectively. Democrats have benefited from redistricting, but Jacobson says "a combination of incumbency effects and an advantageous cycle for Republicans make a partisan shift in control unlikely in 2022."

Michigan: Trump has endorsed more than 10 state legislative candidates here — more than in any other state for 2022. Michigan has been seen as a test for the MAGA movement, and Trump has endorsed candidates up and down the ballot in an attempt to remake the state's political order, as POLITICO's David Siders reported in March.

Still, Michigan is a touch more promising for Democrats than Arizona and Pennsylvania are. An independent redistricting commission's maps improved Democrats' chances. Statehouse control was determined by 8,600 votes in 2020. Forward Majority is looking to register 9,800 voters this time around.

Jacobson thinks a tie is plausible in the Senate, where the Republicans now hold the power 22-16. The House, with a 57-53 majority, is less likely to flip, he says. He rates the Senate a toss-up, while the House leans Republican.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight's author at mward@politico.com or on Twitter at @MyahWard.

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What'd I Miss?

— Proud Boys leaders charged with seditious conspiracy over Jan. 6: The Justice Department has charged leaders of the pro-Trump extremist group that played a central role in the Capitol attack with conspiring to use force to oppose the presidential transfer of power. The seditious conspiracy charges, announced in a grand jury indictment today, are similar to those brought in January against the Oath Keepers, an anti-government militia group.

— House GOP plans a 2024-minded majority: Republicans gearing up for a House takeover this fall are privately crafting doomed legislative goals for next year, like reviving the Keystone XL pipeline, finishing the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and establishing a "parental bill of rights." Though the bills will almost certainly be blocked by the Senate filibuster, the party is hoping to convince voters in 2024 to award them with the trifecta: the House, Senate and the White House.

— GOP senators surprisingly bullish on bipartisan gun deal prospects: Republican leaders are seriously weighing whether to cut a bipartisan deal on gun safety as talks pick up momentum in the Senate. A group of four negotiators is focused on a package that would reform background checks and state red flag laws , enhance school safety and provide new mental health programs. The lawmakers — Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — are aiming for more modest reforms that can win 60 votes in the chamber. There's no set deadline to act on gun safety, but Murphy and Cornyn said they weren't interested in long-running negotiations after the Texas shooting.

— New York signs stronger gun-control measure into law: The state raised the age today from 18 to 21 for people to be able to buy semi-automatic weapons and bolstered the reporting requirements of social media companies when they are alerted to credible threats of violence. The bills, approved by the Legislature last week, make up the most sweeping package in the nation in the wake of the shooting deaths of 19 children and two teachers on May 24 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the mass shooting a week earlier that killed 10 at a Buffalo supermarket in a racist attack.

— Biden moves to ease trade turmoil threatening his solar energy ambitions: The president launched a new clean energy push today, invoking the Defense Production Act to spur domestic manufacturing of crucial equipment and promising his administration would not impose any new import tariffs on solar power equipment for up to two years during an ongoing trade probe. The Commerce investigation into four Southeast Asian countries — which together account for about 80 percent of panel imports into the U.S. — and the threat of potential retroactive tariffs had caused widespread project cancellations and delays.

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AROUND THE WORLD

JOHNSON WINS, SORT OF — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, facing a mounting rebellion over the so-called Partygate scandal, won a Conservative Party confidence vote triggered after sufficient Tory MPs turned against him to initiate the party's process for challenging its leaders, writes Andrew McDonald.

Johnson won by 211 votes to 148 in the secret ballot of Tory MPs. The result means he retains the confidence of 59 percent of his parliamentary party.

In theory, under existing Tory party rules, Johnson cannot face another leadership challenge for a further 12 months. But in practice, he remains under severe pressure, with Tory backbench chief Graham Brady confirming that "it's possible for rules to be changed" should there be sufficient desire among Tory MPs in the weeks ahead.

The split in favor of Johnson is even worse than the result achieved by former PM Theresa May in 2018, when deep divisions over her approach to Brexit led to a confidence vote among her MPs. On that occasion, almost two-thirds of Tory MPs — 63 percent — voted to keep May in power, but she was still forced to resign less than six months later.

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Nightly Number

68th

The United States' global ranking for the percentage of people vaccinated against Covid. Sixty-seven percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, placing the U.S. behind countries like Bangladesh and Rwanda, according to Our World in Data. Less than one-third of Americans have received a booster shot.

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

Parting Words

NEGLECTED NEIGHBORS — It is an age-old lament, and more than a little true: The United States doesn't pay enough attention to Latin America, even though it's right there. And when it pays attention, it's usually because it's mad about migrants on its border, writes Nahal Toosi.

This week, Biden has a chance to change that narrative, at least for a while, when he hosts the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. The gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders usually happens every three years, though this one was delayed a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It's the first time the United States is hosting since the inaugural session in 1994.

Expectations are low that Biden will deliver, and the run-up to the summit has been beset by talk of it being a poorly organized, under-resourced effort by the Biden administration. Biden has no serious trade deals to offer — the one thing some Latin American states want above all. Migration remains an unresolved sore point. And U.S. domestic politics are shaping Biden's approach to the region: Avoiding fury in Florida is one reason Biden has refused to invite the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, prompting talks of a boycott by other heads of state.

Still, Biden administration officials — while cagey on details — insist the president will not arrive in Los Angeles empty-handed, so perhaps the region's leaders are in for a nice surprise. Read Nahal's six things to watch during the Summit of the Americas.

Related: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will skip the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles later this week over objections to Biden's guest list for the event. López Obrador confirmed his decision today after weeks of threats that he would stay home if the White House refused to invite authoritarian leaders from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the summit.

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