| | | | |  | | By Zach Montellaro and Madison Fernandez | | | | Democrats had a 2022 beyond their wildest dreams in state legislatures, flipping a quartet of chambers while not losing any chamber they controlled. But the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee says that that is only the beginning. The DLCC plans on targeting races in 17 state legislative chambers over the next two years, according to the committee’s battleground chamber memo that was shared first with Score. It is a mix of defending tight majorities in key swing states, looking to flip chambers in long-sought after states, and preventing — or breaking up — Republican supermajorities in states where there is a Democratic governor. “We’re coming out of this really historic midterm in 2022, and we're really positioned to capitalize on every opportunity to expand Democratic power,” Heather Williams, the committee’s interim president, said in an interview. The core of that target list are ten chambers that are up either later this year or 2024 where the majority has an incredibly slim cushion. Democrats are defending four of those — the Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania Houses and the Virginia Senate — while looking to break Republican control in the other six: The Arizona House and Senate, the New Hampshire House and Senate, the Pennsylvania Senate and the Virginia House. In all ten of those chambers, the party in control has no more than a six-seat majority. (The DLCC’s Republican counterpart, the Republican State Leadership Committee, has not yet laid out its targets.) The committee is also eyeing chambers in Kansas, North Carolina and Wisconsin to protect Democratic governors’ veto powers, and is making a longer-term play for the Georgia House as well. Democrats are trying to build on roughly a decade of progress, after the party was brutalized at the state legislative level during the tail end of the Obama presidency. Williams said that change of fortune at the legislative level came as the DLCC has grown dramatically in size. “In 2016, we were roughly a $15 million organization,” she said. “And we are working towards $60 million this cycle. We have a really competitive map.” The first big fight will be this November in Virginia, where both chambers are on the ballot. Democrats have a narrow majority in the state Senate — one they padded earlier this year by winning a red-leaning seat in a special election — and Republicans control the state House after flipping the chamber two years ago riding on the coattails of now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Unlike in the midterms, few battleground states (Virginia included) will have a governor race at the top of the ticket, making these fights for legislative control the marquee state political fights this cycle. Williams argued that legislative contests could have ramifications far beyond each individual state’s borders. She pointed toward Democrats’ recent flips in Minnesota and Michigan, which gave the party trifecta control in both states. “The proof points that they put on the chart, if you will, for Democrats nationally are so incredibly important,” she said. “They are demonstrating what it is like to feel the impact of Democratic leadership.” Happy Monday. Thanks to Zach for today’s top line. Reach me at mfernandez@politico.com and @madfernandez616. Days until the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and Chicago mayoral runoff: 8 Days until the Kentucky primary: 50 Days until the Mississippi primary: 134 Days until the Louisiana primary: 201 Days until the 2023 election: 225 Days until the 2024 election: 589
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| | | IT’S A NO FROM ME — Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is not running for Senate, further clearing the field for Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who announced her bid earlier this year. “It’s clear that the best way to protect our democracy in Michigan and nationwide in 2024 is to be fully focused on ensuring our elections prevail over those who willingly spread lies about our elections to advance their own agenda,” Benson said. … Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan isn’t interested in a Senate run, even though top Republicans are trying to woo him, POLITICO’s Holly Otterbein reports. NRSC Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called Hogan a few days after Hogan announced he’d forgo a Republican presidential run. … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is not running for Senate and will instead be co-chairing Rep. Barbara Lee’s Senate bid and endorsing her. “I have concluded that despite a lot of enthusiasm from Bernie [Sanders] folks, the best place, the most exciting place, action place, fit place for me to serve as a progressive is in the House of Representatives,” Khanna said Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union.” 2024 WATCH — Republican North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell is running for governor. He’ll likely face off in a primary against Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who’s set to announce his candidacy next month and is seen as the GOP frontrunner. “Robinson has gained backing from influential Republicans inside and outside North Carolina, in part because of his controversial stances and willingness to speak at political conventions and rallies preferred by hardline officials,” the Winston-Salem Journal’s Richard Craver writes. “However, compared with the track record of Folwell serving four terms in the state House and in his second term as treasurer, Robinson’s role as lieutenant governor carries little responsibility besides presiding at times over state Senate floor sessions.” Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein announced his gubernatorial bid earlier this year. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is term-limited. ABORTION ON THE BALLOT — Democrats are betting that the road back to the House majority rests with voters who care about abortion access — especially in blue states like New York, POLITICO’s Brittany Gibson reports. Democratic abortion rights advocates believe they can spotlight a continued appetite for anti-abortion legislation in a GOP-led House, as well as a looming court case that could restrict abortion even in states where it is protected by state laws. IN THE STATES — Republicans in Kentucky are using Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s decision to veto a bill that bans gender-affirming care for minors as an attack against his reelection bid, the Lexington Herald-Leader's Austin Horn reports.
| | | TRAIL MIX — At former President Donald Trump’s first 2024 presidential campaign rally in Waco, Texas, over the weekend, he appeared to bet that he could turn the investigations he’s facing into a political asset, casting himself as a victim of a federal government that was aligned against him, POLITICO’s Meridith McGraw and Alex Isenstadt report. DONOR DISMAY — Some of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ donors and allies are worried “he may not be ready for a brutal fight” against Trump, NBC News’ Dasha Burns, Jonathan Allen, Allan Smith and Henry J. Gomez write. “Some feel DeSantis needs to accelerate his timeline to run for the GOP presidential nomination and begin directly confronting Trump if he's to have any chance of thwarting the former president’s momentum. Others believe DeSantis should sidestep Trump altogether and wait until 2028 to run. … Donors who have given to DeSantis over the past year or two are still open to supporting him for president, but they’re also starting to take a look at other potential candidates.” STAFFING UP — Erin Perrine, who worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign, will be communications director for Never Back Down, a super PAC closely aligned with DeSantis, per CBS News’ Fin Gómez and Aaron Navarro.
| | | — Polls show Trump dominating DeSantis among GOP voters in the so-called “beer track” — a shorthand for the cultural and socioeconomic characteristics of the bloc of voters with lower incomes and levels of educational attainment, POLITICO’s Steve Shepard reports. While DeSantis is still the preferred candidate of high-income voters and those with college degrees, he is showing signs of bleeding there, too. In recent weeks, Trump’s numbers have been rising among all Republicans, including with GOP voters most skeptical of his candidacy in the so-called “wine track.”
| | | | GO INSIDE THE 2023 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO is proud to partner with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Global Insider" newsletter featuring exclusive coverage, insider nuggets and unparalleled insights from the 2023 Global Conference, which will convene leaders in health, finance, politics, philanthropy and entertainment from April 30-May 3. This year’s theme, Advancing a Thriving World, will challenge and inspire attendees to lean into building an optimistic coalition capable of tackling the issues and inequities we collectively face. Don’t miss a thing — subscribe today for a front row seat. | | | | | | | | — FIRST IN SCORE — The Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund and Issue One, the political reform group, are out with a new report about “securing the 2024 election,” Zach writes in. The report, among other things, calls for more state and federal funding of elections and ensuring broader legal and privacy protections for a wide swath of people involved in elections. It also calls for security improvements in the election systems, from phasing out the remaining paperless voting systems in the country — something most states have already done — and encourages states to join ERIC, the bipartisan voter list maintenance organization that some Republican states have recently exited. “The demands and expectations facing election officials have increased exponentially in recent years,” David Levine, an elections integrity fellow at ASD and a co-author of the report, said in a statement. “Federal and state legislators have an opportunity right now to ensure that ongoing challenges — from cyber threats and disinformation to the pace at which we count ballots — don’t undermine elections in 2024 and beyond.” CODA — QUOTE OF THE DAY: "After running over me with the bus on Monday, he backed over me on Tuesday." (Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Trump) | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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