Democrats have seen seismic shifts in special elections throughout the country since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, especially at the state legislative level. Democrats have picked up slightly more than 40 state legislative seats since the start of his administration, and we currently forecast them to pick up more on November 6th in most states.
So far, DecisionDeskHQ has the Democrats favored to create four new Democratic trifectas (control of the office of governor, state senate and state house), in the states of Illinois, New Mexico, Colorado, and Maine. They are not too far from gaining a trifecta in Nevada, Michigan, New York and Minnesota, with a blend of close gubernatorial and legislative races keeping them in the running. There are some states where all of the races (gubernatorial, state senate and state house), in a perfect storm, could add up to a Democratic trifecta, but the states are far more likely to remain or become split state governments. These states on the edge of possibility are Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Hampshire, Florida, Wisconsin and Maryland. It will take a considerable wave for any of these eight to move that dramatically, but we’ve seen such events before, like in the back-to-back Republican wave midterms of 2010 and 2014.
Here are our ratings for the state legislative chambers that have completed primaries as of 8/16/18.
State House
State Senate
If you’d like to dig through the Desk’s initial district-level ratings for these state legislatures, graphically, click here on any overall chamber rating to see maps of our district-level estimations. Of course, more ratings are to come as states finish their primaries. We will update once again in September after all of the primaries have concluded. For snap ratings after a state finishes its primary, follow me on Twitter.