Today’s elections may not be for the Presidency or Congress, but they will still have a profound effect on the lives of millions. In addition to a wealth of local elections there are also competitive gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Mississippi, and every seat in the Virginia state legislature is up for grabs. Even if you don’t live in any of these states, here’s why it’s still worth keeping an eye on today’s races:
Redistricting
The next round of redistricting is coming up in 2021 following the 2020 census. This provides an opportunity for state governments to redraw the boundaries for both their own seats and congressional districts. Following Obama’s election in 2008, Republicans came back with a vengeance in 2010, winning control of a large number of governorships and state legislatures. In the following round of redistricting, many state governments completely controlled by Republicans chose to take this opportunity to draw maps designed to elect more Republicans. Some states entirely controlled by Democrats did the same, but the overwhelming GOP victory in 2010 meant Republicans were able to obtain advantageous electoral maps across the country, leading to them winning a majority in the House of Representatives in 2012 despite losing the popular vote.
In the hyper-polarized modern political climate, it is unlikely either party will have mercy if they control the majority of state legislatures after 2020. That means every state level election for the next two years has significant effects on the following ten years of elections. In Kentucky and Mississippi, Republicans are fighting to hold on to governorships such that they can maintain total control of state government. This is crucial as governors can veto redistricting proposals in their state, so a Democratic governor could prevent Kentucky from maintaining 5 out of 6 congressional seats as easy Republican wins. In Mississippi, the current maps pack so many of the state’s Democratic voters into one district that in 2018 Republicans didn’t even field a candidate there, while Republicans win each of the remaining seats by very comfortable margins.
In Virginia, Democrats need only marginal gains in each chamber of the General Assembly to take full control of state government. Here Democrats will be most eager to redraw the boundaries for state level elections after failing to take back the House in 2017 despite winning the popular vote by a large margin. With eleven congressional districts, a state government fully controlled by Democrats could also significantly influence the state’s future congressional delegations, should they decide to be ruthless.
Looking Ahead
These elections will also serve as perhaps the first high quality data points since the midterms towards predicting the results of the 2020 elections. Presidential election polls at this point in the race still tend to have approximately twenty point margins of error, but these are actual elections with real votes. Which demographics are sufficiently enthusiastic to turn out and how those groups vote inform our understanding of the current national environment, and will help political parties analyse which groups they need to target.
Clearly, if Democrats can win a gubernatorial race in just one of Kentucky, which on average leans 24 points towards Republicans, and Mississippi which leans 15, it is a very good sign for them, proving they can compete in even the most deeply conservative states. However despite much media attention, it seems unlikely that either of these governorships will actually go blue. Kentucky’s Republican governor Matt Bevin is deeply unpopular, but the state is simply too conservative for him to be anything but the frontrunner. Nevertheless, that one could be close. In Mississippi, it is much more feasible that the Democratic nominee Jim Hood could win the popular vote, but in Mississippi things are not so simple. In order to win the race, Hood also needs to win in the majority of the districts that make up the state House of Representatives. But these seats were gerrymandered by Republicans in 2011, so there’s next to no chance he succeeds. If Hood does win the popular vote but not the majority of districts, the large Republican majority in the state House gets to pick the winner, which would inevitably be the Republican candidate Tate Reeves. As a result, the real thing to watch for in these races is not the winner, but rather the margins by which the popular vote is won or lost.
The results in Virginia are crucial in their own right, giving strong indications toward how this swing state might vote in 2020, as well as whether its even more important neighbor North Carolina’s fifteen electoral votes might be in play for Democrats. This will also serve as a test of how hard a series of significant scandals have hurt Democrats in Virginia, where recently two out of three top Democrats were found to have worn blackface and the third was accused of sexual assault.
All this said, tomorrow morning there are going to be a lot of takes on how 2019 informs us about 2020 and Trump’s popularity. Take these with several generous pinches of salt. Between now and the presidential election we have a whole year, a general election campaign, the selection of the Democrat’s nominee, a final vote on impeachment, and most likely a senate trial of the President. Tonight’s results are probably not going to be all that reflective of 2020, they simply serve as a starting point for our analysis of the coming elections.
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