Republicans make inroads in state legislative elections, teeing up high-stakes 2025 races

Republicans are expanding their footprint in statehouses across the country, reversing Democrats' earlier trend of high-profile wins just a year ago. 

In the Midwest, the GOP successfully flipped the Michigan state House, ending Democrats’ trifecta. In New Hampshire and Vermont, those advantages were more much stark: Republicans made double-digit gains between the two state Houses alone.

At the same time, Republicans suffered several losses in Wisconsin and Montana, where Democrats managed to make substantial gains in both state legislatures amid redistricting. Meanwhile in North Carolina, the GOP lost their supermajority.

As all eyes turn toward 2025’s state legislative races, several special elections in Virginia set to take place next month will reveal whether Republicans’ gains were limited to Election Day in November or whether their appeal is broader.

“It’s to what extent there is a continuation of the enthusiasm for Republicans,” GOP strategist Dave Abrams explained.

The GOP largely enjoyed a good night last month in state legislatures across the country. Among their targets at the outset of the 2024 cycle, Republicans had sought to flip Democratic state legislative majorities in Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

Republicans made gains in both Michigan and Minnesota, winning enough seats to tie the Minnesota state House with Democrats for control. Democrats and Republicans are in the process of creating a power-sharing agreement in Minnesota’s chamber.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats retained their narrow state House majority while Republicans maintained their GOP control in the state Senate.

And while Democrats had hoped to flip legislative chambers in New Hampshire and Arizona, Republicans were able to defend their majorities in both state legislatures.

In fact, New Hampshire — and Vermont — offered some of the largest Republican legislative gains. In New Hampshire, Republicans capped off the 2022 midterms with a 201-199 slim majority in the state House. But last month’s victories propelled the party to a 221-178 edge.

They also gained two seats in the state Senate this cycle, including knocking off Senate Minority Leader Donna Soucy (D). Meanwhile, in Vermont, Republicans picked up more than dozen seats in the state House and half a dozen in the state Senate.

That’s not to mention that Republicans also created legislative supermajorities in several states, including Iowa and South Carolina.

Max Docksey, political director at the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), attributed those wins to starting their persuasion messaging early, microtargeting voters and focusing more on policy and less on the things like the presidential race.

“When you look at our spending, you'll notice, like, we weren't on broadcast TV, we weren't on cable. We weren't really doing a lot of TV buying,” Docksey told The Hill. “What we were doing was spending a lot of time on YouTube, a lot of time finding different digital avenues to talk to voters, and we were breaking those voters into compact universes.”

Former and current state legislators also noted different undercurrents taking place amid this year’s state legislative elections.

Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) noted the “geographic realignment” taking place both across the country, including in her state, where “the rural areas that used to be blue are turning red, and the suburban areas that used to be red are turning blue, but not all at the same pace.”

“What we saw in the 2016, 2020, and ‘24 elections with Trump on the ballot is an acceleration of the transition of rural Minnesota from blue to red,” she said. “And so in a couple places where we had candidates trying to hang on to seats that had been in the Democratic column, it turned to be — turned out to be real headwinds coming from the Trump effect.”

For former Vermont state Sen. Corey Parent (R), he chalked Republicans’ gains in his home state to economic anxiety, particularly Vermont state legislators’ move earlier this year to pass annual legislation, which uses property taxes to fund school budgets, that raised property taxes to nearly 14 percent.

“I last ran in 2020, and what I heard from voters was, you know, in my district was ‘We want Democrats nationally but more balance locally,’” Parent, who voted for Vice President Harris in last month's presidential election, explained.

“I think most of the time most pragmatic voters — middle of the road voters — they want balance in government,” he said.

Democrats gained 14 seats in the Wisconsin state legislature — putting them closer toward potentially flipping the state Senate in 2026 — and 11 seats between the two chambers in Montana.

Those gains came against the backdrop of redistricting in Wisconsin and Montana, which put new maps into play in both states this year.

“It’s more than just redistricting, because, as I say, redistricting gave us competitive maps, and those two seats particularly are really evidence of what can happen if it's competitive,” said Wisconsin state Sen. Jeff Smith (D), referring to two seats Wisconsin Senate Democrats won from two longtime GOP members.

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), acknowledged that while Republicans notched wins, she said the election also proved that the Democrats could stand their ground on tougher turf.

“None of these chambers were won or lost by very many seats,” she said, “and so we know that we’re very competitive in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan.”

Williams added that "in 2024, in a year, obviously that was challenging for Democrats, and where, certainly we did not win at the top of the ticket, we notched some like, interesting wins or some places where we held our ground in a way that I think history would have showed us that we shouldn't have."

Despite a busy election cycle, neither party will have much of a reprieve as Virginia holds several special elections — one for a state House seat and two for state Senate seats — that will determine whether Republicans will be able to flip one or both chambers in Virginia’s Capitol.

New Jersey and Virginia will hold state legislative elections next November, which will inevitably be seen as a bellwether for both parties ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Michael Biundo, a prominent Republican strategist in New Hampshire who did work in the state’s legislature elections, said it behooves his party to make good on the campaign promises the GOP made during the election cycle, or risk losing them again in upcoming elections.

Republicans talked about “changing and fixing the economy. We talked about cutting spending, making efficiencies. We talked about getting people back to work and putting power back into people's hands,” Biundo said.

“I think we're at a point in politics in general that if we don't deliver, voters are very fickle,” he added, “and you're borrowing voters — you don't own voters — you're borrowing voters.”