State Elections Crystal Ball: What’s on the Horizon for 2024

State Elections Crystal Ball: What's on the Horizon for 2024

NCSL frames the issues as voters prepare to decide legislative seats, governorships and ballot questions galore.

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NCSL's Helen Brewer, speaking, covered upcoming ballot measures, while Ben Williams handled the legislative races, at this year's Legislative Summit.

From a legislative standpoint, the U.S. is right back where it was in 1914.

Other than the current political moment, that's the only time just one state legislature had chambers controlled by different parties.

"So, we were at historic lows," Ben Williams, NCSL's associate director of Elections and Redistricting, told a session on the upcoming elections at NCSL's 2024 Legislative Summit. "You are much more likely to live in a state where the legislature is entirely controlled by one party or the other."

Today, that outlier is Pennsylvania, where the Democrats control the House and Republicans run the Senate.

"Top of the ticket matters, but it's not the whole ball game. Local dynamics can make a difference."

-Ben Williams, NCSL

In November, 5,836 legislative seats, or about 79% of the nation's total, are up for reelection. But that doesn't mean the chambers themselves are likely to swing one way or the other, Williams says-unless there's a red or blue wave.

If the Democrats win nationally by 6%-7%, both chambers in Alaska and Georgia might flip; a red wave could impact legislatures in Delaware, Maine, Nevada and Oregon, he says. Absent a wave on either side, the Republican-led legislatures in Arizona, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, could change hands, as could the House chambers in Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of which are held by Democrats.

Trickle-down politics don't always work, however.

"Top of the ticket matters, but it's not the whole ball game," Williams says. "Local dynamics can make a difference."

Democrats have won the popular vote in the last four presidential elections but have made relatively few legislative gains and have even lost some seats. Some GOP gains came because Democrats lost seats they were clinging to in red states.

"I'm from West Virginia, a state that used to have a 33-to-one Democratic majority in the state Senate," he says. It's now Republican-held 31-3 and could become even more lopsided after the next election.

Williams has more predictions for the upcoming election:

Because the nation is at a historic low in split-control legislatures, it's a safe bet that divided government will increase.

"(But) we're unlikely to see dramatic swings; 2010 to 2011 was the last time we saw more than 10 chambers flip from one party to another in any given election," Williams says. "We just don't see those dramatic swings anymore. In 2018, we saw nine. That was the recent high point."

And because so little movement is expected, the Republican edge nationwide probably will continue: The GOP controls 57 chambers today, compared with the Democrats' 41.

"Democrats would have to net nine flips in legislative chambers to take the national lead," Williams says. "Looking at the historical data, that's unlikely to happen."

A Bevy of Ballot Measures

Turnout might be juiced in some states by popular ballot measures, which can take the form of legislative referrals, citizen initiatives and popular referendums. There are at least 141 on ballots across the country, says Helen Brewer, policy specialist with NCSL's Elections and Redistricting Program.

"Taxes, bond measures and other ballot measures to do with state funding are by far the most common topic of ballot measures that we see year after year," she says. "We've got at least 40 of those ballot measures in at least 18 states this year."

Colorado and New Mexico are both looking to expand property tax exemptions available to veterans in those states. Nevada's Question 5 would exempt both children and adult diapers from sales tax, and South Dakota's Measure 28 would eliminate sales tax on goods for human consumption.

Other ballot measures deal with housing, voting rights, criminal justice, energy and health care-including five states with constitutional amendments on the ballot that would establish a right to abortion in the state constitutions. Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and South Dakota all have amendments, and New York and Illinois have related measures.

"Every ballot measure related to abortion that has appeared on the ballot since the Dobbs case in 2022 has turned out in the election in favor of (abortion-rights) advocates," Brewer says. "I think the most interesting one to watch will be Florida's Amendment 4. Florida requires 60% voter approval to pass a constitutional amendment as opposed to the usual 50%. So, it will be interesting to see whether that post-Dobbs trend holds true-even in a state with such a high passage threshold."

Lisa Ryckman is NCSL's associate director of communications.