These Under-The-Radar State Races Have Big Implications For American Democracy

With former President Donald Trump, the progenitor of stolen 2020 election lies and instigator of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, at the top the ballot on Nov. 5, it might be easy to forget that Trump’s plans to subvert the election results ran through the country’s state legislatures. 

To refresh voters’ memories, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, or DLCC, national Democrats’ campaign arm for state legislative races, released a new memo on Wednesday outlining how Democratic control of state legislatures is “key to preventing the next insurrection.”

“In this election, defeating Donald Trump at the top of the ticket is not enough to protect our democracy,” Will Rusche, the DLCC’s vice president of marketing and communications, told HuffPost. “The majorities that we elect in these battleground states are going to determine our voting laws and protect our democracy.”

The role that Republican-controlled state legislatures, and individual Republican state legislators played in fomenting civil unrest about the 2020 election result, serving as potential vehicles for Trump’s fake elector scheme, and in some cases, participating in the actual Jan. 6 attack, is by now well established. 

But the memo, authored by DLCC President Heather Williams, helps flesh out some of the details with updates for the current election.

Twenty-one state lawmakers participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, “stop the steal” rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, including one West Virginia lawmaker, Derrick Evans, who was sentenced to prison for civil disorder in July 2022. Including candidates for state legislative seats, the DLCC estimates that nearly 60 Republican state lawmakers or candidates were present in Washington that day to protest the election certification.

What’s more, before, during and after Jan. 6, 2021, there were similarly violent attempts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power outside of 13 state Capitols, the DLCC memo notes. 

In some of those states, Republican state lawmakers lent moral or logistical support to the rioters outside their doors. For example, in Oregon, Republican state Rep. Mike Nearman was expelled in June 2021 after a video surfaced of him explaining to demonstrators how to enter the state Capitol and opening a door for them during a late December 2020 “stop the steal” demonstration.

“While the many protests at state capitols were quickly eclipsed in the national news by the brazen attacks on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, the harbingers of insurrection were on full display at statehouses across the country in both 2020 and 2021,” Williams writes in the memo.

A number of these lawmakers, like Evans, are no longer in office, or running for office, but the DLCC has drafted a list of 15 Republican incumbents and five candidates who joined the “stop the steal” rally in Washington.

Few, if any, of these right-wing Republicans are running in competitive races this year, but some who have amplified conspiracy theories about the 2020 election results, are.

Arizona state Sen. Shawnna Bolick joined other Arizona Republicans first in petitioning Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 5, 2021, to block certification of Arizona’s 2020 election results, and then in appealing to Congress to seat an alternate slate of electors. Pennsylvania state Sen. Devlin Robinson co-signed a similar letter to congressional leaders from Pennsylvania state lawmakers, asking Congress to delay certification of the election results.

Bolick, who represents north Phoenix, faces a spirited challenge from Democratic state Rep. Judy Schwiebert. And Democratic public-school teacher Nicole Ruscitto is trying to unseat Robinson in the Pittsburgh suburbs.

The DLCC has attacked Bolick and Robinson for their roles in spreading election denial and undermining democracy in direct-mail advertising, the memo states.

“We’re making sure democracy is a cornerstone of our messaging in top battleground states, particularly those which were hotbeds for election conspiracies in 2020,” Williams writes.

This cycle, Democrats are hoping to flip both the state House of Representatives and Senate in Arizona, as well as the state House of Representatives in New Hampshire. In Arizona, Democrats need to net one seat in each of the two chambers to take power; in the New Hampshire House, they must net two.

In a host of other states, Democrats are digging in to protect fragile majorities that were won in key states in 2022 and other recent cycles. Republicans would need to net one seat to gain control in the Michigan House, one seat in the Pennsylvania House, three seats in the Minnesota House, and one seat in the Minnesota state Senate, though only one seat is up this year in a special election to fill a vacancy. 

In Minnesota and Michigan, the DLCC notes, Democrats used their majorities to pass voter rights legislation that, among other things, seek to protect elections from Republican interference. The DLCC cites those states as models for how Democratic control in the states can become a bulwark against election interference by Trump and his allies.

“Electing Democrats to statehouses next month will have immediate and long-term impacts on upholding our democracy and ensuring a safe and stable transfer of power,” Williams concludes.