Democrats lost badly at the congressional level in 2014. That, of course, got a lot of coverage. Democrats also took huge losses at the state level. That didn’t get a lot of attention. State legislators get coverage when they do something stupid or illegal (or both). Even so, Democrats losses at the state level are a more profound problem for Democrats than the loss of the Senate.
As one Democratic strategist conceded to me last week, his party is “in a deep hole” at the state level. From 1948-2010, according to our friends at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Democrats had a distinct advantage at the state legislative level. During that 62-year period, but for a couple years when they were tied, Democrats had more members in state legislative office than Republicans. Since 2010, however, Republicans have taken the lead. Today, about 55 percent of all state legislative seats in the country are held by Republicans. That’s the largest share of GOP state legislators since the 1920s. Just 11 states have an all Democratic-controlled legislature, while Republicans have
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