Democrats win full control of more state governments and the Texas House

De­moc­rats in Texas took con­trol of the state House af­ter his­toric wins for gov­er­nor and U.S. Sen­ate, part of a se­ries of sweep­ing gains na­tion­wide in Tues­day’s elec­tions that shift­ed the bal­ance of pow­er across sev­er­al bat­tle­ground and Re­pub­li­can-lean­ing states.

It will be the first time De­moc­rats con­trol the House in Texas since Re­pub­li­cans took over af­ter the 2002 elec­tion. Re­pub­li­cans are keep­ing con­trol of the Sen­ate in the state — which al­so elect­ed Gi­na Hi­no­josa its first De­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor since George W. Bush oust­ed Ann Richards in 1994.

In this year’s midterm elec­tions, the par­ty took full con­trol — both state­house cham­bers and gov­er­nors’ of­fices — in at least five states where they pre­vi­ous­ly shared pow­er.

The wins put pres­sure on the par­ty to an­swer to an elec­torate an­gry over the ris­ing cost of liv­ing, high gas prices, in­fla­tion and the lack of af­ford­able hous­ing. State gov­ern­ments shape a wide ar­ray of poli­cies af­fect­ing every­day lives, in­clud­ing tax rates and abor­tion rights, school choice and ed­u­ca­tion fund­ing, da­ta cen­ter de­vel­op­ment, and the use of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and law en­force­ment sur­veil­lance cam­eras.

“Now it’s time to de­liv­er,” said Devin Remik­er, chair­man of Wis­con­sin’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, which re­tained the gov­er­nor’s of­fice and suc­cess­ful­ly flipped both cham­bers of the state Leg­is­la­ture, break­ing a 16-year Re­pub­li­can ma­jor­i­ty.

De­moc­rats pre­vail in bat­tle­ground states

De­moc­rats al­so won or re­tained full con­trol of both cham­bers of the leg­is­la­tures in Michi­gan, Min­neso­ta and Penn­syl­va­nia and kept the gov­er­nor’s of­fice for tri­fec­tas in all three.

In Neva­da, they gained con­trol by win­ning the gov­er­nor’s seat and re­tain­ing the leg­is­la­ture.

There will be pres­sure on De­moc­rats in Wis­con­sin and oth­er bat­tle­ground states to re­draw con­gres­sion­al maps, just as Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump suc­cess­ful­ly urged eight Re­pub­li­can-led states to do ahead of this elec­tion. But that back­fired, with Re­pub­li­cans los­ing most of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic-held seats they had tar­get­ed to flip and oth­ers they had banked on win­ning.

The Re­pub­li­can con­gres­sion­al re­dis­trict­ing in Texas may have mo­bi­lized ad­di­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers in some parts of the state who helped dri­ve gains in the state­house, said Mark Jones, a po­lit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Rice Uni­ver­si­ty in Hous­ton.

But “when we’re try­ing to think about why De­moc­rats won, it’s one man in the White House and his poli­cies — Don­ald Trump,” Jones said.

Even un­der maps that fa­vored Re­pub­li­cans in Wis­con­sin, De­moc­rats picked up two con­gres­sion­al seats in Tues­day’s races. That means the state will have an even­ly di­vid­ed con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion in 2027.

De­moc­rats al­so break up Re­pub­li­can tri­fec­tas and su­per­ma­jori­ties

De­moc­rats will al­so hold at least 28 gov­er­nor­ships in 2027, with pick­ups in Geor­gia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas — states long held by Re­pub­li­cans.

And the par­ty broke or pre­vent­ed Re­pub­li­can su­per­ma­jori­ties in nine leg­isla­tive cham­bers in eight states: Flori­da, South Car­oli­na, In­di­ana, Mis­souri, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas and North Car­oli­na.

That means Re­pub­li­cans would need help from De­mo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers to over­ride a De­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor’s ve­to in Iowa, Ohio and North Car­oli­na. The As­so­ci­at­ed Press has not called the gov­er­nor’s race in Kansas.

The wins come af­ter De­moc­rats lost near­ly 1,000 state leg­isla­tive seats dur­ing Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma’s tenure, a slide they’ve been try­ing to re­verse for sev­er­al cy­cles.

It’s the biggest sin­gle-elec­tion change of par­ti­san pow­er in state gov­ern­ments since 2010, said Katie Owens Hubler, di­rec­tor of elec­tions and re­dis­trict­ing at the Na­tion­al Con­fer­ence of State Leg­is­la­tures.

Law­mak­ers who will soon be in the ma­jor­i­ty say the change brings ex­pec­ta­tions. “We know that peo­ple will be count­ing on us to de­liv­er, and we take that in­cred­i­bly se­ri­ous­ly,” said Wis­con­sin state Rep. Gre­ta Neubauer, cur­rent­ly the mi­nor­i­ty leader of state As­sem­bly De­moc­rats.

Heather Williams, pres­i­dent of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Leg­isla­tive Cam­paign Com­mit­tee, said the par­ty won “his­toric lev­els of pow­er in state­hous­es.” She said they hadn’t flipped this many seats na­tion­wide since the 1980s.

This time, she said, De­moc­rats will have to fo­cus on is­sues that mat­ter to mid­dle-class vot­ers such as im­prov­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and in­creas­ing ac­cess to health­care, par­tic­u­lar­ly in rur­al ar­eas.

“This elec­tion is about kitchen-ta­ble is­sues; it’s about eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties,” she said Wednes­day. “That is what the man­date is about.”

Wins put spot­light on De­mo­c­ra­t­ic pri­or­i­ties in 2027

The cost of gro­ceries, hous­ing, health­care, gas and util­i­ty bills were cam­paign talk­ing points af­ter leg­isla­tive ses­sions packed with bills aim­ing to make life more af­ford­able for Amer­i­cans, while al­so pro­vid­ing tax re­lief and rein­ing in da­ta cen­ter de­vel­op­ment and the use of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

The com­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sion could see ma­jor ef­forts to light­en the tax bur­den on the mid­dle class, re­lax hous­ing reg­u­la­tions, ex­pand ac­cess to health­care, and force util­i­ties and da­ta cen­ter de­vel­op­ers to do more to stop elec­tric­i­ty bills from ris­ing.

It was the first time since 1992 that De­moc­rats won con­trol of both leg­isla­tive cham­bers and the gov­er­nor’s of­fice at the same time in Penn­syl­va­nia.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, in a news con­fer­ence Wednes­day at the gov­er­nor’s res­i­dence in Har­ris­burg, sin­gled out send­ing more aid to the state’s mass tran­sit agen­cies, rais­ing the state min­i­mum wage, pro­tect­ing abor­tion rights in the state con­sti­tu­tion, and build­ing more hous­ing.

House Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man Rep. Jor­dan Har­ris, a Philadel­phia De­mo­c­rat, not­ed at a news con­fer­ence that the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled House passed many bills that died in the Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled Sen­ate.

“Oh, guess what?” he said. “We’re gonna dust them bad boys off, be­cause we com­ing for you!”

In­com­ing De­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nors, in­clud­ing Wis­con­sin’s David Crow­ley and Min­neso­ta’s Amy Klobuchar, said they want­ed to work with Re­pub­li­cans.

“I am not in­ter­est­ed in mov­ing Min­neso­ta to the left or the right; I want to move us for­ward,” Klobuchar said.

She even had a warn­ing for her De­mo­c­ra­t­ic sup­port­ers.

“Spoil­er alert: You may not like every sin­gle thing I do,” she said. —MADI­SON, Wis. (AP)

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Sto­ry by SCOTT BAUER and GE­OFF MUL­VI­HILL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Ge­off Mul­vi­hill re­port­ed from Had­don­field, New Jer­sey. As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters Marc Levy in Har­ris­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia, and David Lieb in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed.