As President Joe Biden casts the race for the White House as a fight to save democracy, state-level Democrats say that battle is already well underway in what they’re calling “the year of the states.”
The party committee dedicated to state legislative races raised more than $21 million in 2023, a record-breaking sum for an off-year, and is laying out a roadmap for the year ahead in battleground states as well as red states where it sees an opportunity to break Republican legislative supermajorities, according to a memo released Wednesday and shared first with CNN.
Amid a high-stakes presidential election and a tight race for control of Congress, state-level races will be far down the 2024 ballot. But their relevance, Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams argues, is becoming more widely recognized – especially in the wake of the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade that made abortion an issue decided by states.
“There is more attention and sort of clarity about the importance and the impact that states have on not just people’s everyday lives, right, but also the president’s agenda, our party’s agenda,” Williams told CNN this week. “We’re really the center of gravity of where things are getting done.”
The strategy reflects ambitious fundraising goals and builds on recent successes, while acknowledging that Democrats had been behind Republicans in drawing maps and investing in these races over the last decade – and that that’s had tangible consequences for voters on issues like reproductive rights, voting rights and gun laws.
“The outcomes became greater than the coloring of a state on a map,” Williams said.
For Democrats nationally, Biden’s sagging poll numbers have fueled concerns that even his base may not be with him in November. But Williams pointed to more positive…
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