Conservative Surge Puts GOP Control of States at 95-Year High
Republicans now control the governorship and legislature in 26 states and conservative leaders say this trend continues to grow in Republicans’ favor.
“Over the last seven years since we have covered state legislatures and state executives pretty extensively, there’s been a significant shift from Democratic-controlled state governments to Republican,” Geoff Pallay, editor in chief at Ballotpedia, a website focused on elections, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
“Whatever happened in 2010 has remained,” Pallay said, adding:
So in 2010 there were 12 Republican governors elected who took over for Democrat governors as their predecessor. And then in 2014, 11 of those 12 won re-election. So the party didn’t change. So whatever the wave was in 2010 didn’t recede in 2014.
170823_ATR-map_v3-002-1024x990
The trend of widespread Republican leadership continued.
With West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s announcement Aug. 3 of his switch from Democrat to Republican, the GOP has 26 “trifectas” while Democrats hold six, Ballotpedia notes.
A trifecta is a situation where “one political party holds the governorship, a majority in the state Senate, and a majority in the state House in a state’s government,” it says.
Conrad Lucas, chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party, told The Daily Signal that he isn’t surprised by his state’s flip to GOP control on all three of those fronts.
“It isn’t necessarily surprising to us, because West Virginians are conservatives,” Lucas said, adding:
We’re a state where it’s very difficult for the Democrat Party to make an argument where it has the best interests of the state at heart, because as the Democrat Party has moved so far to the left. They directly attack the coal industry, they directly attack social conservative values. And obviously when you are attacking the state on both fiscal and social fronts as a party, it is very difficult for folks to vote for your candidates.
When Justice announced his party change during President Donald Trump’s rally in Huntington, West Virginia, he told attendees: “I can’t help you any more being a Democrat governor.”
Justice’s switch gives Republicans control of 34 governorships, the most the party has possessed since 1922, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“The Democrats aren’t even trying in a lot of these states,” Pallay said. “Arkansas is an example of this. Arkansas in 2010 was a Democrat trifecta. You had a Democratic governor and a Democratic-controlled state legislature. Now, you have a Republican trifecta and … the Democrat Party, they’re not even trying to win the state. The Democratic Party chair told us this much last June.”
Steve Moore, a visiting fellow for the Project for Economic Growth at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview that party control is determining the economic health of states.
“People are leaving blue states. Blue states are losing their political clout because people are leaving blue states,” Moore said, adding:
This is every day … roughly a thousand people every day leave blue states and move to red states, so that’s a big migration over a decade. … That’s like 4 million people over a decade … leaving New York and Connecticut and Illinois and Michigan and even California … and other states. People are voting with their feet against liberalism.
States’ party demographics also are changing because the Democratic Party has changed, Moore said.
“One of my hypotheses is that one of the things that is really killing the Democrat Party is the radical liberalism with the party,” he said, adding:
They keep putting climate change ahead of jobs, that’s just one example. Just look at the polls. What is the No. 1 or 2 issue for the last 10 years? Jobs, jobs, and the economy. So [President Barack] Obama would give these speeches on ‘the most important thing in the world is global warming,’ and I’m like, ‘Sorry, but nobody agrees with you.’ So you can keep saying that, but when you look at polls, where do people list climate change? It’s like No. 20 on the list.
(“No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” Obama said in his State of the Union address in 2015.)
Lucas, the West Virginia Republican Party chairman, said the trend for Republican leadership bodes well.
“Look at some of the states where we have the governor’s mansions now,” he said. “Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Vermont, these aren’t states where people initially would have a knee-jerk reaction to assume that there would be much Republican success. So I think the trend is going to continue, particularly considering the special election results post-Trump.”
Republicans won four out of the five special congressional elections held since Trump’s inauguration, according to Ballotpedia.
“The results speak for themselves,” Lucas said. “The media narrative can be whatever they choose for it to be, but Republicans continue to win and the sky’s the limit.”
https://stream.org/conservative-surge-puts-gop-control-states-95-year-high/ Red Box Rules Apply. Be civil, stay on topic and the four B's apply.
“Over the last seven years since we have covered state legislatures and state executives pretty extensively, there’s been a significant shift from Democratic-controlled state governments to Republican,” Geoff Pallay, editor in chief at Ballotpedia, a website focused on elections, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
“Whatever happened in 2010 has remained,” Pallay said, adding:
So in 2010 there were 12 Republican governors elected who took over for Democrat governors as their predecessor. And then in 2014, 11 of those 12 won re-election. So the party didn’t change. So whatever the wave was in 2010 didn’t recede in 2014.
170823_ATR-map_v3-002-1024x990
The trend of widespread Republican leadership continued.
With West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s announcement Aug. 3 of his switch from Democrat to Republican, the GOP has 26 “trifectas” while Democrats hold six, Ballotpedia notes.
A trifecta is a situation where “one political party holds the governorship, a majority in the state Senate, and a majority in the state House in a state’s government,” it says.
Conrad Lucas, chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party, told The Daily Signal that he isn’t surprised by his state’s flip to GOP control on all three of those fronts.
“It isn’t necessarily surprising to us, because West Virginians are conservatives,” Lucas said, adding:
We’re a state where it’s very difficult for the Democrat Party to make an argument where it has the best interests of the state at heart, because as the Democrat Party has moved so far to the left. They directly attack the coal industry, they directly attack social conservative values. And obviously when you are attacking the state on both fiscal and social fronts as a party, it is very difficult for folks to vote for your candidates.
When Justice announced his party change during President Donald Trump’s rally in Huntington, West Virginia, he told attendees: “I can’t help you any more being a Democrat governor.”
Justice’s switch gives Republicans control of 34 governorships, the most the party has possessed since 1922, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“The Democrats aren’t even trying in a lot of these states,” Pallay said. “Arkansas is an example of this. Arkansas in 2010 was a Democrat trifecta. You had a Democratic governor and a Democratic-controlled state legislature. Now, you have a Republican trifecta and … the Democrat Party, they’re not even trying to win the state. The Democratic Party chair told us this much last June.”
Steve Moore, a visiting fellow for the Project for Economic Growth at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview that party control is determining the economic health of states.
“People are leaving blue states. Blue states are losing their political clout because people are leaving blue states,” Moore said, adding:
This is every day … roughly a thousand people every day leave blue states and move to red states, so that’s a big migration over a decade. … That’s like 4 million people over a decade … leaving New York and Connecticut and Illinois and Michigan and even California … and other states. People are voting with their feet against liberalism.
States’ party demographics also are changing because the Democratic Party has changed, Moore said.
“One of my hypotheses is that one of the things that is really killing the Democrat Party is the radical liberalism with the party,” he said, adding:
They keep putting climate change ahead of jobs, that’s just one example. Just look at the polls. What is the No. 1 or 2 issue for the last 10 years? Jobs, jobs, and the economy. So [President Barack] Obama would give these speeches on ‘the most important thing in the world is global warming,’ and I’m like, ‘Sorry, but nobody agrees with you.’ So you can keep saying that, but when you look at polls, where do people list climate change? It’s like No. 20 on the list.
(“No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” Obama said in his State of the Union address in 2015.)
Lucas, the West Virginia Republican Party chairman, said the trend for Republican leadership bodes well.
“Look at some of the states where we have the governor’s mansions now,” he said. “Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Vermont, these aren’t states where people initially would have a knee-jerk reaction to assume that there would be much Republican success. So I think the trend is going to continue, particularly considering the special election results post-Trump.”
Republicans won four out of the five special congressional elections held since Trump’s inauguration, according to Ballotpedia.
“The results speak for themselves,” Lucas said. “The media narrative can be whatever they choose for it to be, but Republicans continue to win and the sky’s the limit.”
https://stream.org/conservative-surge-puts-gop-control-states-95-year-high/ Red Box Rules Apply. Be civil, stay on topic and the four B's apply.
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Let's hope the trend towards conservatism continues. The tea party movement was a great thing and there is a lot of opportunity ahead.
more great news! MAGA!
People only voted for Obama 2008 and 2012, but voted against him 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Hillary promised us she was going to build on his policies. Didn't work out too well. They voted against his policies 6 out the 8 years he was in office.
Ah, we can always count on this person's extreme rightwing partisanship to try to hide the truth. Since Jan. 1 this year there have been 15 elections for state legislatures. Not surprisingly, most seats (13 of 15: 6D, 7R) were held by the incumbent party. The Ds gained 2 of the 15. This is a small number but it certainly puts the lie to this notion that Rs are surging at Dems expense. This is an "off" year for state legislative elections with only 220 seats of the over 7300 up in Nov. so we won't learn much about any trends. But these special elections this year also showed that even in those 13 seats that did not flip, only 3 of them showed a decrease in Dem "lean"* from the previous 2 presidential elections and none of those changed parties. Of all the other 10 seats the improvement in Dem lean ranged from 1.3% (where the D won 88.9% of the vote) to 61.4% (in a safe D seat but won by a much higher margin than in the past). One OK seat (house district 28, a very rural area) had a shift to the D candidate of 46.8% (from a -49.1% to a -2.3% lean*). There is nothing at all like a republican "surge" going on at the state level this year.
* this means that in the last two presidential elections the R candidate won this district by an average of nearly 50 percentage points over the D.
Here's a table from Nate Silver's site:
and link to get a full explanation and clearer view:
Here's another interest chart from last November's results:
See any Republican surge there?
"Ah, we can always count on this person's extreme....."
Who exactly is 'we'? You haven't been here long enough to gather a following. And going straight to insult? That is quickly becoming your stock and trade.
Who exactly is 'we'? You haven't been here long enough to gather a following. And going straight to insult? That is quickly becoming your stock and trade.
Bothers you, eh? Good. We couldn't be more pleased.
So tell us how old Nate did in the '16 election? 71% chance of Hildabeast winning! Who is president now? DONALD TRUMP!
MAGA!
GAGA. These weren't predictions. These are results. But, here I go assuming you'd would know the difference. Comment removed for skirting the CoC [ph]
Thanks
MAGA!
You keep putting that idiotic mantra up and then complaining about being called morons. Hilarious.
I think it is time to go beyond removing comments. After someone has them removed 5 times they should be suspended for a month
Vic,
I am not oblivious enough to not take in that the MAGA is being used now as a taunt, but since I can't ban it per se, since we have a wide berth for freedom of speech here. That being said, I can see how it could get annoying being put into every comment and cause a reaction, which of course it has.
My advice would be to ignore it.
Also skirting the CoC is not a suspendable by themselves. They do add up to a violation. This will all be discussed in the near future.
This will all be discussed in the near future.
Very good
Now that this is an open discussion, I will post this ON TOPIC comment.
I say to all, to please consider the source of the article.
The Stream.org in the internet vehicle of James Robison the Founder and Publisher of The Stream, also is the founder of LIFE Outreach.
Basically this is a man who claims to be guided by religious faith and fervor. And it's all Right Wing all the time.
There is no objectivity here. There is a specific goal and a purpose. Thus, this is not news. It is propaganda. It is FAKE NEWS.
And this comment is ON TOPIC, because it is specifically about this article.
Attacking the source. Weak.
Attacking propaganda! STRONG!!!
Must you shout? MAGA
In this case... YES!
Morons Are Governing America = MAGA
Are you in the government?
Are you in the government?
Nope. Are you? You could be. Trump still has a lot of openings he hasn't filled yet. And even more are opening up every day with all the people he's fired, had fired or are just plain quitting on him. If you're not in that government you could be. Go for it!
I'm a DOE contractor. So, yes. You'd better hope I know what I'm doing.
Making America Great Again with each Obama EO repeal!
how ?
The EO's were an usurpation of the legislative branch's power. It always gives me pause when any president tries to rule by decree. Even Trump.
Then you must be ON PAUSE, because in their first 100 days Obama signed 22 E.O.s while Trump signed 30 Executive Orders! And Trump pissed and moaned about how Obama signed too many E.O.s but Trump has signed more.
Take a PAUSE and think about that okay? Take a long PAUSE.
Trump also pissed and moaned about Obama golfing too much, but Trump has done more of that too. But Trump promised he wouldn't have time for golf. Trump said he'd be too busy 'working for the people' that he'd never leave The White House and he'd never golf. Trump lied. Trump lied a lot! And Trump said 'The White House is a dump'. That's Trump!
I don't like the EO's. I don't care who is president. I didn't like Obama doing it and I don't like Trump doing it.
I don't care how much golf they play. I did today. It's a good release so a president needs to find that non work related activity to unwind with.
I would love to play a round of golf with Obama and Trump. I have a feeling they both have good foot wedges and use them frequently.
"I didn't like Obama doing it and I don't like Trump doing it."
So when the next president reverses trump EOs that will also be making America great also ?
I must agree, but then again I also believe congress should work together to the benefit of us all.
I also believe congress should work together to the benefit of us all.
Well said Steve!
wonder at what percentage America will enter a full blown civil war ?
Later we can all thank the politicians and the media for causing us americans to turn on each other.
Taking this huge left leaning country to the right is not going to be quick,easy or probably bloodless.
But that's what trump was elected to do. Anyone but hillary, even though clinton actually got more support to go further left...
Have fun controlling this mess republicans you own it lock, stock and barrel now !
wonder at what percentage America will enter a full blown civil war
I don't believe anyone will Steve. There isn't an issue that will make anyone choose sides and join an army to kill their neighbor.
Even on NT there isn't enough heated rhetoric to make me hate any poster on the site.