MEMO: This Week’s Results
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: RSLC President Dee Duncan
DATE: November 7, 2024
RE: This Week’s Results
DEFYING THE ODDS
On Tuesday, November 5th, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) achieved historic victories by flipping control of the Michigan House chamber, breaking the Democrat trifecta in the Minnesota House, and maintaining control of the Pennsylvania Senate. While we are still vying for the majority in the Pennsylvania House, it is clear that Republicans were the definitive winners across the ballot in this nationwide election.
Despite facing an unprecedented onslaught of spending from a constellation of national liberal outside groups and being forced to navigate a difficult political climate, we managed to achieve our goal of maintaining control in a majority of state legislatures across the country. Our strategy of investing early in targeted races as well as our commitment to improving the GOP’s standing in absentee and early voting paid dividends as voters made one thing clear: they want Republicans and their policies at the state level.
From President Trump’s decisive victory at the top of the ticket to down-ballot state Republicans across the country, Republicans are well-positioned to advance conservative policies in the states that will benefit families for years to come.
Defending and Regaining Battleground Legislative Chambers
In Michigan Republicans flipped control of the state House
In Minnesota Republicans have flipped enough seats in the state House to break Democrat Trifecta
In Nevada Republicans are on track to prevent a Democrat supermajority in both the Assembly and the Senate by picking up a seat in both chambers
In New Hampshire Republicans expanded their majority in the House and attainted a supermajority in the state Senate
In North Carolina Republicans are going to maintain majorities in the House and maintained their supermajority in the Senate
In Pennsylvania Republicans maintained their majority in the state Senate and are still fighting for the majority in the state House
In Wisconsin Republicans defended their majorities in the House and Senate
Maintaining Republican Control
In Florida Republicans have expanded their supermajority in the House while maintaining their supermajority in the Senate
In Georgia Republicans defended legislative majorities in the House and Senate
In Iowa Republicans successfully defended their supermajority in the Senate and attained a supermajority in the House
In Kansas Republicans expanded their supermajorities in both legislative chambers
In Montana Republicans picked up the Chief Justice seat on the state supreme court
In South Carolina Republicans attained a supermajority in the state Senate and maintained their super majority in the House
In Texas Republicans expanded their majority in the House by flipping a blue district in the Rio Grande Valley
Republicans defended their supermajorities in the Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming state legislatures.
Republicans also expanded their supermajorities in the Idaho, South Dakota, and West Virginia legislatures.
Striking Balance in Strongholds
In California Republicans are on track to make net gains in both legislative chambers for the first time since 2014.
In Maine Republicans are on track to pick up seats in both the House and Senate
In New Mexico Republicans prevented a Democrat supermajority in the state Senate and flipped a seat in the House
In New York Republicans broke the Democrat supermajority in the state Senate
In Vermont Republicans exited the superminority in the House and Senate; this is the first time in recent history the RSLC has invested in legislative races in the state
In Hawaii and Massachusetts, Republicans made significant gains in the state legislatures
BEYOND LEGISLATURES
Not only did state Republicans have success in legislative races across the country while facing enormous challenges, they also boasted strong performances across all of the RSLC’s caucuses:
State Courts
The Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative (JFI) invested more than $2 million to bolster constitutional conservative candidates running for state appellate and supreme courts in key battleground states like Ohio, Montana, Texas, and Michigan. This strategic campaign included television advertising, targeted mail efforts, and digital advertising, effectively engaging voters in these critical races. In recent years, state judicial races have drawn increasing attention and resources, and in this election cycle, conservative judges were triumphant. Because of strategic investments like ours, we saw a shift in the balance of High Courts in multiple states.
In Ohio, all three JFI candidates won their respective races, expanding the Republican majority to 6-1
In Montana, conservatives won the open Chief Justice seat, giving conservatives an advantage on the bench
In Texas, all ten JFI appellate candidates were successful in their elections
In North Carolina, the Republican candidate leads in the state supreme court race that is headed to a recount; if successful, Republicans would expand their majority to 6-1
Secretaries of State
In secretary of state races, the RSLC’s Republican Secretaries of State Committee accomplished its goal of maintaining all of its Republican held seats. In Montana, incumbent Republican Christi Jacobsen won her re-election securing 62% of the vote. In West Virginia, Kris Warner defended won the open Secretary of State seat, ensuring Republicans maintain control of all statewide offices. In Missouri, Denny Hoskins, was elected Secretary of State ensuring that Republicans hold all statewide offices in the “Show-Me” state.
Statewide Elected Agriculture Officials
Republicans retained both Agriculture Commissioner’s races on the ballot in 2024, continuing to hold all 12 statewide elected Agriculture offices in the country. The RSLC, home to the Ag America caucus, contributed six figures to defend all seats nationwide.
North Carolina: Incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler secured a sixth consecutive term, receiving 53% of the vote.
West Virginia: Incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt won a resounding 69% of the vote in West Virginia to be re-elected to the position, a seat he has held since 2016.
Lieutenant Governors
The RSLC’s Republican Lieutenant Governors Association caucus engaged in several lieutenant governors races, securing wins nationwide. Incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governors Kristen Juras in Montana and Deidre Henderson in Utah won their re-election bids, and Republican candidates Micah Beckwith in Indiana, David Wasinger in Missouri, Michelle Strinden in North Dakota, and John Rodgers in Vermont won their elections for Lieutenant Governor in their respective states.
HISTORIC ABSENTEE AND EARLY VOTE PROGRAM
Our proactive strategy on early engagement paid off in a big way. Our focus on vote-by-mail, early voting, and low-propensity voter outreach not only boosted our margins but led the charge in these critical areas where wins were going to be a fight from the beginning. The 2024 election, just like in 2020 and 2022, was decided by razor-thin margins, but thanks to our efforts, we were able to deliver key victories for Republicans up and down the ticket in some of the toughest battleground states. We took the challenge head-on as the only committee willing to invest early and comprehensively, and it made all the difference. From the early success we saw in Virginia in 2023 to the ongoing impact in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, our efforts shaped this election cycle. As a result, Republicans secured wins across the board, proving the importance of sticking to this strategy through Election Day. Our focus on early voting methods was crucial to the successes on November 5th.
Pennsylvania:
The RSLC and its affiliates PACs’ goals in Pennsylvania were twofold: first, we aimed to expand our base of Republican voters and bring new voters to the table by targeting low-propensity Republicans with our vote-by-mail efforts to increase Republicans’ share of the vote-by-mail votes and grow the Republican permanent vote-by-mail list. Second, we aimed to encourage Republican voters to embrace the convenience of mail-in ballots ahead of election day and to dispel concerns among voters regarding mail-in voting. In partnership with the Sentinel Action Fund and Keystone Renewal PAC, our investment produced millions of voter contacts throughout the vote-by-mail timeframe. When we launched this effort, we set a goal of producing 200,000 vote-by-mail requests from voters who had never voted by mail. We produced over 365,000 vote-by-mail requests from first-time mail voters. We added 240,000 Republicans to the permanent vote-by-mail list, and from our targeted universe, over 380,000 voters requested ballots. Beyond breaking our request and permanent list sign up goals, we successfully shrunk the Democrats vote-by-mail request advantage by a staggering 514,000 requests.
Michigan:
In Michigan, Republicans did a much better job than Democrats on improving our 2022 share of the absentee and early vote electorate. This was significantly noticeable amongst lower propensity Republicans which saw the largest increases. While we are still compiling results, this increase in share of the electorate accounted for the margins of victory in our target House races.
WHY OUR WORK MATTERS & HOW IT CONTINUES
We are incredibly proud of the bold steps we took and the risks we embraced to navigate Tuesday’s challenging landscape. Our efforts paid off, allowing us to make significant strides across all our initiatives. Together, we defied expectations and proved that our strategy was the right one for success.
While voters showed their distrust of Democrats at every level of government on Tuesday night, one thing is clear: national Democrat groups will leverage this week’s results to rally even more support from their liberal billionaire donors. We can expect them to return next cycle with even greater resources and put up the biggest fight they ever have. This trend has continued to grow cycle over cycle. In 2020, national outside liberal groups outspent Republicans at least 2:1, spending well over $98 million to chip away at the Republican majority of state legislative chambers nationwide. This year, those same groups combined to spend well over $175 million to the RSLC’s historic $49 million investment, Democrats spending more than our total investment in just the final weeks of the election alone. As you can see, this upward trajectory continues to increase every election cycle.
We are deeply grateful for the support, but the fight is just getting started. The Democrats’ $175 million failure in 2024 means we can expect national outside liberal groups to ask for even more money in future election cycles beginning as early as this year. This week was the start of the American people taking back their country, but it is also the beginning of the radical left’s ‘nothing left to lose’ strategy. If we thought they gave it everything they had this year, just wait to see what is on the horizon.
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