In Minnesota, Democratic lawmakers are threatening to stay away from the state capitol this week to prevent Republicans from trying to take control of the House.
In Michigan, Republican senators, who are only one seat behind Democrats, want a special election as soon as possible to fill a seat they believe can be flipped.
And in Virginia, Democratic candidates in three special elections last week pushed hard to hold on to their majorities in both legislative chambers as Democrats try to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
As state legislatures convene across the country this month, several bitter battles for party control have increased the degree to which political polarization has become entrenched, not just in Congress but in statehouses across the country.
The struggle for supremacy is especially under pressure from democratic representatives, who, unlike the past four years, face even higher stakes. They are already playing defense as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office again, bolstered by the Republican takeover of Congress.
“As Trump and his MAGA allies in the states return to office, building and defending Democratic power in the states is critical,” said Heather Williams, chairwoman of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Republicans now control most statehouses. But Democrats won four state legislatures in 2022 and parlayed that power into progressive bills on abortion, voting rights and more.
However, in 2024, Republicans, arguing that Democrats had gone too far, regained the majority in the Michigan House, tied in Minnesota, and made a strong dent in Vermont.
Since Election Day, the most dramatic battle has been taking place in Minnesota. State Sen. Kari Dziedzic, Democrat of Minneapolis, died of cancer, leaving the chamber deadlocked at 33-33.
“There’s nothing that can be done until there’s a special election,” Rep. Lisa Demuth, the House Republican leader and speaker-designate, said in an interview. “The problem with saying, ‘Well, it’ll be in a few weeks, we should act like we’re 67 anyway’ — the math doesn’t work that way.”
She also suggested the Republican majority would refuse to appoint Rep. Brad Tabke, a Democrat who won re-election by 14 votes after 20 absentee votes were lost. Six of those 20 voters later testified that they voted for Mr. Tabkea, giving him an insurmountable advantage. A judge is expected to rule any moment, but Ms. Demuth said there should be a special election, regardless of the judge’s decision.
In response, Democrats raised the possibility of boycotting the session, with the goal of denying Republicans the necessary quorum – a majority of the total number of members must be present – to begin.
Recent outings elsewhere have highlighted the party’s divide. In Texas, House Democrats fled the state for Washington in 2021 to temporarily deny Republicans the two-thirds quorum needed to pass a restrictive ballot measure.
In Oregon — which also has a two-thirds quorum requirement — Republican senators intent on delaying bills on climate policy, taxes and abortion have walked out so often that voters amended the state constitution to ban such absences. Most Republican senators are also barred from seeking re-election.
But an exit like the one being discussed in Minnesota would be unprecedented, said Bill Kramer, vice president and counsel for MultiState, a state and local government relations firm.
“I can’t remember it being like this at the very beginning of the session,” he said. “You set the rules, you pick the speaker, you pick the committee chairs — all those kinds of things that procedurally set the agenda for the next two years.”
In Virginia, two contests last week were for the Senate and one for the House of Representatives; before this special election, Democrats held on to the one-vote majority in both chambers that they claimed when they won the House in 2023. At stake, to some extent, was the agenda of outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who was barred by the state constitution from running for office. for the second term.
Turnout was low for the Loudoun County election, which had one House race and one Senate race. Harish Sundaraman, 24, said he was voting for both Democrats, even though he didn’t fully subscribe to the party’s policies. He wished he knew more about the candidates, he said. But he was motivated by his views on abortion rights, which Democrats hope to advance in the upcoming legislative session.
“I thought it might help if I voted Democrat in this local election,” said Mr. Sundaraman, who works in information technology in Washington, DC
Ultimately, two Democrats and a Republican prevailed, leaving the balance of power unchanged.
In all, Republicans now control the legislature in 28 states and Democrats in 18. (The rest of the states are split, tied, or run by a bipartisan coalition.)
One vote can be significant, even in states where one party dominates. In North Carolina, a lawmaker who unexpectedly switched party affiliation from Democratic to Republican allowed Republican leaders to enact a 12-week limit on most abortions in 2023, overriding Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
Few sitting state legislators have had more experience with the jostling of paper-thin margins than members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. After 2022, Pennsylvania was one of only two states where different parties held control of both houses of the legislature. Although the Republicans had a comfortable majority in the Senate, the Democrats’ control in the House of Representatives was very precarious, and sometimes it disappeared completely.
In 2024, despite Democratic losses in the presidential race, a US Senate seat and several congressional seats, not a single seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives was flipped. The Democrats thus kept the same one-seat majority they had two years earlier.
Then, in December, the Democratic Party member had a medical emergency and has been in the hospital ever since. As several times in the previous two years, the House returned to a functional relationship.
But when members of the House of Representatives gathered on Tuesday, the first day of the new session, the election of the speaker went smoothly and relatively quickly, without the behind-the-scenes deals and protracted drama that accompanied the vote two years ago. Partly as a result of a compromise with Republicans over House procedural rules, the legislature immediately re-elected the previous Democratic speaker by voice vote.
“I think everybody has learned their lesson,” said Rep. Michael Schlossberg, a Democrat, describing himself as “the whip of the majority with no room for error.” The last two years have had their challenges, he said, but the narrow party margin has its advantages, forcing compromise and discipline.
As for lessons for his colleagues in other states, he offered this: “Don’t confuse short-term advantage with long-term advantage.”
And, referring to various maneuvers for party favor that ultimately backfired, he added: “Don’t be too cute.”
Courtney Mabeus-Brown contributed reports from Loudoun County, Va.
