Wisconsin leaders weigh Medicaid expansion and congressional redistricting
Democrats gained hundreds of seats in state legislatures after Tuesday’s 2026 midterm elections, as vote counting continued in a number of races. The Guardian described the result as one of the biggest Republican electoral collapses in decades. State Navigate executive director Chaz Nuttycombe said Democrats had gained 258 seats, created six new governing trifectas, claimed 11 chambers from Republicans and broken Republican supermajorities in 10 states.
States Project executive director Mandara Meyers, whose organization supported Democratic candidates for state legislative office, said, “This was the most significant night for state legislative power since the seismic Republican wave in 2010.” Meyers called the outcome the inverse of the pivotal election 16 years earlier, when Republicans took over a host of states, redrew congressional and state legislative maps and enacted conservative laws that, according to her, remain in effect. She added: “Democrats now have more power in the states than at any other point in the 21st century. So we are really looking at a fundamentally new legislative playing field.”
The scale differed by state. The reported results put Democrats in line for full control of Arizona government for the first time in 60 years and in Pennsylvania for the first time since the 1990s. In Wisconsin, Democrats had not won full control since their 2010 wipeout. Democrats regained governing trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota after losing them following the 2024 election, and they were set to control the Texas state House for the first time since 2002.
With some races still uncounted, Nuttycombe predicted that about 76% of the country’s population would live under a Democratic governor and about half would be represented by a Democratic lawmaker in their legislature. The party won the governor’s races in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas, with Gina Hinojosa defeating Greg Abbott in Texas, putting Democrats on course for control of a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, the leaders of the Democratic Governors Association, said in a statement: “More Democratic governors mean better lives for the millions of Americans who live in our states.”
State legislatures have gained outsized importance as repeated U.S. Congresses have been mired in partisan gridlock that left both parties’ priorities unaddressed. In The Guardian’s account of the two parties’ records, Republican-led states had moved to outlaw abortion, expand self-defense rights and pursue right-wing cultural causes such as outlawing sharia law. Democratic-led states had raised minimum wages, preserved abortion access, fought the climate crisis and regulated immigration enforcement.
With new majorities in several states, Democrats were expected to work through lengthy lists of priorities and promises made to voters. Nuttycombe, referring to states where Democrats had won or were on course to win governing trifectas, said: “It’s a big backlog for Arizona, big backlog for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” The longer agendas came in states where Democrats had been locked out of power for years or decades.
The state result followed Democratic gains in Congress, where Democrats were on course for at least 54 Senate seats and 237 House seats, the largest margins for either party in years. Nuttycombe estimated that “probably about 80%, 85%” of what carried the wave was the economy and people’s dissatisfaction with the president. The Guardian said Donald Trump’s unpopularity was a major factor, noting that most Republican lawmakers continued to support him even as polls indicated voters did not back his immigration crackdown, tariffs, war with Iran or signature domestic policy bill. Nuttycombe said the remainder reflected “attitudes toward state government and incumbency in general” and “large anti-incumbent resentment, mostly toward incumbent Republicans.”
Congressional redistricting is also on the agenda for incoming state governments. Last year, Trump encouraged Texas’s Republican state government to approve new maps expected to cost Democrats U.S. House seats. That prompted a tit-for-tat response from Democratic-led states, which the report said did not appear to have gained Republicans much. Some Democrats retired after their seats were redrawn, but none who sought reelection lost to Republicans.
Greta Neubauer, who was set to lead Wisconsin’s state assembly after Democrats won a 53-seat majority, said on a call with reporters on Wednesday: “We are going to consider congressional redistricting.” She said Wisconsin’s current maps favor Republicans significantly and that other states would consider redistricting efforts to entrench Republican power. Neubauer said the incoming majority would also consider measures to expand Medicaid or other public health care options, as well as access to free school meals; Republican legislative leaders opposed both policies. She tied the proposal to what she called a “big list” of priorities after Republicans put the party firmly in the minority in 2010, a period the report described as making Wisconsin a laboratory for conservative policies despite the state’s tradition as a purple state.
In North Carolina, Democrats won a majority in the state House and narrowed the gap in the Republican-controlled state Senate, though counting continued in tight races. Republicans had taken full control in 2010, ending more than a century of nearly uninterrupted Democratic dominance. Republican lawmakers no longer have the supermajorities they used to override the will of recent Democratic governors, though they retain an important check on power.
Tiffany Reynolds-Richardson, executive director of Lillian’s List, said the result represented a paradigm shift in North Carolina, a state with some of the country’s most bitterly partisan state politics. Lillian’s List endorsed seven female candidates who helped Democrats take the state House. Reynolds-Richardson said: “Republicans are gonna have to play ball now, right?” She added: “To get what they want or what they need, they’re gonna have to play with Democrats now.”
Some races remained uncounted, so the exact size of the Democratic gains was subject to further counting. The reported changes nevertheless put Democrats in line for control of more state chambers and a majority of governorships, with incoming majorities identifying priorities that ranged from public health and school meals to congressional maps. Those state decisions could carry national implications for abortion, wages, climate policy and immigration enforcement.