Arizona

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Senate Control Hinges on Neck-and-Neck Races, Times/Siena Poll Finds

      by

      The contests are close in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Many voters want Republicans to flip the Senate, but prefer the Democrat in their state.Control of the Senate rests on a knife’s edge, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena College, with Republican challengers in Nevada and Georgia neck-and-neck with Democratic incumbents, and the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania clinging to what appears to be a tenuous advantage.The bright spot for Democrats in the four key states polled was in Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly is holding a small but steady lead over his Republican challenger, Blake Masters.The results indicate a deeply volatile and unpredictable Senate contest: More people across three of the states surveyed said they wanted Republicans to gain control of the Senate, but they preferred the individual Democratic candidates in their states — a sign that Republicans may be hampered by the shortcomings of their nominees.Midterm elections are typically referendums on the party in power, and Democrats must defy decades of that political history to win control of the Senate, an outcome that has not completely slipped out of the party’s grasp according to the findings of the Times/Siena surveys. Democrats control the 50-50 Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking vote. To gain the majority, Republicans need to gain just one seat.Senate Races in Four StatesIf this November’s election for U.S. Senate were held today, which candidate would you be more likely to vote for? More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      It’s 2024. Trump Backers Won’t Certify the Election. What Next, Legally?

      by

      The question is most urgent in Arizona, where two of the former president’s loyalists may well become governor and secretary of state.It’s a nightmare scenario for American democracy: The officials in charge of certifying an election refuse to do so, setting off a blizzard of litigation and possibly a constitutional crisis.And there are worrying signs that the fears of independent scholars, Democrats and a few anti-Trump Republicans could become a reality. We could soon be in legal terra incognita, they said — like the days when medieval cartographers would write “Here Be Dragons” along the unexplored edges of world maps.“It would be completely unprecedented,” said Nathaniel Persily, an elections expert at Stanford University. “I hate to be apocalyptic,” he added, but the United States could be headed for the kind of electoral chaos that “our system is incapable of handling.”In Arizona, Kari Lake, a charismatic former television anchor, and Mark Finchem, a state lawmaker, have a very good chance of becoming governor and secretary of state. Both are ardent supporters of Donald Trump and his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.On Friday, a group sponsored by Representative Liz Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the House committee investigating the Capitol assault, put $500,000 behind a television and digital ad that underscores the alarm some anti-Trump Republicans share about Lake and Finchem.“If you care about the survival of our republic, we cannot give people power who will not honor elections,” Cheney says in the ad. “We must have elected officials who honor that responsibility.”Another reason for the worries about Arizona in particular: Unlike in other states where Trump has promoted election-denying candidates, several of the politicians who pushed back on his calls to overturn the 2020 results will be gone.Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who resisted Trump’s efforts in 2020, is leaving office after his term is up, as is Attorney General Mark Brnovich, an ally in that opposition. Rusty Bowers, who as the Republican speaker of the State House stood with Ducey and Brnovich, lost his primary this year for a State Senate seat. And even Brnovich, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate against another election denier, Blake Masters, has shifted his tone about the 2020 election.“Ducey was a little bit of a moderating factor,” said Marc Elias, the Democratic Party’s leading election lawyer. But Ducey was also “willing to tolerate a lot of crazy,” Elias added.The governor is backing Lake, as is the Republican Governors Association, actions that Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist whose group is spending at least $3 million in Arizona opposing Lake and Finchem, called “despicable.” Longwell said that Lake was especially dangerous because of her ability to “talk normal to the normies and crazy to the crazies.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.What could happen if Lake and Finchem win?The most worrisome scenario, several nonpartisan experts said, is that Finchem and Lake might refuse to fulfill the traditionally ceremonial act of “canvassing” the results of a presidential election under Arizona law, or that the governor could refuse to sign the required “certificate of ascertainment” that is then sent to Washington.Elias’s firm, which has grown to nearly 80 lawyers, would then have to decide whether to sue in state or federal court, or perhaps both, depending on which path was more relevant. But he acknowledged some uncertainty about how that litigation might play out.One new factor in 2024 may be an overhauled Electoral Count Act, which is expected to pass Congress after the midterms. It would create a new panel of three federal judges who would rule on election-related lawsuits, with appeals going directly to the Supreme Court. Proponents say the new panel would allow disputes to be adjudicated more quickly.“It’s not actually all that easy to anoint the loser of an election the winner,” cautioned David Becker, the director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group.“The one exception to that is the presidential election,” Becker said, in which there’s an opportunity for a “corrupt individual” to send a slate of electors to Washington that does not reflect the will of voters. If the national Electoral College results were close, a protracted dispute in Arizona could hamper Congress from rapidly determining the overall winner.But Becker said he was more worried about the prospect for political violence fueled by uncertainty than he was about the integrity of the legal system.Neither Lake nor Finchem responded to questions. Finchem has said he would certify the next election “as long as all lawful votes are counted and all votes cast are under the law,” while failing to specify what he means by “lawful.” Finchem has also said that he couldn’t imagine President Biden winning.Employees sorting newly printed mail-in ballots in Phoenix. Republicans in several states have increasingly opposed mail voting and called for a return to hand-counting ballots.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThe power of a secretary of stateSecretaries of state also have enormous power over elections, though it’s county officials that actually run them.To take just one recent example: Finchem and Lake both support a return to hand-counting ballots, which election experts say would introduce more errors and uncertainty into the process.One rural Arizona county controlled by Republicans, Cochise County, initially planned to count every vote in the midterms by hand — only to back down when Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state who is running for governor against Lake, threatened to sue.In neighboring Nevada, another G.O.P.-controlled county’s plan to count ballots by hand is on hold after the State Supreme Court ruled the process illegal. The Republican secretary of state, Barbara Cegavske, then ordered the hand-counting process to “cease immediately.” Her possible successor, the Trump-backed Jim Marchant, might have acted differently.One of the Arizona secretary of state’s chief tasks is assembling the elections procedures manual that, once approved by the governor and the attorney general, is distributed to county and local officials. Brnovich refused to accept the 2021 manual proposed by Hobbs, so the state has been using the 2019 edition.The manual is limited to the confines of Arizona election law. But Finchem could tinker with the rules regarding the approval of voter registration, or ballot drop boxes, in ways that subtly favor Republicans, said Jim Barton, an election lawyer in Arizona. He could also adjust the certification procedure for presidential elections.“You can imagine a lot of mischief with all the nitty-gritty stuff that nobody pays attention to,” said Richard Hasen, an elections expert at the University of California, Los Angeles.Looming over all this is a Supreme Court case on elections that is heading to oral arguments this fall.The justices are expected to rule on a previously obscure legal theory called the independent state legislature doctrine. Conservatives argue that the Constitution granted state legislatures, rather than secretaries of state or courts, the full authority to determine how federal elections are carried out; liberals and many legal scholars say that’s nonsense.If the court adopts the most aggressive version of the legal theory, Persily noted, it could raise questions about the constitutionality of the Electoral Count Act, adding a new wrinkle of uncertainty.“My hair is on fire” to an even greater degree than it was in 2020, said Hasen, who published a prescient book that year called “Election Meltdown.”What to readNancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was hospitalized after he was assaulted by someone who broke into the couple’s residence in San Francisco looking for the House speaker. Follow live updates.Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin spends a staggering amount of time on talk radio. And, Reid Epstein writes, it’s paying off in his vital race this year.In Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz is struggling in his efforts to win over Black voters, Trip Gabriel reports.In the 24 hours before Elon Musk closed his deal for Twitter, some far-right accounts on Twitter have had a surge in new followers, researchers say.viewfinderThe Philly Cuts barbershop in Philadelphia.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesA barbershop campaign stopPhilly Cuts is more than a barbershop. It is a community gathering place for exchanging gossip, catching up on the news — and, sometimes, hosting campaign events.Last Saturday, the Democratic nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, stopped in. Before he got there, I saw the barber Damor Cannon, 46, turn to put the finishing touches on the beard of his customer, Michael Woodward.The word “VOTE” was printed on the back of his T-shirt, and the phrase “Philly Cuts for Shapiro” was on the cape draped around Woodward. On either side of the mirror were framed photos of civil rights leaders. The mirror created a third image, reflecting the present alongside the past.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Liz Cheney’s PAC to Run Ad Against Lake and Finchem, Both Republicans, in Arizona

      by

      A leadership PAC sponsored by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, announced on Friday a $500,000 media buy in Arizona, where it will air a television spot urging voters to reject Kari Lake, the Republican running for governor, and Mark Finchem, the party’s nominee for secretary of state.“I don’t know that I’ve ever voted for a Democrat, but if I lived in Arizona, I absolutely would,” Ms. Cheney says in the ad. “If you care about the survival of our republic, you cannot give people power who will not honor elections.”Ms. Lake and Mr. Finchem have both run campaigns amplifying former President Donald J. Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.Ms. Cheney, vice chair of the panel investigating Mr. Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, lost her August primary in a landslide to Harriet Hageman, a Trump-backed challenger. While her future political plans remain vague, for now, she has said she plans to focus her efforts on blocking Mr. Trump from returning to power.Ms. Cheney has previously singled out Ms. Lake as an election denier whom she planned to campaign against. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Kari Lake is not elected,” Ms. Cheney said at the Texas Tribune Festival last month.The move is in line with Ms. Cheney’s efforts to keep election deniers out of office.She also endorsed Representative Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, in a competitive race against Tom Barrett, a Republican state senator and 2020 election denier who has refused to say whether he would respect the results of the 2022 midterm elections.Ms. Cheney, who is arguably the most vocal critic of Mr. Trump in the Republican Party, has fielded dozens of endorsement requests from Democratic candidates, but the nod to Ms. Slotkin is her first of the midterm cycle. The race in Michigan’s seventh district is considered a tossup and is one of the Republican Party’s top targets as it seeks to win back the majority in the House.“I’m proud to endorse Elissa Slotkin,” Ms. Cheney, who served with Ms. Slotkin on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Thursday. Ms. Slotkin also served in the Bush administration when Ms. Cheney worked at the State Department.“While Elissa and I have our policy disagreements, at a time when our nation is facing threats at home and abroad, we need serious, responsible, substantive members like Elissa in Congress,” Ms. Cheney said, encouraging Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats, to support her.Ms. Cheney is scheduled to campaign with Ms. Slotkin in Michigan on Nov. 1 at an event billed as an “evening for patriotism and bipartisanship.” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Campaign Office of Arizona Governor Candidate Katie Hobbs Is Burglarized

      by

      As a combative Arizona governor’s race ticked down toward Election Day, the Phoenix police said Wednesday that they were investigating a burglary at the campaign headquarters of the Democratic candidate, Katie Hobbs.Phoenix police officers responded to a burglary call on Tuesday afternoon, said Sgt. Phil Krynsky, a spokesman for the department. Items were taken from the property, he said, but he declined to specify what they were, citing an active investigation.No suspect had been identified as of Wednesday night, and detectives were checking security footage, Sergeant Krynsky said.Ms. Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, and the Republican candidate, Kari Lake, a conservative former TV news anchor, are in the final weeks of a tight contest for Arizona governor.In a statement, the Hobbs campaign referred to the intimidation it said its workers have faced and “dangerous disinformation” it says the Lake campaign has spread.“Secretary Hobbs and her staff have faced hundreds of death threats and threats of violence over the course of this campaign,” said Nicole DeMont, Ms. Hobbs’s campaign manager. “Throughout this race, we have been clear that the safety of our staff and of the secretary is our number one priority.”The two candidates are a study in contrasts: Ms. Hobbs is an understated elected official who runs an office responsible for administering elections and overseeing state archives, while Ms. Lake, a Trump protégé who contests the results of the 2020 presidential election, relishes political combat.Republicans have taunted Ms. Hobbs since she declined to participate in a televised debate against her opponent. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Running an Election in the Heart of Election Denialism

      by

      Asthaa Chaturvedi and Mike Benoist and Dan Powell, Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherThis episode contains strong language. Hundreds of candidates on the ballot in November still deny that President Biden won in 2020 — a level of denialism that is fueling harassment and threats toward election workers. Few have experienced those attacks as viscerally as election workers in Arizona. Today, we speak with the top election official in the state’s largest county. On today’s episodeStephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County in Arizona. Stephen Richer is the top election official in Maricopa Country, Ariz. Many of the voters in the state doubt the legitimacy of the electoral process.Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic, via Associated PressBackground readingElection officials are on alert as voting begins for midterm elections, the biggest test of the American election system since former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 results launched an assault on the democratic process.Over 370 Republican candidates have cast doubt on the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a New York Times investigation.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Sofia Milan, Ben Calhoun and Susan Lee.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Desiree Ibekwe, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello and Nell Gallogly. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Kari Ann Lake’s Hijacking of Martin Luther King

      by

      Meet Kari Lake. She is the election-denying, antisemite-endorsing former television news anchor who is the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona.She is Donald Trump in lipstick. But she delivers her divisiveness in the calm and measured tones of a person reading the news rather than a man who froths at the mic.She parrots Trump’s disgusting generalizations about immigrants, saying last month: “The media might have a field day with this one, but I’m going to just repeat something President Trump said a long time ago, and it got him in a lot of trouble. They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime, and they are rapists, and that’s who’s coming across our border. That’s a fact.”Like Trump, she refuses to commit to accepting the result of the Arizona election — unless she wins. All she would say last week when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether she would accept the outcome was, “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.” Well, of course.In the same way that Trump sought to brand Hillary Clinton a racist — calling her in 2016 “a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future” — Lake is telling CNN that her opponent Katie Hobbs is “a twice-convicted racist.”Convicted? If racism were a crime for which one could be convicted, America wouldn’t have enough prisons to hold the guilty, and Lake’s buddy Trump would be the mascot of the cellblock.Now Lake is joining Trump in invoking the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in self-serving ways. On Martin Luther King Day in 2020, Trump tweeted: “It was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, that I was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also MLK jr DAY. African-American Unemployment is the LOWEST in the history of our Country, by far. Also, best Poverty, Youth, and Employment numbers, ever. Great!” Trump will always find a way to make things about himself.But Lake one-upped Trump in disrespecting King’s legacy, at a campaign event on Tuesday with the failed Democratic presidential hopeful (and now former Democrat) Tulsi Gabbard.Gabbard said during their exchange that she became a Democrat because she was “inspired” by the “party of Dr. Martin Luther King” and John F. Kennedy, “a party that said we respect your individual freedoms and civil liberties and a government of, by and for the people.” But, she added, “unfortunately that party no longer exists today.”Let’s stop here and start to set the record straight. The Democratic Party is not the party of Dr. King. He was devoted to principles and policies, not parties. In fact, he once said: “I don’t think the Republican Party is a party full of the almighty God, nor is the Democratic Party. They both have weaknesses. And I’m not inextricably bound to either.”He was, however, bound to the idea of equality, fairness and truth, things that are anathema to the modern Republican Party. Democrats, on the other hand, are fighting for voting rights, which King championed, even as Republicans rush to suppress voting.Gabbard is obscene in her obtuseness, but what else can you expect from her?After Gabbard’s distortions about the Democratic Party of her youth disappearing, Lake chimed in, saying, “I’m a true believer that if M.L.K., Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., were alive today, if J.F.K. were alive today, if our founding fathers were alive today, they would be America First Republicans.”Let’s set aside for a moment the fact that the founders worried and wrote endlessly about their fear of demagogues like Trump, whom Lake supports and whose lies she propagates.Let’s set aside the fact that Kennedy railed against core Republican policies that remain relatively unchanged, saying in a 1947 speech that the “Republican policies that brought disaster to the country in the late ’20s are good enough for the Republicans of today” and describing their agenda as “stringent labor laws, which strangle labor’s freedom by restraint” and “tax reductions which benefit the prosperous at the expense of the poor, at a time when the buying power in the upper ranges of income is abnormally high, while the buying power in the lower ranges of income is abnormally low.”Let’s instead focus on what has become a standard tactic for Republicans: co-opting King’s legacy, saying that he would have supported people who now stand for exactly what he opposed.It is a brazen act of blaspheming, an attempted theft of moral authority being conducted in broad daylight. And it’s not new. It has been happening for at least a decade, and writers and researchers have long been writing about it. What is striking to me is not that it happened but the consistency and longevity of the fraud.This is not an extemporaneous error but a concerted, coordinated effort to distract and deceive, to claim the antithesis of their political position as their own political avatar.So I say to Lake and all Republicans invoking King while working against his ideals: Keep Dr. King’s name out of your mouths!The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Early voters in Arizona midterms report harassment by poll watchers

      by

      Early voters in Arizona midterms report harassment by poll watchersComplaints detail ballot drop box monitors filming, following and calling voters ‘mules’ in reference to conspiracy film A voter in Maricopa county, Arizona, claims a group of people watching a ballot drop box photographed and followed the voter and their wife after they deposited their ballots at the box, accusing them of being “mules”.Trump’s ‘big lie’ hits cinemas: the film claiming to investigate voter fraudRead moreThe voter filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state, who forwarded it to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general’s office for investigation, according to Sophia Solis, a spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office.The incident allegedly occurred at a Mesa, Arizona, outdoor drop box on the evening of 17 October. Early voting, both in person and via mailed ballots, began on 12 October ahead of the midterm elections.“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot drop box filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the drop box and accusing us of being a mule. They took a photographs [sic] of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film,” the voter wrote in the complaint.In Arizona, voters can only drop off ballots for themselves, people in their households or families, or people they’re providing care for. Other states don’t ban so-called ballot harvesting. The practice became illegal in Arizona in 2016.The incident comes as people in Maricopa and Yavapai counties have started to monitor drop boxes, spurred by the movie 2000 Mules, which makes unsubstantiated claims that “mules” are stuffing ballot boxes with votes. In other states, similar efforts to monitor drop boxes are under way, organized by people who remain convinced the 2020 presidential election was stolen.The Maricopa drop boxes are already under video surveillance by the county and broadcast on a live feed on the county’s website, and the Yavapai drop boxes have cameras mounted on them.Election officials and voter advocacy groups have warned that the practice could lead to voter intimidation. At a press conference in Phoenix on Wednesday, Maricopa county supervisor Bill Gates said people outside the Maricopa county tabulation and election center were approaching and photographing election workers as they went into the site to work.“They’re harassing people. They’re not helping further the interests of democracy. If these people really wanna be involved in the process, learn more about it, come be a poll worker or a poll observer,” Gates said.On Wednesday, a few people with cameras gathered outside a fence around the tabulation center’s parking lot and identified themselves to reporters as part of a group called Clean Elections USA. On its website, the group says it’s looking for “true Patriots to take a stand and watch the drop boxes” by gathering video and witnessing any potential “ballot tampering”.In Yavapai county, groups that planned to organize drop box watches received legal warnings that they could be intimidating voters, halting their plans for coordinated watches, but some people are still watching the boxes from their cars, one of the groups, Lions of Liberty, told local TV station AZFamily.Yavapai county sheriff David Rhodes issued a statement about drop box watching and voter intimidation this week, saying that the number of ballots a person drops off does not indicate a crime or suspicion of a crime. Arizona’s ballot collection law doesn’t specify how many ballots a person can drop off, just the people they can carry ballots for.“It is difficult to know each voter’s circumstance so your behavior towards others attempting to cast ballots must not interfere with that person’s right to vote. Should your actions construe harassment or intimidation you may be breaking Arizona’s voter intimidation laws,” Rhodes wrote.Election officials ask voters to report instances of harassment and intimidation to their local election offices or other authorities, so that those claims can be investigated.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The fight for democracyArizonaUS politicsUS voting rightsPostal votingnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      A Democratic Group Pours $20 Million Into State Legislative Races

      by

      With the battle for state legislatures taking on an elevated importance during this midterm cycle, a Democratic super PAC is investing more than $20 million in state legislative races, with about 70 percent of the funds going to support candidates in 25 districts across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona.The investment is from Forward Majority, the super PAC, as Democrats across the country are pouring significant resources into state legislative races. Last month, the States Project, another Democratic super PAC, pledged to spend $60 million in legislative races in five states. And Tech + Campaigns, another Democratic group, has pledged to spend $8 million on such races.State legislatures have long been dominated by Republicans, who have excelled at motivating their voters to engage beyond federal races. The party made a concerted effort to win state legislatures ahead of the 2010 redistricting cycle and then proceeded to draw gerrymandered legislative maps to help shore up their control. As a result, Republicans have complete control of 29 state legislatures.But with the Supreme Court set to rule in a case that could give state legislatures nearly unchecked authority over federal elections, Democratic groups have been aggressively playing catch-up, reaching parity with Republicans in television ad spending this year.Forward Majority, however, is focusing more of its spending on the detailed aspects of campaigning, like voter registration and a tactic known as “boosted news,” or the practice of paying to promote news articles on social media newsfeeds.The group has been targeting suburban and exurban districts that are split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats with a push to register new Democrats, who may be voters who have moved or who haven’t been engaged in a while, and encourage them to vote on the whole ballot instead of just the top of the ticket.“Even as we see Joe Biden, Mark Kelly, Gretchen Whitmer win at the top of the ticket, we are still losing those races down-ballot,” said Vicky Hausman, a co-founder of Forward Majority. “So we have been obsessed with finding ways to add additional margin and add additional votes in these races.”Republicans have noticed the increased investments of Democrats in state legislative races and have sounded the alarm to donors.“We don’t have the luxury of relying on reinforcements to come save us,” Dee Duncan, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, wrote to donors last month. “We are the calvary.”The path for Democrats in Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania is narrow, but Ms. Hausman pointed to the thin margins in recent state legislative battles as an encouraging sign.“The Virginia House was decided by about 600 votes in 2021,” she said. “The Arizona House came down to about 3,000 votes in two districts in 2020. So it is going to be a dogfight.” More