Final 2020 State Legislature, Secretary of State and Attorney General Handicapping
October 28, 2020 | Louis Jacobson
It’s been a long election cycle, but it’s finally time to put our credibility on the line: Here are our final handicapping calls for state legislatures, state attorney general races, and secretary of state races in 2020.
We’re not making any changes to our secretary of state handicapping, but we’re making a few shifts to the ratings for legislative chambers and one further change in a state AG race.
STATE LEGISLATURES
Our most significant change for a legislative chamber is in Wisconsin. For this entire cycle, we’ve felt that the legislative map drawn by the Republicans in 2010 was favorable enough to the GOP to survive even a high Democratic tide like the one that could occur in 2020. That’s why we’ve kept the chambers at Likely Republican all cycle, even as other presidential swing-state chambers with GOP-drawn maps – including Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas – have shifted into more competitive categories.
In recent days, however, we detect increasing ferment in Wisconsin as President Donald Trump’s numbers fall, especially in the suburbs. While the GOP remains well-positioned to keep its edge in both chambers, it’s no longer unimaginable that the Assembly could flip to the Democrats this year. And even if it doesn’t flip, the GOP margins in both chambers could well diminish. Democrats have raised so much money that they are launching TV ads against Speaker Robin Vos and have modestly increased their number of targeted GOP seats late in the game. For this reason, we’re moving the Assembly to Lean Republican, while keeping the Senate at Likely Republican.
The only other chambers we’re moving now are in the Pacific Northwest, and they’re all shifting from Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic. We’re shifting the two chambers in Oregon, as well as the Washington state Senate, to Solid Democratic. (The Washington House was already at Solid Democratic.) In a presidential year in two very blue states, these Democratic majorities all look secure.
Nationally, the GOP currently controls 58 legislative chambers while the Democrats control 40 chambers. Nebraska's unicameral legislature, which is nonpartisan, isn't included in our count. (For this tally, we counted the Alaska House's coalition leadership as a Democratic-held chamber, even though Republicans nominally control more seats.)
With the addition of the Wisconsin Assembly to a more competitive category, we now rate 20 chambers as competitive. (The Toss Up, Lean Republican, and Lean Democratic categories are considered competitive.) That means that more than one-fifth of the nation’s chambers are competitive right now, which is a bit more than the 17 we saw as competitive in our final handicapping prior to the 2018 election.
Ominously for Republicans, the GOP holds 15 of the 20 vulnerable chambers on our list. This suggests that the Democrats are well-positioned to net up to a half-dozen new chambers this fall, and more if it’s a genuine blue wave.
Among the chambers we rate as Toss Ups, the Republicans hold all six: the Arizona Senate, the Iowa House, the Michigan House, the Minnesota Senate, the North Carolina Senate, and the Pennsylvania House.
Here’s the breakdown for every legislature. Thumbnail descriptions of every state are available in our previous handicapping, published Oct. 21.
STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL RACES
We are making one change to our state AG handicapping: Indiana shifts from Toss Up to Lean Republican.
In the Hoosier State, the incumbent AG, Republican Curtis Hill, faced groping allegations by four women and was slapped with a 30-day suspension of his law license. He lost renomination at a state party convention in July to former U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita, who faces former two-term Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel, a rare credible Democrat in Indiana these days. Democrats remain high on Wienzapfel’s chances, but we see the individual candidates as becoming less important than the state’s basic Republican leanings in a presidential year. So we’re shifting the race from Tossup to Lean Republican.
The other key AG races to watch this year are Montana, which we’re keeping at Lean Republican, and North Carolina, which we were tempted to move to Likely Democratic but are instead keeping at Lean Democratic, given the closely divided politics in the state this year.
Today, the GOP holds 26 AG offices to the Democrats' 24. Looking only at elected AG posts, the Republicans also have a narrow edge — 22 Republican offices to the Democrats' 21.
Here is a rundown of the 10 AG races this fall. In the handicapping below, each category's seats are rank-ordered from most likely to go Republican to most likely to go Democratic.
Thumbnail descriptions of every race are available in our previous handicapping, published Sept. 15.
SOLID REPUBLICAN
Utah: Sean Reyes (R)
LIKELY REPUBLICAN
Missouri: Eric Schmitt (R)
West Virginia: Patrick Morrisey (R)
LEAN REPUBLICAN
Indiana: OPEN (Hill) (R) (Shift from Toss Up)
Montana: OPEN (Fox) (R)
TOSS UP
No races
LEAN DEMOCRATIC
North Carolina: Josh Stein (D)
LIKELY DEMOCRATIC
Pennsylvania: Josh Shapiro (D)
SOLID DEMOCRATIC
Oregon: Ellen Rosenblum (D)
Washington: Bob Ferguson (D)
Vermont: T.J. Donovan (D)
SECRETARY OF STATE RACES
This year’s secretary of state races have been strikingly stable: We haven’t changed any ratings since June, and we won’t in this assessment either.
Overall, the GOP holds 26 Secretary of State offices today, to 21 for the Democrats. Three states have no Secretary of State: Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah.
The lineup of competitive seats in 2020 continues to give Democrats a shot at whittling down the GOP edge, but not enough to flip to majority Democratic control.
The most competitive contests are for Republican-held seats in Montana and Washington state, both of which rate as Lean Republican. One Republican-held open seat, in Oregon, should go Democratic; we rate it Likely Democratic.
In the handicapping below, as with the AG rankings, the seats within each category are rank-ordered from most likely to go Republican to most likely to go Democratic.
Thumbnail descriptions of every race are available in our previous handicapping, published Oct. 5.
SOLID REPUBLICAN
Missouri: Jay Ashcroft (R)
LIKELY REPUBLICAN
West Virginia: Mac Warner (R)
LEAN REPUBLICAN
Montana: Open seat (Republican Corey Stapleton lost a primary for the U.S. House)
Washington: Kim Wyman (R)
TOSS UP
No races
LEAN DEMOCRATIC
No races
LIKELY DEMOCRATIC
North Carolina: Elaine Marshall (D)
Oregon: Open seat (Republican Bev Clarno is not running)
SOLID DEMOCRATIC
Vermont: Jim Condos (D)
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