It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like D.C.
In 2024 there will be uniform partisan control of governorships and both U.S. Senate seats in 36 states – up from 28 states just seven years ago
When Louisiana governor-elect Jeff Landry (pictured) is sworn into office in January, the Pelican State will join 18 others where the Republican Party holds the state’s highest elected office as well as both U.S. Senate seats.
Adding in the 17 states where Democrats return the favor, there will now be 36 states where the same party controls each of these three seats across the country, or 72 percent.
Prior to the 2016 election, just over half the states – 28 – fit into this category. Following the 2018 and 2020 elections there were 34 states.
As politics seemingly becomes more and more nationalized, some politicians have skillfully carved out a place in the political landscape in states dominated up and down the ballot by the opposing party – most recently Governor Andy Beshear winning reelection for the Democrats last Tuesday in Kentucky.
Kentucky is one of just three states with a Democratic governor and two GOP U.S. Senators along with Kansas and North Carolina.
Meanwhile, there are four states with a Republican governor and a pair of Democratic U.S. Senators: Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
Four other states have Republican governors and a split U.S. Senate delegation (Montana, Ohio, Vermont, and West Virginia) with three states electing Democratic governors and a split U.S. Senate delegation (Maine, Wisconsin, and Arizona, after Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party in 2022).
In addition to Louisiana, the other Republican states controlling these three seats are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
For the Democrats: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Follow Smart Politics on X/Twitter.
“…Arizona, after Kyrsten…” Applying the rather *stringent* definition of party membership, CT had a ‘split’ delegation from 2011 to early 2013 (in addition to 2007 to early 2011, with a R governor), as well as AK, from 2011 to early 2017 (the state indeed was not represented in the senate by any *official* Republican from 2011 to early 2015). As well, should the roguish senator – who had been a Green prior to being a Democrat – decide to resign, her seat shall be filled by a DEMOCRAT, per the ‘same elected party successor’ appointment provision of the state election law.
The noteworthy thing about the current and forthcoming ‘one party control’ is that the list of states arguably would not be greatly altered even if it were to include *other partisan elective posts*; it certainly seems to be the case just adding the State AG (existing in every single state and directly elected in nearly all of them) to the Three.