Democrats’ major victories at the state level could lead to major changes on school choice, labor laws, abortion, healthcare and other key policy agendas.
Democrats flipped at least 549 state legislative seats, 12 state legislatures and broke Republican supermajorities in 13 chambers in the largest flip in state power since the Tea Party wave during the 2010 midterm elections, when former President Barack Obama held office. Democrats will use their new majorities to attempt making policy changes on data centers, Obamacare coverage and election integrity, among others.
Before the election, Republicans controlled the executive and the legislature trifecta in 21 states and Democrats held the same control in 14 states. After Election Day, Democrats are set to hold state trifectas in 20 states, while Republicans will hold the trifecta in 16 states. Nine states are divided, according to Ballotpedia.
“There’s probably going to be a major effort legislatively by the new progressive majorities to overturn some of the big conservative victories, whether it’s school choice or on labor issues or on taxes … In Georgia, where Democrats had a very good evening on the governor’s race and all the statewide races, there’s going to be a big debate around whether Georgia expands Obamacare and Medicaid,” Williams told the DCNF. “You’re going to have, I think, a real robust debate in that state being newly divided politically.”
Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin have new Democratic trifectas, and they broke Republican trifectas in Georgia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Ohio and Texas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Medicaid and Affordable Care Act expansion was a central issue in the Georgia gubernatorial race, where Democratic Georgia Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated former Republican Georgia gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson. Democrats took control of the Georgia state House for the first time in over 20 years, holding 91 House seats. Republicans kept control of the state Senate.
Georgia is roughly one of ten states that never fully adopted the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and instead runs Georgia Pathways, which is set to expire in 2026. About 12% of the state’s population is uninsured, making Georgia one of the highest uninsured states in the country. Bottoms argued that full expansion would benefit rural hospitals and healthcare systems strained by uninsured patents relying on emergency rooms.
Bottoms and the Georgia state House could face hurdles with trying to pass the expansion in the state Senate, who will still hold a majority in January. The Georgia Republican Party’s post-election playbook states they will “negotiate any wider coverage on Georgia terms: work requirements and private plans.”
Some state Senate Republicans did not reject the idea of expanding coverage in interviews with The Georgia Recorder, a local outlet.
Democrats in the Texas state Legislature unveiled their plan to expand Medicaid under Obamacare in 2027. Their plan would direct the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to submit a federal plan to expand Medicaid. Texas is the most populous state to not allow Medicaid expansion.
Democrats acknowledged this would face pushback in the Texas state Senate, where Republicans will keep control.
Democrats took control of the Texas state House for the first time since 2003. Democratic Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa defeated Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, making her the first Democrat to win a Texas gubernatorial race since former President George W. Bush became governor in 1994.
Democratic Texas state Rep. Donna Howard filed an omnibus bill Monday to repeal the state’s abortion ban and other related statues, according to KRGV 5 News, a local ABC News affiliate. Abortion is banned at all stages of pregnancy under state law with exception to save the mother’s life.
Abortion laws are likely to change in Iowa and North Carolina, where abortion is restricted at six and 12 weeks.
Hinojosa campaigned on establishing an immediate moratorium on new data centers and tied Abbott to the tech industry throughout her campaign. Abbott pledged to make Texas the “epicenter” of artificial intelligence development, but ordered state agencies to halt permits for new construction, which Hinojosa alleged was a political move.
Abbott raked in $26 million in a 30-day reporting period that ended Oct. 24, with at least $6 million coming from Space X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other donors associated with tech and data centers, according to Politico.
Democrats and Republicans in the Texas state Legislature filed a handful of bills to repeal the sales and use tax exemption for data centers, according to KRGV 5. Many state legislators expressed support for a handful of restrictions on data centers, which Hinojosa is likely to sign into law if they reached her desk.
Newly elected Pennsylvania Democrats campaigned on their opposition to data centers. In the next legislative session, Democrats said they want to address electric grid costs, codify data center regulations and study environmental impacts. Many bills that did not pass in the current Legislature could be reintroduced, including one that would propose a three-year statewide moratorium.
Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order on Aug. 18 to establish stricter guardrails on data centers.
Progressive Democrats in Arizona, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin aggressively pushed back against data centers.
New progressive majorities in the state governments will likely try to tackle policies considered major conservative victories, such as school choice and right to work laws, Williams said.
Hinojosa expressed opposition to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, the state’s $1 billion private school voucher system, and has promised to redirect state education dollars back into public schools. She announced plans to fire Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath on her first day in office and replace him with an educator to pivot state policy toward public schools.
The Republican-held state Senate in Texas is unlikely to support these efforts.
Democratic Iowa Gov.-elect Rob Sand expressed similar concerns on private school choice programs, expressing concerns about the policies disproportionately benefitting the wealthy. Iowa’s state Legislature will still be held by a Republican majority.
Williams said Democratic trifectas will likely attempt to reverse or weaken right-to-work laws and expand union organizing rights. He pointed to Democratic Wisconsin Gov.-elect David Crowley, who pledged to repeal Wisconsin’s right-to-work laws and overturn Act 10, a 2011 law that restricted collective bargaining for most public employees.
Democrats may work to redraw the lines in states where they took control of the trifectas, including Wisconsin, where Crowley said he would sign a bill redrawing the map if it reached his desk. He argued that will not become a central issue in a state like Arizona, which has a nonpartisan commission to draw its maps.
Arizona Democrats would like to repeal Republican-led voter access laws. Many would like to restore the state’s Permanent Early Voting List, which automatically sent a mail-in ballot to voters who opted in, according to the Arizona Mirror, a local outlet. Former Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law in 2021 requiring voters to be removed from the list if they did not cast a mail-in ballot for two consecutive cycles.
Texas Democrats could take up bills to allow online voter registration, mail-in voting and to require polling places on college campuses.
Despite the major gains for Democrats, many voters enshrined policies that took the states in a conservative direction even after voting for Democrats, Williams told the DCNF. Voters sided with conservatives in many ballot referendums, including a California initiative that would have instituted a 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires to raise tens of billions in revenue to address education services, health, nutrition and other services.
Voters passed a constitutional amendment to increase the homestead tax exemption for non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. It would give new Florida residents a smaller initial exemption until they have lived in the state for five years and restrict counties and municipalities to spending property tax revenue on public safety, education, natural resource projects and infrastructure.
Idaho voters rejected a measure that would have legalized abortion up to fetal viability. They approved an initiative to constitutionally designate English as the state’s official language.
“I predict in many of these new majority states for the Democrats, they’ll move very quickly in order to pursue their agenda, and you’re going to see some major battles emerge in the opening days of 2027 in many of these state capitals,” Williams continued.
Voters soured on Republicans at the national and state level over their handling of the affordability crisis, prompting major victories in state trifectas. Williams was skeptical that new Democratic-led legislatures will address affordability, which he said could have negative implications for them in 2028.
“I think voters are in for a real unfortunate set of circumstances here as affordability won’t be tackled,” Williams told the DCNF. “You look at Virginia under Abigail Spanberger, who ran on the exact same affordability platform a year ago against Winsome Sears, and one of the things that Governor Spanberger now has pursued in their first session were tax increases, the regional greenhouse gas initiative to make electricity more expensive and to basically take our electricity standards and tie them to California standards. And so, if the playbook is California and the playbook is the affordability campaign from a year ago in Virginia, I’m not very optimistic that affordability is going to be tackled by these new progressive majorities.”
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