ICYMI: Top stories of the week


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An update on 2022 state legislative leadership elections

As of Thursday, we’ve identified the results of 153 legislative leadership elections:

  • 81 leaders were re-elected in 30 states. Oregon, Iowa, and Idaho have had the most leaders re-elected, with five apiece. Oregon is a Democratic trifecta, while Iowa and Idaho are Republican trifectas. 
  • 72 new legislative leaders were elected. 

We track a total of 329 legislative leadership positions across the U.S. and the territories. Click the link below to learn more.


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Vote for your favorite holiday cookie!

‘Tis the season for holiday cookies, and there’s still time to vote in the primary election for Official Holiday Cookie! Primary voters will pick their top candidate from the full field of eight cookies, and the three candidates with the most votes will move forward to compete in the general election. 

Polls in the primary election close Dec. 16 at 5pm ET. The general election will take place next week, with a final winner announced Dec. 22. Sign up for the Daily Brew to follow this important election!

Vote now!

11 state legislative special elections have been scheduled for 2023

Eleven state legislative special elections have been scheduled for 2023 in seven states. Democrats last represented six of the seats up for election, and Republicans last represented five. Three are senate seats, and eight are in state houses.

The only special elections with the potential to change partisan control of the chamber are taking place in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where Democrats won 102 districts to Republicans’ 101 in the November elections.

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Texas held local runoff elections on Dec. 13

Two cities in Texas held some of the country’s last elections of 2022 this week. 

Austin held a runoff election for mayor, in which Kirk Watson defeated Celia Israel 50.4% to 49.6%. Both Israel and Watson have served in the state legislature as Democrats. Three city council seats were also on the ballot. In Corpus Christi, runoffs were also held for three city council seats. These runoff elections took place because no candidate received a majority of votes in the general elections that were held on Nov. 8.

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Welcome to the 15 Days of Ballotpedia

Each day, we have been showcasing the different ways Ballotpedia works towards our mission of building a well-informed and engaged citizenry that has a voice in government and can sustain a healthy nation/country.

However, as a 501(c)3, our work is not free to produce and we invite you to join us in providing all voters the information they need in 2023 and beyond.  We have an ambitious goal – to raise $100,000 this month!  Please join thousands of other Ballotpedia readers in helping us achieve this goal

Over the past week, we have explored a variety of ways Ballotpedia helps keep voters informed, ranging from our unbiased explanations of ballot measures to one of the most helpful tools for voters making decisions on the ballot, our Candidate Connection survey! 

We hope this display of our work will inspire you to support us before the year’s end so that we can continue to produce this information for all who seek it.

Click here to make your tax deductible contribution and be sure to check out our Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages to see the daily features!

Donate today!