Welcome to the Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, Brew.
By: Lara Bonatesta
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Total partisan composition of state legislatures changed by less than one percentage point in 2024
- Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoes election bill in Arizona, here’s where else lawmakers are considering election administration changes
- Join the Ballotpedia Society today to help us keep voters informed in 2025 and beyond!
Total partisan composition of state legislatures changed by less than one percentage point in 2024
As lawmakers around the country meet in the 2025 legislative sessions, we’re continuing our analysis of the elections that brought them there.
In our Jan. 27 and Jan. 31 editions of The Brew, we looked at the 94% of incumbent state legislators who won re-election in 2024 and the margins of victory across all 5,807 state legislative elections. We also examined these elections earlier this month in our Feb. 6 episode of On The Ballot. Today, we’re looking at the seats that changed party hands.
In the Nov. 5 elections:
- Republicans gained 55 state legislative seats
- Democrats lost 54 seats
- Independents and minor party officeholders lost one seat
That means the overall partisan composition across all 50 state legislatures changed by 0.7% in favor of Republicans. In 2022, the partisan composition changed 0.4% toward Republicans, with Democrats losing four seats, Republicans gaining 27 seats, and Independents and minor party officeholders losing 20 seats.
Here are the states in which each party had its largest gains in 2024:
Across all 44 states that held legislative elections, Democrats gained seats in 13 states and lost seats in 21. Republicans gained seats in 20 states and lost seats in 14. Independents and minor party officeholders gained seats in two states and lost seats in one state.
There were 18 states where one party gained seats in both state legislative chambers—six for Democrats and 12 for Republicans. The map below shows those states by party.
Seat changes weren’t the only things that we followed in these races. Here are some notable changes to veto-proof majority status:
- In Montana, Republicans maintained their majority in both legislative chambers but lost their veto-proof supermajority. That means Montana Republicans can no longer override gubernatorial vetoes without the votes of at least some Democratic legislators.
- In Connecticut, Democrats gained a supermajority in the state House, where they won four seats, and maintained a supermajority in the Senate, where they won one seat.
- In 2024, Vermont Democrats maintained majorities in both chambers but lost their veto-proof supermajority. Republicans’ largest gains came in Vermont, where they added 24 seats or 13.3% of the Legislature to the 45 they had going into the election. In the 2022 elections, Democrats gained 17 seats (9.4%), their most from any state that year.
Veto-proof supermajority status changed in seven states. Democrats lost supermajorities in New York and Vermont and gained one in Connecticut. Republicans lost supermajorities in Montana and North Carolina and gained them in Iowa and South Carolina.
Changes to trifecta status
Democrats lost trifectas in two states, Minnesota and Michigan, after the 2024 elections. Republicans neither gained nor lost trifectas.
- In Michigan, Republicans won four seats in the state House, gaining a majority in the chamber and breaking the state’s Democratic trifecta.
- In Minnesota, Republicans gained three seats in the state House, gaining at least a tie in the chamber and breaking the Democratic trifecta.
Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoes election bill in Arizona; here’s where else lawmakers are considering election administration changes
A version of this story appeared in our Feb. 21. Ballot Bulletin, our weekly email that delivers the latest updates on election policy. Click here to sign up.
With state legislative sessions nearly in full force, we are following 3,001 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year. At this point in 2023, we were following 1,596 bills.
Here’s some notable election legislation news from last week:
- In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed HB 2703, which would have moved up the deadline to return early ballots to 7 p.m. on the Friday before Election Day and allowed county officials to count early ballots at any time during the early voting period. Currently, voters can drop off early ballots in person until polls close on Election Day. Click here to read the veto letter. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2024, 2023, or 2022. Governors vetoed 43 bills in 2024, 54 in 2023, and 17 in 2022. To see all vetoed bills, click here.
- On Feb. 19, a Georgia House committee advanced HB215, which would prohibit the secretary of state from participating in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Georgia is currently one of 24 states that are participating members of ERIC.
- On Feb. 18, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed SB102, a bill regulating canvassers for local ballot measures. The bill requires ballot measure sponsors to conduct criminal background checks, submit lists of canvassers to county clerks, prohibits paying canvassers based on the number of signatures they obtain, and creates penalties for violating these requirements.
- On Feb. 14, the Kansas House approved HB2106, a bill prohibiting foreign nationals from contributing to ballot measure campaigns. The House passed the bill 94-25, and it now heads to the state Senate.
Here are some other key numbers:
- Lawmakers in 38 states acted on 349 bills last week, 152 fewer than the previous week. Legislators acted on 258 bills during the same week in 2024, 294 in 2023, and 342 in 2022.
- In addition to the bill in Arkansas, two other bills were enacted last week: SB12 and SB17 in South Dakota. No bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, none in 2023, and one in 2022. Click here to see all enacted bills.
Thirteen other bills passed both chambers of their respective state legislatures. To see all bills awaiting gubernatorial action and their full summaries, click here.
Click here to see the 2025 bills we’re following, and click here to see a list of 2025 state legislative session dates.
Note: In some states, legislators are able to file hundreds of bills per day. We are actively reviewing those bills to determine their relevance to election administration. As a result, during this period of heightened legislative activity, year-to-year comparisons may not yet account for all relevant bills introduced in 2025.
Join the Ballotpedia Society today to help us keep voters informed in 2025 and beyond!
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