Year: 2026
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What to know about states that don't use primary elections to nominate candidates
Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas have their statewide primaries on March 3, kicking off the 2026 primary season. Generally, political parties use primary elections to determine their nominees in advance of a general election. In some cases, however, political parties can — or must — nominate candidates for the general election without conducting a primary.…
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How Often Do Both State Legislative Chambers Flip at Once? Rarely. Only 20 times since 1992.
Since 1992, 160 changes in state legislative chamber partisan control occurred across the country. That includes 20 times both of a state’s legislative chambers changed partisan control in the same year (14%) and 120 times a single chamber changed partisan control (86%). While chambers may have periodic split control, especially chambers with an even number…
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Campaign behind the initiative to require a two-thirds supermajority vote to enact local special taxes in California submits signatures after a prior proposal was blocked by state court in 2024
Protect Prop. 13, the campaign behind the initiative to require a two-thirds supermajority vote to enact citizen-initiated local special taxes in California, reported submitting over 1.3 million signatures to local county officials for verification on Feb. 25. The measure is an initiated constitutional amendment that would increase the vote threshold from a simple majority to…
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Indiana becomes the 18th state to ban ranked-choice voting
On Feb. 24, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun (R) signed legislation prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting in the state, making Indiana the 18th state to ban RCV nationwide. Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is a system where voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. In the RCV system most commonly used in the United States, a…
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State legislative special elections show shift toward Democrats compared to previous regular elections
In the state legislative special elections that have happened since January 2025, there was an average shift of 5.6 percentage points towards Democrats. Additionally, Democrats retained 10 percentage points more of their voter turnout from the previous regular election than Republicans. We found these figures by comparing candidates' special election performance to their performance in…
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Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #193
Welcome to Hall Pass, a newsletter written to keep you plugged into the conversations driving school board governance, the politics surrounding it, and education policy. In today’s edition, you’ll find: Reply to this email to share reactions or story ideas! On the issues: The debate over whether America's public schools need more money — or…