Wyoming becomes the 10th state to ban foreign nationals from contributing to ballot measure campaigns
On March 6, Gov. Mark Gordon (R) signed House Bill 0337 (HB 337) into law, banning foreign nationals from donating directly or indirectly to ballot measure committees. As a result, Wyoming became the 10th state to enact restrictions on foreign contributions to ballot measure campaigns.
Most Republicans and Democrats in the Wyoming Legislature supported HB 337. Only Reps. Bob Nicholas (R) and Liz Storer (D) voted against the bill.
Democrats lost 92 state legislative seats during Biden’s presidency. Their current 44% of seats nationwide is 10 percentage points fewer than the century average
In Monday’s Brew, we examined the changes in state legislative seats over the course of the entire Biden administration.
At the end of Joe Biden’s presidency, Democrats held 3217 (44%) of the country’s state legislative seats, and Republicans held 4103 (56%). Between 1921 and 2023, Democrats held an average of 54% of state legislative seats, and Republicans held an average of 45%.
During Biden’s presidency, Democrats lost a net 92 state legislative seats, reducing the party’s overall share of state legislative seats from 3,309 to 3,217, or one percentage point. This was the fewest seats that any president’s party lost since 1921.
Minnesota House Democrats restore tie, Iowa House Republicans maintain supermajority in March 11 special elections
Iowa and Minnesota held special elections for seats in their respective state Houses on March 11. As a result of those races, Iowa Republicans maintained their 67-33 supermajority in the state House, and Minnesota Democrats restored a 67-67 tie.
Here’s a look at the election results:
- Blaine Watkins (R) defeated Nannette Griffin (D) 51.5%-48.2% in the election for Iowa House District 100.
- David Gottfried (D) defeated Paul Wikstrom (R) 70.2%-29.8% in the election for Minnesota House District 40B.
Thirty-two percent of February elections that Ballotpedia covered were uncontested
Ballotpedia will cover 32,000 elections this year. Most of those are for local offices such as city councils, mayors, and school board members – the ones closest to the people. One thing we’ve discovered in our coverage of these races is how many are uncontested. Our most recent data from February shows that 32% of the 346 we covered in 15 states were uncontested. In January, we covered 25 elections, 24% of which were uncontested.
We define an uncontested election as one where the number of candidates running is less than or equal to the number of seats up for election. Most of the races we covered in February were in Illinois and Wisconsin.