Category: State

A special election has been called for the District 37 seat of the Pennsylvania State Senate on April 2, 2019. This is the third special state legislative election scheduled in Pennsylvania this year; Pennsylvania House Districts 114 and 190 are up for election on March 12.   District 37 was left vacant after its previous…

The candidate filing deadline passed on January 8 for the special election in District 176 of the Georgia House of Representatives. Barbara Griffin (D), Barbara Seidman (D), James Burchett (R), and Franklin Patten (R) filed to run in the special election being held on February 12. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, a…

The candidate filing deadline passed on January 8 for the special election in District 11 of the Minnesota State Senate. Michelle Lee and Stu Lourey will face off in the Democratic primary on January 22. Justin Krych, Carl Pederson, Jason Rarick, and Matthias Shir are running in the Republican primary. The general election will take…

Democrats and Republicans are lining up to challenge Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) in his 2019 re-election bid. The incumbent closed out 2018 with a 34 percent approval rating—the lowest of any governor who is set to remain in office after the 2018 midterm elections.   Four Democratic candidates have announced they are running for…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) appointed Florida Third District Court of Appeal Judge Barbara Lagoa to succeed Fred Lewis on the Florida Supreme Court. Lewis retired from the court on January 7 after reaching the mandatory retirement age. Lagoa is DeSantis’ first appointment to the seven-member court. Her appointment is effective immediately.   Lagoa was…

Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi are the only three states holding regularly-scheduled elections for state executive positions in 2019. All three states have governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, agriculture commissioner, and treasurer offices on the ballot. Other state executive positions up for election include auditor in Kentucky and Mississippi, insurance commissioner in Louisiana…

On January 8, Jesse Vaughn (R) and Matt Barton (R) defeated four other candidates in a special general election for the District 5 seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. Vaughn and Barton advanced to a special runoff election scheduled for February 5, 2019. According to the unofficial results, Barton surpassed the third-place finisher, J.…

State Del. Jennifer Boysko (D) defeated former state Del. Joe T. May (R) in the special election for Virginia State Senate District 33 on Tuesday. Boysko received 69.8 percent of the vote to May’s 30.1 percent.   This was the highest margin of victory in the district since 2003, when William Mims (R) ran in…

With a new year, comes a new batch of state legislators. Thousands of legislators will be sworn into office this month. In the November 2018 general elections, 322 incumbent legislators were defeated. Including the incumbents who retired or were defeated in primaries, the 2019 legislative sessions will see 1,599 new state legislators taking their oath…

Today, legislators in New York will be sworn in. In the state Senate, this marks a change of power from a Republican-led coalition to a Democratic majority. Although Democrats have held a numerical majority in the chamber since 2012, a faction of Democrats known as the Independent Democratic Caucus aligned with the chamber’s Republicans, helping…