State legislatures are the battlefield before midterms

winning state – With Democrats still facing a tough road to control Congress before President Donald Trump’s term runs through January 20, 2029, advocates argue the real leverage sits in statehouses. Daniel Squadron, co-founder of the States Project, lays out why state trifec

On a day when polling and primaries seemed to offer little comfort to Trump opponents, Daniel Squadron returned to a simpler idea—one that still feels almost radical in U.S. politics: if you want to change national outcomes, you start by winning in state capitals.

Squadron. co-founder and co-executive director of the States Project and a former state senator in New York. argues that the power of state legislatures is far larger than most voters realize. In the last 15 years. he said. states have done more harm or good on issues such as civil rights and democracy. energy costs and climate change. minimum wages and clean air and water. and gun safety than Congress has. Even on health care. he said. the Medicaid expansion attached to Obamacare depended on states acting—and nearly 100 million Americans still are not benefiting from that expansion because their states have failed to do so.

For Squadron, the argument is not theoretical. He points to Minnesota as proof that state control can move quickly when parties line up and legislatures cooperate with governors. In the midterms of 2022. Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party. the DFL. flipped the state Senate and maintained its majority in the state House after a decade of split control. After voters had already elected Tim Walz governor. the Minnesota Legislature—signing into law measures Walz backed—passed a package in 2023 that included 12 weeks of paid family leave and medical leave. free public college tuition for lower-income Minnesotans. a new child tax credit. free lunch for all public school students. driver’s licenses for all residents regardless of immigration status. stronger protections for unions and for unionizing campaigns. and the restoration of voting rights for convicted felons.

The list also included new protections for abortion rights and a “trans refugee law” designed to protect trans children traveling to Minnesota to receive gender-affirming care when they come from states that would punish them. Squadron described those results as “mostly untold and overlooked”—and pressed the point that major change can happen when small numbers of people take politics seriously at the local level.

He learned that firsthand. Squadron said the Minnesota majority that delivered that agenda was “won and lost” in two different elections: it was won in 2022. and then Democrats lost the House majority in 2024 by only “a few hundred votes”—and that narrow margin. he said. shifted the outcome even though the campaigns to win an entire legislative chamber cost less than a single congressional district.

He says that narrow arithmetic is why the focus matters now. Squadron laid out a chain of frustration: Democrats can still expect to win control of the House. and maybe the Senate. in November. but Trump will remain president until January 20. 2029. That means Trump would be able to veto any law passed by a Democratic Congress—so the practical question becomes where policy fights can still land.

Virginia, he argued, shows what happens when state power is tested in real time. Democrats won a trifecta there after Abigail Spanberger became governor and Democrats took control of both houses of the state legislature. They followed a plan to pass a redistricting initiative that would change the state constitution so voters could create four new Democratic districts for the House of Representatives. The referendum passed—until the Virginia Supreme Court overturned it on an obscure technicality. Squadron said the result is that Virginia will not have four new Democratic representatives in Washington next year. “maybe” it will have two.

He also connected the decision to how the court is selected: in Virginia, the state Supreme Court is selected by the state legislature. Squadron’s point was not just that the referendum failed, but that it failed through a mechanism that lawmakers help control.

The stakes, he said, trace back to a moment tied to Donald Trump and Texas. Squadron described how Trump personally called Texas state lawmakers “right around the horrible tragedy at Camp Mystic on the Guadalupe River” and used that as an excuse with Greg Abbott to come in and change the maps in Texas to increase the number of Republicans sent to Congress “in the middle of a decade.” From there. he said. an arms race took shape.

Squadron argued that a close 2021 election in Virginia helped determine the court’s posture. In the 2021 Virginia legislative elections. he said. Republicans held a one-seat majority that confirmed the justice who cast the deciding vote for the court’s four-three outcome. If that one seat had gone differently, he said, the legislature would have succeeded in offsetting Trump’s power.

For Squadron, that is why he sees a coming danger in election timelines. Trump, he said, wants to centralize power. He described Trump’s goal as taking power from states when it undermines democracy and giving power back to states that undermine democracy. The pressure, Squadron warned, lands not only on policy but on the rules of elections. He said state lawmakers are the only effective pushback he sees—“it’s where things are happening”—even if it doesn’t always succeed.

When the conversation turned to Republican trifectas. Squadron said conservatives and Republicans overperformed for decades by choosing to build power at the state level. He linked it to Paul Weyrich. describing him as the founder who established the Heritage Foundation and ALEC. the American Legislative Exchange Council. Squadron said Weyrich was an ideologue who aimed to bring back a conservatism and traditionalism through American government and built institutions that created outsized power in states. The result, Squadron argued, was that the movement did what it had to do consistently enough to win.

He then returned to a concrete project: the States Project’s plans to run candidates to break up Republican trifectas. Squadron said there won’t always be enough Democratic wins to create Democratic trifectas everywhere. but preventing Republicans from taking control could matter—especially. he said. for the future of presidential elections.

He pointed to specific states and timelines. He described 2028 as the year that could “undermine a free and fair presidential election. ” saying that if Trump and JD Vance “prefer that these elections get decided before anyone votes. ” the practical defense may hinge on state legislatures. He emphasized Arizona and Michigan, along with North Carolina. He also listed Wisconsin and Minnesota and Georgia, even calling Georgia “a tough one” worth fighting for.

The politics of that effort are already visible in places like Arizona and Minnesota—both of which became part of Squadron’s immediate list of priorities. He urged attention to Minnesota because, in the state Senate, the DFL holds a one-seat majority of 34 to 33. But the House is tied, and under the Minnesota State Constitution the lieutenant governor cannot break a tie. Squadron said Republicans can block everything in that situation, giving him urgency to focus on “winning back the Minnesota trifecta.”.

In the same breath, he named other battlegrounds where legislative control could steer the direction of policy. He said Wisconsin’s Republican control has lasted for years but is now more competitive than ever in both chambers and could produce a trifecta there. He said Arizona’s legislature has been Republican “for many of your listeners’ whole lifetimes. ” but that Democratic leadership there is “knocking at the door. ” within a couple of seats of taking control. Michigan also appeared on his list: he said Democrats have a narrow 19 to 18 advantage in the state Senate. while Republicans flipped the House and hold a cushion. leaving the door open to winning back the House even as he described Michigan as having a messy three-way governor’s race.

He added that Michigan is a place where election integrity has been directly challenged: he said Trump invited Republican leaders of both chambers of Michigan’s legislature to the Oval Office after the 2020 election and urged them to “block certification” of the state’s votes so results could be undone. Squadron said what happened after January 6 and beyond depended on one leader refusing.

North Carolina, he said, has Josh Stein as governor. Squadron described a supermajority in the legislature that has overridden vetoes on what he called “some terrible stuff. ” and he argued Democrats need to get rid of those supermajorities so legislative leadership can partner with Stein to force negotiations.

Money. in Squadron’s telling. is where the strategy often breaks down—and where he says his organization has tried to change the assumptions. The States Project raises money to fund candidates. but Squadron said it’s common for candidates to hire consultants who push for spending on TV and digital ads. even though he argued there’s “no really good evidence” that this kind of advertising wins undecided voters.

He described door knocking as something he learned to trust. He said he knocked on nearly 10. 000 doors personally in a state Senate race when he entered politics in his late 20s to challenge a 30-year incumbent and had “no business winning”—yet he did. Squadron said districts are smaller in state legislatures, which makes personal outreach “wildly potent.”.

He argued that at the state level. campaign infrastructure and spending are “vastly underdeveloped” compared with Washington. but he also said the money can still be used with discipline. The States Project. he said. tries to build best practices so contributions are spent well. rather than assuming consultants’ preferences should drive strategy. He said it should not mean running less professionally than competitive congressional campaigns, because state fights determine outcomes.

Squadron wrapped the pitch with a more personal note: he said volunteers who have credibility in the district matter. and if someone lacks it. raising money outside the district may be necessary to help the person inside the district win. He also said the goal is not to rely on a single savior but to build coalitions across different groups to hold governing power.

The conversation closed with a detail that felt more human than political: the foreword to Squadron’s new book. “The Fourth Branch: How State Government Can Save Our Union. ” is written by Sarah Jessica Parker. Squadron said he was grateful and described her as focused on how people can have impact. recalling that she told him “people shouldn’t listen to me in politics. ” and instead should do the thing that has the biggest impact for them. Squadron said Parker grew up in Ohio and in a home where the focus was on making an impact.

Later in the program. the political mood shifted to polling and primaries—less about state policy and more about how voters are reacting to Trump right now. The discussion referenced a New York Times Siena poll showing Trump’s approval rating hitting an all-time low. It said Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of every issue. with the worst finding tied to the cost of living: 28% approve and 69% disapprove. The discussion also referenced gas prices described as reaching historic highs because of Trump’s war with Iran. and it revisited a reporter Q&A where Trump was asked whether Americans’ financial situations were motivating him to make a deal with Iran. The answer, as quoted in the program, was: “not even a little bit. I don’t think about Americans financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. Close quote.”.

The program also cited the Times poll’s generic congressional ballot. It said Democrats lead by 11 points among independents and by 18 points on the generic ballot. It followed with a look at Louisiana. where Senate Republican primary voters defeated incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy after Trump came out against him. The program said Cassidy got only 25% of the Republican vote—described as “pretty incredible” for an incumbent—and said Cassidy had voted to impeach Trump and opposed him on some key personnel nominations.

It went on to address Trump’s approach to Republican primaries more broadly and then highlighted a Texas race. The program said Trump endorsed the challenger, state attorney general Ken Paxton, over the incumbent senator, John Cornyn. It described Cornyn as having done “very. very little” to offend Trump. and said the dispute was more about how Trump views Republican leadership in the Senate—particularly resistance he attributed to them. including on getting rid of the filibuster in some circumstances and caution on judicial nominees.

The program also mentioned Trump’s decision to drop his lawsuit against the IRS and the exchange described in the discussion: the U.S. attorney general would create a fund to pay $1.8 billion. called the “anti’Weaponization Fund.” The discussion questioned who the fund would pay and how it would work. and raised concerns that it would circumvent the courts and could operate like a slush fund in the Department of Justice.

Even with that national political turbulence. Squadron’s argument stayed anchored to one urgent idea: the path to surviving and reshaping the next political era may run through statehouses. He made it clear that the fight is not only about who occupies the White House until January 20. 2029. or who wins November’s House and potentially the Senate.

It’s about who controls the rules where elections are administered, where district lines are drawn, and where policy becomes real—before national campaigns catch up.

United States politics state legislatures midterms Donald Trump Daniel Squadron States Project Minnesota trifecta Virginia redistricting voting rights ALEC Paul Weyrich