⁍ Democrats have poured tens of millions of dollars into state-level contests to oust Republican lawmakers.

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⁍ The 2010 elections gave Republicans control of 20 additional state legislative chambers and six additional governors’ mansions.

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⁍ Democrats are aiming to claw back territory by capitalizing on the so-called ‘Blue Wave’ of 2018’s elections.

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– It’s been a decade since a Republican wave took control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in more than a century—and 10 years since the 2010 elections gave Republicans control of 20 additional state legislative chambers and six additional governors’ mansions. Now, Democrats are hoping to repeat the feat in Tuesday’s elections, which will determine how many seats each state gets in the House, and the biggest prize in that fight is Texas, which stands to gain two to three additional seats. The 2010 elections, which followed the last census, gave Republicans control of 20 additional state legislative chambers and six additional governors’ mansions. In many instances, their control allowed them to draw strangely shaped congressional districts dividing up voters for an electoral advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering. That in turn helped the Republicans gain a 33-seat majority in the US House in the next 2012 election, despite Democrats winning the overall popular vote in those races. Partisan gerrymandering is largely permitted under the law. In 2019, the US Supreme Court ruled that federal courts had no authority to strike down gerrymandered maps, though state courts are still free to examine them under state law. For both the Democratic and Republican parties, the fiercest fight, and the biggest prize in next Tuesday’s elections, is in Texas, which stands to gain two to three additional seats in the US House. The 2010 elections, which followed the last census, gave Republicans control of 20 additional state legislative chambers and six additional governors’ mansions. Texas is one of 21 Republican ‘trifecta’ states, in which the party controls both chambers and the governor’s mansion.