Research Associate Matthew Klein contributed to this report. Michigan has emerged as a Midwestern success story for Democrats: As recently as 2017, they held just five of the state's 14 House seats. Today, they hold a 7-6 advantage in the House delegation, not to mention both Senate seats, the governorship and both houses of the state legislature. The midterms were nearly disastrous for Republicans, as the abortion issue propelled Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to a double-digit reelection win with coattails.
Research Associate Matthew Klein and intern Ethan Jasny contributed to this report. In picking apart the results from 2022, a consistent gripe of House GOP strategists is that despite an advantage in "soft" money spent by Super PACs, Democratic incumbents clobbered their Republican challengers in "hard" money donations. Because candidates are guaranteed much lower advertising rates than outside groups, that edge proved critical in allowing Democrats to define their opponents early and win their races.
Research Associate Matthew Klein contributed to this report. Republicans tried for a clean sweep of Kansas’s federal offices by targeting lone Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids in 2022 redistricting, shifting her 3rd District seven points to the right. But the GOP’s gerrymander couldn’t outrun the leftward trend of the Kansas City suburbs or the fallout from the failed push to pass an abortion ban, and Davids ended up winning comfortably, 55%-43% two points wider than her margin of victory in 2020.