Republicans are focusing more on state races than national races. The following article points out the advantage of doing so:
Of all election outcomes, state legislative races are the likeliest
to have a direct impact on the lives of voters. But you wouldn’t know it
from the national press. The morning after the 2010 elections,
Americans woke up to headlines about a Republican landslide; most of
those stories focused on Congress, where a new GOP House majority
promised to fight President Barack Obama tooth and nail. What didn’t
make so many front pages were Republicans’ historic victories at the
state level, as the party wrested control of 21 house and senate
chambers from the Democrats. North Carolina had its first Republican
senate since 1870; Alabama hadn’t seen a Republican legislature since
Reconstruction. Twenty states now had Republicans in charge of the
senate, the house, and the governor’s office concurrently.
While Republican members of Congress were focused on blocking the
Democratic agenda, Republican state lawmakers began to drive the
national policy debate. They wasted no time slashing social programs,
weakening women’s reproductive rights and collective bargaining, and
creating new barriers to voting rights. Taking their cues—and often the
wording of their bills—from right-wing groups like the American
Legislative Exchange Council and the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, Republicans in the so-called laboratories of democracy began
adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to issues from health care to
labor to immigration.
Even if the media hasn’t figured out how much state races matter,
it’s old news to conservative fundraisers. The sea change of 2010 didn’t
happen by accident or Tea Party enthusiasm alone. The election served
as an experiment in what big money can do in low-budget state races.
