The Opportunity

In 2022, The States Project helped flip four seats to win a majority in the Michigan Senate, and four seats for a new majority in the Michigan House.

Since then, the Michigan legislature has worked effectively and efficiently to enact meaningful policies that improve lives in the state. In just the first month of their first session, they passed more policies than the previous majority over the past six sessions combined.

In 2024, the Michigan House is the only chamber in the state up for election. Our work to protect this chamber now will determine whether majority lawmakers hold on to the trifecta we helped build in 2022 or the rightwing will gain governing power to block life-improving policies from being enacted in the state legislature.

The Stakes

Michigan’s new majorities passed landmark policies that will impact millions, sending a resounding message to voters about why they should re-elect a Michigan trifecta in 2024. Those policies include:

• Protecting abortion access by repealing Michigan’s unpopular 1931 statute criminalizing abortion care, removing red tape that forced some clinics in Michigan to close because they did not have enough patients to meet licensing requirements, and ending restrictions on telemedicine options related to reproductive healthcare.
• Lowering costs for families by expanding the earned income tax credit, helping 740,000 households pay for essentials like childcare and groceries.
• Preventing the worst impacts of climate change and creating new good-paying jobs by requiring that the state generate all of its electricity from wind, solar and other carbon-free sources by 2040.
• Cutting taxes to save 1.3 million working families and retirees between $600-$1k each year.
• Prioritizing workers by restoring their power to unionize and collectively demand better pay, benefits, and working conditions. By becoming the first state in 60 years to repeal a rightwing law that weakens unions, Michigan has strengthened the rights of nearly 600,000 workers.
• Safeguarding LGBTQ+ rights by ensuring that 400,000 LGBTQ+ Michiganders have equal protection from discrimination in housing, jobs, or public services under state law.
• Investing in children by providing free school meals to 1.4 million students, free pre-k to thousands of additional families, and individualized tutoring to help struggling students recover from pandemic learning loss.
• Broadly popular gun safety policies proven to make communities safer, including safe gun storage requirements, universal background checks, and a red flag policy that will keep guns out of the hands of those who are a danger to themselves or others.
• Increase pay and other benefits to attract and retain healthcare workers, combat a healthcare worker shortage, and improve care for all Michiganders.

Defending Michigan’s House majority in 2024 will ensure that these lawmakers have the governing power they need to continue enacting popular, commonsense policies that benefit all Michiganders.

The Landscape

The majority in each Michigan chamber is currently held by just one seat. While there will be no races for the Michigan Senate in 2024, there will be elections for the House.

And if 330 voters had gone the other way in 2022, there would be no new majority in the Michigan House.

To give ourselves the best possible chance to defend the House majority — and the Michigan trifecta — that is working to safeguard democracy, we are working with our partners to build out early campaign infrastructure with talented and experienced staff. Strong campaign infrastructure will be critical to ensuring the success of every tactic we fuel to defend the House majority.

New maps created clearer paths to ending unchecked rightwing control of the Michigan legislature — and after working in the state for two cycles — The States Project seized the opportunity to shift power in both chambers. Before the election, the rightwing majorities held majorities by just two seats in the Michigan House and three seats in the Senate.

Thanks to our Giving Circles, we hit the ground early in 2021 for the best possible chance of success. As the race tightened in 2022, we helped our in-state partners stay in the fight for chamber control in both chambers, even when it felt impossible.

The States Project helped our partners gain three seats in the House and four in the Senate for two outright majorities, powering a Democratic trifecta in Michigan for the first time since 1983!

Special Election

In May 2022, The States Project helped secure HD-74 in a Michigan House Special Election — we believed that protecting the district in a special election would be easier than trying to take it from the rightwing in a general election. That reduced the number of seats needed to shift power in the State House from three to two.

Candidates The States Project supported won eight seats in the Michigan House, including six incumbents and two new seats. Two incumbent losses in seats that Trump carried meant that there was no change in the balance of power in the House.

Six candidates we supported flipped their seats to join the Michigan House of Representatives.