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.

The States Project is starting our work now — more than a year ahead of the 2024 election — to protect Michigan’s new majorities.

The Stakes

Some of the legislature’s earliest policies that are now Michigan law include:

• Lowering taxes for workers and retirees by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income earners and ending taxes on retirement income entirely — tax cuts that will save 1.3 million families and retirees $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.
• Protecting abortion access by repealing Michigan’s unpopular 1931 statute criminalizing abortion care — only the second state in the post-Roe era to enact policy that defends the right to choose a safe, legal abortion.
• Advancing gun safety with universal background checks, safe gun storage laws, and red flag laws that allow courts to temporarily remove firearms from those who pose a threat to themselves or others.

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, protect personal freedoms and improve lives, the work must start right now.

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.