Friends,
We’re excited to share Future Now Fund’s 2020 election preview: the State of the States report. It’s an in-depth (really in-depth!) look at the trends we’re seeing and how the electorate is shaping up heading into November.
As Politico shared about Future Now Fund’s report this morning,
“… an interesting analysis of the electorate, and how that boils down into 13 states where they’re focusing on legislative elections. The changes are interesting: Aaron Kleinman, the group’s director of research, projects that 7 million people who voted in 2016 have died, while 15-16 million Americans have turned 18 and are eligible to vote. (That’s not to say they’ll all vote.)
The report also lays out several effects of both the pandemic and massive protests on the electorate, and lays out an interesting ‘Disco Stu fallacy’: That people shouldn’t believe that past trends automatically hold.”
For elections at any level — the presidential race, statewide races, or to control a legislative chamber — “flipping a state” is not a monolithic outcome. It happens when a patchwork of political communities are activated to collectively determine who wins the state. State Legislative races are the best, least-explored way to grasp that picture.
I hope you find the time to dive into the State of the States report and see it as a helpful guide for political engagement this year — with state legislatures, of course, but also for the election in general. And we hope you’ll join us in fighting like hell over the next three months.
Best,
Aaron
