So far from the crew at Pivot Point, you’ve heard a lot about swing counties that may indicate who’s going to win the election. Sure, these (and other) counties are important in that determination, but at the state level, totally different factors are in play. The balance of power isn’t necessarily coming down to swing counties, especially given that some of them are fairly small. With this article, we’ll be highlighting the counties that will likely prove critical to the balance of power in a handful of states, be it in terms of majority deciding or in deciding whether or not a party is to win a supermajority in the legislature. 

Wake County NC

Wake County is North Carolina’s most populous county and, in all likelihood, will decide whether or not Democrats can break the Republican legislative supermajority in either chamber. For the last decade, the county has been one of the fastest growing in the US. As a result, more minority voters have moved to Wake, including Raleigh (the state’s capital) and cities and suburbs surrounding it. These new voters and the suburban realignment have resulted in the county becoming significantly more Democratic-leaning in recent years. This has turned Wake from a swing county to a reliably blue one. The last Republican to carry it was Ag. Commissioner Troxler in 2016. 

In the State Senate, Democrats are on defense in two seats: the 13th district in the southern part of the county, and 18th district coupled with Granville County to the north (the latter shown below). It would be a stretch to say that Republicans are performing particularly well in most of the county, but their areas of relative strength include these two places. Democrats have fewer minority voters in these districts compared to the other seats in the county, and, as such, have to rely on realigning voters to help them escape the superminority. 

In both seats, Republicans were able to use the 2022 redistricting to their advantage. Both seats became notably less compact as to take in more conservative voters along the county’s borders. However, given the realigning voters, the long-term viability of these seats is in question. Both have trended leftwards in recent years, and while the 18th is seeing Democrats lose ground in the Granville portion of the seat, things don’t look good for Republicans long term. Simply banking on Trump winning the state won’t help, he’s favored to lose both seats (and actually did lose the 13th in 2020), while gaining ground in more rural parts of the state. 

With the State House, Democrats have another seat to defend (the 35th), but so do Republicans (the 37th). Democrats won both in 2018, but lost the 37th the following cycle. The 35th had sat in the northwest corner of the county, but was redrawn to take in all of the conservative turf along the county’s northern border, becoming significantly less compact in the process. The 37th stayed compact, but shifted further southeast, with Republicans ceding chances at other seats for securing Rep. Erin Pare (who recently endangered herself with a voter intimidation scandal). Like the Senate map, both of these seats have jetted to the left in recent years, but contrarily, that probably won’t be enough to favor Democrats. Trump won both of these seats by around 5 points in 2020, and even if they flip to Harris’s column, incumbency will likely save Pare and leave the now-open-seat 35th a Republican-favored tossup. Both seats are as such rated as Leans Republican. 

Brown County WI

Brown County sits at the mouth of the Fox River in Wisconsin, and is home to the city of Green Bay. In the race for the White House, the county could prove competitive, but down ballot is where the action is at. In addition to the state electing a US Senator (a race where Brown County’s margin may also prove critical), Green Bay and its surrounding communities will be electing a State Senator and three State Representatives. Brown has voted Democratic or for Democratic-alligned candidates/causes in statewide races in recent years, but for president, the last time a Democrat carried Brown was Barack Obama’s 2008 sweep of the majority of the state’s counties.

Senate District 30 was redrawn for the 2024 cycle after the new liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the old map. Wisconsin Republicans had created a gerrymander so effective they could receive fewer votes and still retain a supermajority in the state legislature. This seat was no different which made it previously incapable of electing a Democrat. The, at the time, double-digit Trump districts that diced up the city were re-arranged, forming a competitive seat that Biden would have won by just over 3 points. Within that seat are HDs 88, 89, and 90, with only 90 having gone for Biden by double digits. The 88th and 89th may in all likelihood decide which party will control the State House. 

SD 30  is likely to trend in Democrats’ favor in most parts of the district. This would serve to lock down HD 90 as Safe Democratic and move SD 30 to a Likely Democratic spot. Democrats have a lot going their way here, and this extends to the uber-competitive 88th and 89th districts. Neither seat has a Republican incumbent running, which gives Democrats a relative edge. It’s likely that Harris will win the duo, but that her margins in these seats will still be narrow. We currently predict that both seats will flip to Democrats (Leans Democratic ratings), but to add nuance, it’s more likely that the 89th will do so than the 88th (which voted for Trump in 2020). Still, the latter two are agonizingly competitive seats, so keep an eye on them on election night.

Cuyahoga County OH

Cuyahoga County is home to Cleveland, once in the top 10 largest cities in the nation. A sizable portion of the county has seen hard times in recent years, with industries pulling out of the area in favor of new turf in the Sun Belt or in another country. And even with recent investments from Biden's industrial policy it certainly doesn't make up for decades of business relocating out of Cuyahoga County. Democratic candidates regularly post huge margins here mainly thanks to African American communities, but in less diverse parts of the county they don't perform nearly as well. It's these parts of the county that may make or break the Republican supermajority in the state legislature. 

Ohio’s legislative maps were redrawn for the 2024 cycle after an acrimonious battle with the State Supreme Court. The end result was Republicans tossing Democrats a handful of seats, and making a handful of others fairly competitive. Cuyahoga County was a recipient (at least partially) of two competitive Senate Districts, and four potentially competitive State House seats.

In the state senate, districts 18 and 24 retained their status as competitive seats, with the 24th being entirely within Cuyahoga County, and the 18th taking in Lake as well as portions along Cuyahoga’s borders. Trump won the duo by an average of about a point and a half in 2020, doing best in the exurban, rural, and blue-collar parts of the seat. Biden did best in the minority-heavy and population-dense areas. Of the two, the 24th (Matt Dolan’s old seat) currently appears most likely to flip to Democratic control. For one, Democrats only have a few-hundred vote deficit to make up vs 2020 partisanship. The 18th, conversely, has a wider margin, and rural turf to its eastern reaches. We would accordingly rate the 24th at Leans Democratic, and the 18th at Leans Republican. 

All the competitive state house seats sit within one of the two aforementioned senate seats, with three of the four sitting within the 24th. Democrats currently hold three to one for Republicans. Their most endangered rep is Dan Troy, who represents a swing district (the 23rd) that hops the Cuyahoga/Lake line (the sole seat from the 18th SD). Trump won both of the iterations of the 23rd, though the current one by a very narrow margin. Troy has so far managed to outrun his district’s base partisanship, and while we expect to see a narrow, competitive race, we see no reason to favor Troy’s opponent. The seat is rated at Leans Democratic.

Next up is HD 13, which contains most of Parma and a bit of Cleveland. The seat has shifted right in recent years, with Biden narrowly carrying it after having lost ground vs Clinton’s numbers. Democrats have the benefit of incumbent Sean Brennan running, which may prove critical given that Trump has a decent shot of winning the seat. We rate this seat at Leans Democratic, but again, it’ll be a key one to watch. If Democrats are losing seats in Cleveland, they’ll have no shot at breaking the Republican supermajority. It would also make Sherrod Brown's already very difficult task that much harder. 

The safest of the competitive Democratic-held seats is the 15th, which shifted slightly to the right in 2020 while still going to Biden by around six points. The seat contains a number of Cuyahoga’s western suburbs, some blue collar communities to Cleveland’s south, and even a tiny piece of Cleveland itself. No incumbent is running, but Democrats start as clear favorites. We would expect the more suburban parts of the seat to trend leftwards, and this to hold the seat around the D+6 mark. Accordingly, we rate the seat at Leans Democratic. 

Lastly, Republicans only hold HD 17 within Cuyahoga County. The seat contains Strongsville, North Royalton, and Broadview Heights areas that serve to anchor it in the Republican column and outweigh the Democratic leaning turf of Berea and Olmsted Falls. The seat did shift leftwards in 2020 by a few points, but it's far from a Democratic pickup even without the incumbent Republican running for re-election. Strongsville and North Royalton in particular are hard nuts to crack for Democrats, and winning their turf and Broadview Heights probably wouldn’t flip the seat. The seat is narrowly under R+6, though, so we’ll keep it at Leans Republican, with the potential to move to Likely Republican before election day.

More From Pivot Point

Race, And The Race For The White House

Flooding The Zone

NC, With A Month To Go

2024 Ratings

And Please Consider A Contribution To Pivot Point

Wayne County MI

Wayne County is home to Detroit, Michigan’s largest city, and the hub of the nation’s automotive industry. Geographically speaking, Wayne has much less Republican-favoring turf than Cuyahoga, but Republicans are growing in strength especially in the south of the county and (slowly) within the city of Detroit itself. After Michigan’s independent redistricting commission made the maps for the 2020-2030 cycle, Wayne County saw four competitive seats formed along its southern border, with most of them hopping the county line to the south and east (all of which survived the 2024 VRA touchup). Another competitive seat straddles the county’s northern border, in political turf that has been agonizingly competitive for some time now. 

Michigan’s narrow Democratic majority may not survive the election. Democrats swept into power in 2022, taking control of both chambers of the state legislature, and gaining a trifecta under the leadership of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. This coalition, however, relies heavily on very swingy seats, many of which lean Republican. If Kamala Harris wins the state, Democrats stand a better chance of retaining (and possibly expanding) their majority, but a lackluster performance on her part may doom them.

Trump won this agglomeration of the four southern Wayne seats by just short of four points. The only seat he lost outright was HD 31 (the westernmost seat), and even then it was a loss under a point. Obviously, considering partisan parity, the redistricting commissioners opted to draw competitive vs compact seats, with only the 27th being justifiable by compactness. The northern end of the area has a Democratic lean, and the southern end a much more Republican lean. 

None of these seats are totally off the table, but HD 29 gets pretty close. We have it sitting at Likely Republican. The district, which has a Republican representative, doesn’t have as much Democratic turf as its two eastern comrades. Its immediate neighbor, the 28th, also has an incumbent Republican incumbent, and we rate it at Leans Republican due to its more competitive base partisanship. Could Democrats pull off upsets? Yes, but given the poor long-term outlook on Wayne County gains, it seems unlikely.

The other two seats, the 27th and 31st, both have incumbent Democratic representatives, which is where things might get interesting. Both districts could both be fairly justifiably kept as tossups by other forecasters, but that’s not what we do here especially when it's this close to election day. It’s safe to assume that, unlike during midterm years, that each party is going to perform more closely to their Presidential baseline. Incumbent effects and trends complicate this a bit. We can more confidently put the 31st at Leans Democratic (especially given that it has 2 Democratic hubs), but the 27th is harder to call. However, given the pretty favorable shift towards Democrats 2016-2020 and the incumbent Democrat, we tentatively rate it at Leans Democratic. 

Jumping to the north end of the county, we come across HD 22. Democrats have held much of the area encompassed by the seat since 2018, with the seat having flipped from Trump to Biden in the following presidential race. Prior to this, the seat has been Republican leaning since at least 2008, when John McCain narrowly carried it. Given that Biden did carry the seat (which appears to be in the throes of the realignment), we’re inclined to keep it at Leans Democratic.

St. Louis County MN

St. Louis County sits on the western shore of Lake Superior, and is home to Duluth. The city is the economic and cultural hub of Minnesota’s Iron Range. In the not-far-off past, the whole county was often a deep shade of blue. However, in the present day with rural and blue-collar turf becoming more Republican, there is a clear divide between the Democratic-favoring communities on the Superior coastline and the more conservative townships further inland. 

Democrats gained a trifecta in Minnesota in 2022 under Governor, now-VP nominee Tim Walz by flipping three seats in the state senate, and retaining their house majority. Each state senate district contains two State House districts (an A and a B district). For the most part, the component house districts of each senate district voted like their respective senate seat, but those that didn’t help make up our list of seats intersecting St. Louis County.