Nationalization of State Legislative Elections: Evidence From the Minnesota State Senate

This investigation explores the evolution of the relationship between national and local factors in Minnesota’s state legislative elections. Correlations demonstrate a growing connection between presidential and state legislative results between 1992 and 2020. Further, the findings reveal that national factors have exercised an outsized influence on State Senate election results in recent years, even when the strongest rival explanations are included in the analysis. In fact, when presidential vote and previous vote for a State Senate seat are assessed alongside incumbency and campaign spending in the 2020 election, presidential vote demonstrates the strongest influence on outcomes, while incumbency and candidate spending show negligible effects. The findings suggest that national factors thoroughly dominate state legislative elections. This has implications for policy responsiveness and raises the specter that the mismatch between a federal system and nationalized politics may prove unsustainable.