Weekly Skews - Good Skews: State and Special Elections with Joe Sudbay

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

State and local elections are where the political future is being shaped, and Democrats are finally catching up to Republicans’ long-standing strategy of investing deeply in them. Producer Matt talks with Joe Sunday, Host of State of the States on Sirius XM to learn more about what's working.Support the show

Hello and welcome to another episode of Goodskews. I'm Matt Hilderith, and I'm here with Joe Sudbey. We're going to be talking all about the good news in state and local elections. There's a lot that's happening, Joe, in a lot of places in the country. You have a show on Sirius XM, State of the States, talking a lot about state and local elections. Can you give folks just a little bit of context on your show and who you are before we jump into the specifics on the good news? Sure. Well, first, thanks for having me, Matt.

So I host a show, as you said, on the Sirius XM Progress Channel called State of the States. I started my career when I came to D.C., working for an organization then called Handgun Control, and I worked on state legislation. It's always been something I focused on what was happening outside of D.C., which is odd being in D.C. and focusing on what's outside of D.C. because so much happens. And I always said Republicans use state legislatures for three things. They use them as incubators for their kind of batch of crazy ideas. They use them as pipelines for their version of talent. And they use them as ways to figure out how to prevent people from participating in the election. electoral process through gerrymandering, through voter suppression laws, and increasingly through trying to restrict ballot measures. But I always felt that on the progressive side, there wasn't that level of commitment to the state legislatures. And after the 2010 elections, which were horrific at the congressional level, it was even worse at the state level. So we've been digging out a lot since then. So I started the show in 2017 on Sirius X in Progress. We used to do it just

on a, just during election cycle, but the past few years we've been going year round because so much is happening at the state in state legislatures. And also there are special elections and elections all the time too. So I try to highlight them and keep as much attention on that as I can. And that's a really good point because when most people think about the Democratic Party, when they think about democracy and elections, they kind of go straight to the president. Most everybody knows who the president is, especially these days. days. And then a lot of people know who their senator is or their member of Congress, but not everybody. And then when you get down to your state government, a lot of folks probably don't

even really understand how state government and federal government interact with each other. And many, if probably not, the vast majority of Americans probably don't even know who their state elected officials are, the people who represent them in their state capital. But most of the decisions that impact their daily lives, especially in this landscape, have to do with who's representing them at the state level. So what you're saying is that Democrats have tended to forget about their state and local folks and Republicans have really invested in their state races. Can you talk a little bit about what it means for Republicans to invest and to care about their state elected officials? You mentioned the three different ways of creating this kind of incubation

space, but talk a little bit about specifically on handgun issues or on gay issues or on women's rights. Like, how do they move from the state to the federal arena? How do they use judges to do that? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think you have a really good point on that. And I just want to make sure everybody kind of understands what you mean by that. Sure. So at its court, there's actually a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, Alec. Alec is like an incubator. It's funded by a lot of major right-wing organizations, but also a lot of corporate interests had funded it over the years. And they'll develop model legislation. So, for example, when I was working on the gun violence

prevention issue, they worked, the International Rights Association was part of Alec. So I would see pop up in a state, a piece of legislation like in Florida, stand your ground. And then the next thing you know, Florida passed it. And they would pop up around the country because members of Alec did it. And I used to, I'll give it another, I used to go to the National Conference of State Legislatures every year, which is a gathering of state legislator, state legislatures, legislators around the country. And the biggest exhibitors there, I'd have my like one booth and I'd be like across the hall from the human rights campaign and other progressive groups. We'd all have our little booth. The biggest booths were always the National Rifle Association and Exxon Mobil. And

they understood the value of state legislatures as places to get their agenda passed. So, and, you know, they invested money in it and they invested resources. And, you know, I think I used to always say the thing about the National Rifle Association, which is not as omnipotent as I used to be, but it was very, it had concentrated power in 51 places in the United States. The United States Capitol in the 50 state houses around the country. They understood it. So actually, I'll give them credit. I learned a lot. about the value and the need to invest in state legislatures through my work against the NRA. When I worked on the gun violence prevention issue, one of the reasons when the Brady law finally

passed in 1993, it was passed because a lot of states had passed their own background check laws, so that provided impetus. So it happens on both sides. The other side has done it really well. But like recently, the attacks on trans youth have popped up around the country. And they, you know, very similar language in different states, drag show bans. The attack on the LGBTQ community has been really unrelenting and ruthless of late. And the other thing I want to, I think it helps to understand too is, you know, when I have conversations on the show, I talk to state legislators. But I also like to remind our audience, you know, you may think that you live in a blue state with a Democratic trifecta and many people do. But a Republican state, a red state with a Republican trifecta can impact your life. And I'll give you the probably the most. prominent example lately is the Dobbs decision. Dobbs was based on a Mississippi law. It was challenged in federal court, went up through the Fifth Circuit, and ended up at the Supreme Court. The recent Scrametti decision from Tennessee, which banned, which the Supreme Court upheld a ban on

trans health care, trans youth health care, came from the Tennessee legislature in 23. So even if you're not in a state that has hardcore Republicans running it, you're impacted by what those state legislators do because they have figured out a pipeline from state legislatures to this right-wing Supreme Court that we have right now. So the way that it works is for Republicans, many, if not most or nearly all of their policies these days are incredibly unpopular for the entire country. Nationally, they're just not popular policies. they know they're not going to be able to get their policies through Congress in Washington, D.C. So they go to the state and local governments, the state governments in places like Tennessee or in Mississippi and some of these red states where they can pass very conservative, very unpopular pieces of legislation and then work within the court system so that if those pieces of legislation are challenged, they can at some point make it up to the Supreme Court, where then,

this unpopular law becomes basically de facto national law because they started in a local state. So that happened specifically with Dobbs, right? That's what you're saying, Joe. With Dobbs, and then there's Scrimetti decision. And I'll give you a good example. There's a piece of that that's really important, too. One of my guests I've had on the show a couple times is state representative from Georgia. She used to be a state center, Dr. Michelle Awe. And she got gerrymandered out of her Senate see, she was so effective. So she ran in the house and she explained how gerrymandering allows for something like an abortion ban. Georgia passed an abortion ban. Georgia would never have an abortion ban if the districts weren't so heavily gerrymandered. And just this week I spoke with

Representative Betsy Fogel from Missouri, we're having the same conversation how gerrymandering prevents, you know, Republicans will vote for the most extreme measures so they can prevent primary challenges. So they're in very safe red districts that they've created for themselves. But it excludes kind of the voters and excludes the conversations that might happen on doors if you're in a competitive district where you get the feedback from your constituents that they don't want these things. So, yeah, gerrymandering has allowed a lot of this to happen, which is one of those points I made. Republicans use gerrymandering. obviously to prevent people from participating in the process.

And when they exclude people from the process, they can exclude and not pass unpopular programs. So the state and local governments, especially state government, is where a lot of the, especially through gerrymandering, is where a lot of these really unpopular programs are being first tested and then pulled into the, onto the national stage. But you've also oftentimes talked about the difference between, and you're kind of mentioning there, too. between a politician who is running for president of the United States and somebody that's running to represent literally their neighbors in the state government. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, especially with an eye towards this idea that I think a lot of folks have that like we need the DNC to fix itself or we need the leaders in Washington to figure out some national narrative, national talking points that fixes the Democratic brand.

I think a lot of people have the idea that that's how things are going to get solved with the Democratic Party, not realizing that there's, what, 10 times more state elected officials than elected officials in Washington, D.C. So I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit about how the state candidates you talk to think about rebuilding the Democratic brand, rebuilding the Democratic footprint versus maybe more of the national focus. politicians that we see on TV. You know, it's interesting. I see a lot of conversation in Washington about the need.

There was recently a centrist conference, right? And they're like, we need to get out and talk to people in the quote-unquote real world. And I'm like, I have an idea. There are actually Democrats all over the country who are knocking doors. And this is where I think why I love doing the show more than anything. First of all, I talk to amazing people. But I get the best understanding of what people are thinking by talking to legislative candidates. And you've got to understand state ledge candidates, you mentioned, you know, they know their neighbors.

Like you go to the grocery store, people know you. But they knock doors. They literally knock doors, hundreds and thousands of doors. They have competitions and they challenge each other to make sure they're knocking doors. And when you're knocking doors, you have to be very authentic. You can't just talk in some contrived talking points. that were prepared at, you know, some entity in D.C. by some consultants and after it's been focused group, you have to be real. People want to talk about the real issue. So the first thing

I always ask folks is, what are you hearing on the doors? And it's been so interesting. They talk about affordability, housing, almost every single legislator and legislative candidate I've talked to talks about housing. They talk about education. When they talk about education, they want their kids to have a good education. They want the teachers to be well paid. They want the schools to be functional. You know, literally, that's where we are. And it's so interesting because they also, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, so many heard about abortion and abortion rights and protecting abortion rights. So those kind of issues like, I remember back in summer of 2022, I was hearing in D.C., well, you know, I don't know if people are going to be talking about

abortion on the trail. We don't know how it polls. And I'm like, well, I can tell you, I talk to people who are knocking doors around the country, and it's the first issue people want to talk about. So that's still front and center in many states. But it really does present, you know, both you and I, Matt, are married to actual researchers who do PhD research. Right. So, you know, we can say, and they may tell us, well, this is, these are good anecdotes. But it adds up when you've talked, when you're talking to someone who's not a thousand doors in the district and they represent maybe 30,000 people, you're getting, you're getting really good feedback. And I, I sometimes feel like, you know, what D.C. people need to do more is go out and talk to state

legislative candidates and ask them about their experiences on the front doors and talking about issues and what, you know, people's honest, because I feel like it kind of breaks down some of the kind of jargony stuff that you get. And there's a whole industry in Washington, as you know, that is designed to find just the right words. If we can find just the right words to say just the right way, you can't talk like that. You can't bullshit like that when you go out and talk to people at their doors. You have to be authentic. You have to be real. You have to be vulnerable. Yeah. And it seems like a lot of these state candidates just don't have the time to go to big fancy conferences with big fancy slide decks with 400 slides about how to talk to voters. They just

know they just know their namers and they just know they have to get to work. And I think that's one of the things that we're seeing so much with like the questions of who's leading the Democratic Party now and what's Chuck Schumer doing or what's the leader doing. And I just think that like you said, very few people are actually having those conversations with voters day in and day out. And since you have been talking to these state legislative candidates for for years now, what do you think that they figured out that the National Democratic Party hasn't figured out? That's kind of my first question. And then the second question is, I'm wondering if you could talk talk a little bit about that disconnect, where it's the punditry and the assessment is that Democrats were

sort of demolished in 2024 and, you know, Republicans were telling people they had this mandate, but we don't really seem to be seeing that when it comes to state and local elections. So I'm wondering, how is it that these candidates at the state and local level are kind of just bypassing this whole existential crisis conversation that we seem to be having about D.C. Democrats. Yeah, I think it's several things, obviously. One of the reasons we've been able to make progress in some of the states in picking up legislative seats in Wisconsin is a good example is because Jennifer owitz won in 2023 and they did redistricting at the state legislative level and Democrats

made gains in the House and the Senate that was one of the most gerrymandered states it no longer is. Democrats picked up on just seats in Montana. for many of those same reasons. You know, there are some places they lost a couple of seats here and there. But the fact that in a state like Michigan, several years ago, was so highly gerrymandered and the voters changed it in 2018, and now the legislature's almost even. North Carolina is a good example.

I like this example of North Carolina because North Carolina now is the most heavily gerrymandered state. It's because of their Supreme Court. It's horrible. Last year, Democrats in the House said they were going to try and field candidates for all 120 seats. And I think they got to like 118, 119, which was a huge accomplishment. Many of those people knew they probably weren't going to win, but they understood that it was really vital if they wanted to help up ticket to have elected officials and candidates running in all the seats. Our old friend Anderson Clayton is the state party chair there.

the House Democratic leader Robert Reeves is terrific. I've been able to speak to him several times. And he talked about this a lot. And he said, look, some of our folks know they're not going to win, but they understand the importance of getting out and talking to their neighbors. Well, what happened in North Carolina? First of all, in the House, they picked up a couple of seats. The Democrats did so they broke the supermajority, which was important, the GOP supermajority. The other thing is Harrison Walls didn't win, but they elected a Democratic governor, a Democratic lieutenant governor, a Democratic lieutenant governor. Democratic. Attorney General, Democratic Superintendent of Schools. And they kept, they retained a Supreme Court Seat, Alison Riggs. She won by 730 votes and Republicans tried to steal the seat. But, you know, I kind of feel like if there wasn't that good, great get out the vote operation that was in part fueled by these state legislative candidates, who knows what would have happened. So I kind of feel like, you know, and then there are groups like rural ground game in Virginia. They've helped get to the point where Virginia has elections this year. They'll be very important.

100 seats in the House of Delegates on the ballot. They have candidates in all 100 seats. There's a group in Jess Piper does it out in Missouri, her organization, Blue Missouri. There's a group fighting 50 in Georgia doing the same thing, trying to recruit candidates to run everywhere. And there's one thing about Virginia. I just want to point out it's something we worked on many years ago, Matt, when we worked together. In 2017, the first year of the Trump administration, they were very, they had elections. They were elected governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and all 100 seats in the House of Delegates.

Going into that election, Republicans controlled the House 66 to 34, 66 to 34, like a two to one margin. In a state that had elected two United States Democratic senators, had had Democratic governors in the past, that showed how out of whack the whole thing. thing was. After those 2017 elections, the margin was 51-49 for Republicans. One of the seats was actually a tie and they had to pull a ball out of a bowl. It was tied, right? But right now, the Democrats are at 5149. They had a trifecta for a while with Governor Northam. They control the Senate, working very hard to expand their margins in the House. But I just kind of feel like, you know, that that was a good example of a state where a lot of A lot of focus was put on the top of the ticket, turning it blue, delivering the electoral votes.

They did for Hillary Clinton. They head for Obama. But down ballot was almost sort of overlooked. And now those candidates are, they're going to have 100 candidates running in Virginia. That's going to help spread the Democratic message. And it's also going to lift the top of the ticket as well, too. So I was like to talk about Virginia because it's, and that state will get undue attention this year, partly because it's the first state, I mean, there was a statewide Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, but it's also the first, along with New Jersey, that are going to have statewide elections for governors. And in New Jersey, all 80 assembly seats in Virginia, all 100, House of Delegate seats.

So what we're seeing now, and this is new, is that Democrats are prioritizing state and local elections, state elections specifically, and they are getting people to run in every district in the state, which usually the probably majority of the rural counties don't even have a Democratic candidate. And just by getting people to run in every race, they're starting to cut the margins because now you're turning out friends and family and neighbors of the candidate and rural Virginia. which is helping the top of the ticket or the governor or the senator, if it's a presidential year, the president. So that's new. That's a good thing. It's good that it's happening. But talk also a little bit about the special elections. I know the state Supreme Court race that you mentioned in Wisconsin, there seems to be some pretty good indicators of where voters are at right now when you look at these special elections at the state and local level. Yeah. I do want to give a shout to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. They do, they have really, they do excellent work. And there's a group called the States Project run by a former State Senator from New York, Dan Squadron, that has really up the game in the States, right? So we have the statewide elections and then, as you mentioned, the special elections. And I'll just give you an example. This year started with three special elections on January 7th in Virginia. Two, there was a state Senate seat in Northern Virginia. The incumbent had won a House U.S.

House seat. And so a House of Delegates member ran for that seat. So that seat was vacant. And then there was a vacant seat down in central Virginia. And if you were looking at the national media, which I was, there was this whole conversation, oh my God, can Democrats, are Democrats going to show up? Like there were like Politico and CNN were like giddy that maybe a Democrat would lose, the Democrats would lose in Northern Virginia. Those two Democrats overperformed Kamala Harris by a bit. But the big, overperformance was in the Senate district that was in a more rural area, Jack Trammell. I think he overperformed by like 13 or 14 points. That was the first one, right? And that was really

significant. And actually, Dave Weigel from, I think he's at notice now. He picked that up. He said Republicans underperform in Virginia. But it didn't fit the narrative because the national media had decided that Democratic Party was moribund. Then we get to the end of January. And there was a vacant state Senate seat in northeast Iowa. The incumbent had been picked to be the lieutenant governor by Kim Reynolds. So Republicans created this vacancy. I think Trump had won the district by over 20 points. There was a guy named Mike Zimmer who was running. And actually, I found out about it because one of our callers for Sirius XMR listeners made sure we knew, connected me with him. He had a terrific conversation with the guy. Like, I just, you know,

he was real. He was like, he'd been around. He'd been an educator. And it was so fascinating. We were talking. And he talked about running on Iowa values. And if you looked at his social media, you know, the day before the election, the value he was touting was that Iowa was the second state to allow same-sex marriage. So he wasn't shying away from progressive issues. He was running as a progressive. And he won. It shook. It was a shocker. A couple weeks later, there was another. There was a house seat. And then at Griffin House District 100, she didn't win, but she overperform. by about 20 points. A guy named James Malone won a state Senate seat in Lancaster County. No one thought he could win. So even in districts, what we see in a couple weeks ago, there were some special elections down in Brevard County, Florida. And I talked to both candidates, Van Sares, and Juan Ina Hosa. They didn't win, but they overperformed Trump by like 11 and 10 points. So my friends, our friends at the down ballot, David Neer and his colleagues, keep track of special elections in the overperformance by Democrats. And it's about 12 or 13 points right now that Democrats are overperforming.

They're not always winning, but they're closing margins in ways that hadn't been seen. And the last time we saw these numbers, and it wasn't even as good was in 2017. You know, it's just one data point, but a data point has repeated several times. So I think that's been a good side. And again, when you combine that with what we saw in Wisconsin at the statewide level, I think it bodes well for where people are. And I'll combine that with one other thing, Matt. I was on the air live during the No Kings protests.

And it was just fascinating. We heard from, I heard from listeners all over the country. A couple from bigger cities, but a lot of them were some suburban, ex-urban, rural areas. and people were just so excited at how many people showed up. And some of these small towns, you understand this, the progressives and the Democrats know each other. They think there's, you know, we're going to go. There'll be like 20 other people.

And then when 200 people showed up and everyone who's driving by honk and supporting them, it really creates a great energy. And I think that energy is real and outside of D.C. I think D.C. is such a kind of a weird little town in every. I think it's so focused on the Capitol building and the White House, but I feel like outside of D.C., and even outside of the Capitol, like even in D.C. proper, not on Capitol Hill, there's a lot more energy and a lot more excitement about, you know, winning elections, winning special elections, winning in Virginia, winning in New Jersey this year. So, yeah, and anyways, I can go out and not about this. Yeah, no, absolutely, because I think it's good news because we're going to be. what we're seeing like you're saying is that in the examples where we have special elections where somebody had to resign or somebody got moved into another position and the the states had to

hold a new election to replace those folks the democratic energy is so much higher it's so much more the democratic base is so much more motivated than you might actually see when you when you tune into CNN or MSNBC or you know god knows fox but what do you think Democrats nationally should be doing different, knowing that the base is so motivated and seeing that so many people are turning out in these special elections for the Democratic candidates. And like you said, it's even higher now. There's more Democratic energy in support of Democratic candidates in opposition to Donald Trump than we saw during the first term. So it seems like despite the fact that Trump won a second term, it seems like the people that are frustrated with him and are opposed to his agenda are just only continuing to grow. So what should Democrats be doing different? I would love to hear from that. Are you on that for a minute and then we'll close out? Yeah, you know what?

I actually think it's going to sound so simple, but get out of your bubble, get out of your D.C. bubble. Get out of – don't talk to your high-paid consultants in D.C. Talk to people who are knocking doors. Talk to – a lot of members of Congress have state legislators in their districts. They should be talking to them, especially the ones running in – Talk to the people who won special elections. Talk to them about what they're hearing on the doors. Talked about the frustration and the fears that people have around the country.

And understand that, you know, if you want to talk to people in the quote-unquote real world, it exists. It exists in your party. It exists in your ecosystem. Take advantage of it. And I actually feel like a top-down approach doesn't work. It's a bottom-up approach. And, you know, like I said, I learn so much. every week from talking to people. I'm a dork and I'm a geeks. I mean, factor that in. But I really

feel like so many people in democratic leadership could really learn a lot from that. Another good example, the mayor of Omaha, I didn't speak to those candidates, but, you know, in Omaha, they knocked off a three-term incumbent. There's a lot happening out in the quote-unquote real world that so many Democratic leaders and centrist talk about having to explore. Tell us a little bit about where people can find more information about you and follow you. Yeah, I'm on blue sky, Joe Sudbey. That's where I post a lot of my rants and occasionally pictures of my dog, Oliver, and other wildlife. The other thing is find me on Sirius XM, the Progress Channel.

It's Channel 127. My show airs over the week, and it's also on demand. And I guest host a lot there, too, which is always a lot of fun. I guest host for some of the regulars. I'll spend a week every couple, every month or two I spend a week on the air. And that's another great place, too, because we have listeners all over the country, and I learn a lot from them as well. I really feel very fortunate to have that opportunity, too. Well, Joe, thanks so much for chatting with us. I'm glad to do it. Thanks, Matt.

All right. We'll talk to you soon.