The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) is a political organization designed to assist Republicans in capturing and holding control of state legislatures across the United States. The organization notably raised over $140 million from 2004 to 2014, working across the country. The RSLC's Democratic Party counterpart is the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). [1]
The organization has stated that it "is the largest caucus of Republican state leaders in the country and the only national organization whose mission is to elect down-ballot, state-level Republican officeholders" with efforts focused on "the offices of lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state legislator, the judiciary and other down-ticket races." The RSLC has also asserted that they have "more than 150,000 donors in all 50 states." [2]
The RSLC President position is currently held by Matt Walter. The RSLC has functioned since 2002, [2] while their rivals in the DLCC got started after the 1992 elections.
After Ed Gillespie was announced chairman in January 2010, the RSLC is reported to have laundered $1.5 million from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians to Alabama Speaker Mike Hubbard and a group associated with Jack Abramoff. [3] From January 2010 to January 2014 the RSLC paid Gillespie $654,000. [3]
Political activist campaigns founded or co-founded by the RSLC include the "Judicial Fairness Initiative", the "Future Majority Project", and the "Right Women, Right Now" initiative. [2] As of the aftermath of the 2014 U.S. elections, the Republican Party controls 68 out of 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the country, with the RSLC a major part of the efforts to hold onto these chambers into the future. [1]
The RSLC is also the sponsoring organization of the .gop top-level Internet domain. [4] [5]
The RSLC was established in 2002 with a leading Republican strategist Chris Jankowski as its "driving force". Through the RSLC Jankowski responded to the national fund-raising challenge faced by down-ballot state-level Republican candidates. [6] [7] [Notes 1]
In the United States, politics function within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that share powers: the U.S. Congress which forms the legislative branch, a bicameral legislative body comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate; the executive branch, which is headed by the president of the United States, who serves as the country's head of state and government; and the judicial branch, composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and which exercises judicial power.
American electoral politics have been dominated by successive pairs of major political parties since shortly after the founding of the republic of the United States. Since the 1850s, the two largest political parties have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party—which together have won every United States presidential election since 1852 and controlled the United States Congress since at least 1856. Despite keeping the same names, the two parties have evolved in terms of ideologies, positions, and support bases over their long lifespans, in response to social, cultural, and economic developments—the Democratic Party being the left-of-center party since the time of the New Deal, and the Republican Party now being the right-of-center party.
Edward Walter Gillespie is an American politician, strategist, and lobbyist who served as the 61st Chair of the Republican National Committee from 2003 to 2005 and was counselor to the President from 2007 to 2009 during the Presidency of George W. Bush. In 2012 Gillespie was a senior member of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.
Political party strength in U.S. states is the level of representation of the various political parties in the United States in each statewide elective office providing legislators to the state and to the U.S. Congress and electing the executives at the state and national level.
The 2006 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, in the middle of Republican President George W. Bush's second term. In a political revolution that broke twelve years of Republican rule, the Democratic Party was swept into majorities in Congress, the governorships, and state legislatures across the country. This marked the first and only time either party achieved such a feat since the 1994 elections. These elections were widely categorized as a Democratic wave.
The Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) is the affiliate of the Republican Party in the U.S. state of Florida. Florida was dominated by the Democratic Party for most of its history. The Republican Party has rapidly gained ground in recent decades. It is currently the state's favored party, controlling the majority of Florida's U.S. House seats, both U.S. Senate seats, the governorship, and has supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature.
The Indiana Republican Party is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in the state of Indiana. The chairman of the Indiana Republican State Committee is Anne Hathaway.
The Republican Party of Iowa (RPI) is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in Iowa. The State Central Committee is chaired by Jeff Kaufmann. The RPI operates the Republican side of the Iowa caucuses and previously sponsored the Iowa Straw Poll.
Elections in Oregon are all held using a Vote by Mail (VBM) system. This means that all registered voters receive their ballots via postal delivery and can vote from their homes. A state Voters’ Pamphlet is mailed to every household in Oregon about three weeks before each statewide election. It includes information about each measure and candidate in the upcoming election.
The 2010 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 2, 2010, in the middle of Democratic President Barack Obama's first term. Republicans ended unified Democratic control of Congress and the presidency by winning a majority in the House of Representatives and gained seats in the Senate despite Democrats holding Senate control.
The politics of Colorado, United States, are that of a blue state. Once considered a swing state that used to be Republican-leaning, Colorado has been trending Democratic since the early part of the 21st century due to changing demographics and a rising number of the large unaffiliated bloc of voters leaning Democratic. The growing shift of the state's Republican Party towards social and religious conservatism along with shifting further to the right has also been cited as reasons for the changing voting patterns of Colorado.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) is the U.S. Democratic Party organization that works to elect Democrats to state legislatures. The committee was formed after the 1992 elections by a group of Democratic state legislators and then-DNC chair David Wilhelm.
The 2012 United States elections took place on November 6, 2012. Democratic President Barack Obama won reelection to a second term and the Democrats gained seats in both chambers of Congress, retaining control of the Senate even though the Republican Party retained control of the House of Representatives. As of 2022, this is the most recent election cycle in which neither the presidency nor a chamber of Congress changed partisan control, and the last time that the winner of the presidential race provided coattails for their party in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The 2010 United States state legislative elections were held on November 2, 2010, halfway through President Barack Obama's first term in office. Elections were held for 88 legislative chambers, with all states but Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia holding elections in at least one house. Kansas and New Mexico held elections for their lower, but not upper houses. Four territorial chambers in three territories and the District of Columbia were up as well.
The 2014 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 4, 2014, in the middle of Democratic President Barack Obama's second term. Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives and won control of the Senate.
The 2018 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. These midterm elections occurred during Incumbent Republican President Donald Trump's term. Although the Republican Party increased its majority in the Senate, unified Republican control of Congress and the White House was brought to an end when the Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives in what was widely characterized as a "blue wave" election.
The Count My Vote initiative was a 2014 Utah citizens' initiative measure which proposed to replace the state's caucus selection process for candidates for public office with a mandatory primary election. The initiative sponsors' stated purposes were to increase civic engagement and voter participation. The text of the Count My Vote initiative was incorporated into Senate Bill 54 by the Utah State Legislature—along with an option for a dual-path nominating process involving conventions and/or petitions—and this bill was signed into law by Governor Gary Herbert in March 2014. The constitutionality of this law is currently being challenged in federal court by the Utah Republican Party and the Utah Constitution Party, which wish to continue using the caucus system to qualify their party's candidates.
The 2020 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Democratic presidential nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in the presidential election. Despite losing seats in the House of Representatives, Democrats retained control of the House and gained control of the Senate. As a result, the Democrats obtained a government trifecta, the first time since the elections in 2008 that the party gained unified control of Congress and the presidency. With Trump losing his bid for re-election, he became the first defeated incumbent president to have overseen his party lose the presidency and control of both the House and the Senate since Herbert Hoover in 1932. This was the first time since 1980 that either chamber of Congress flipped partisan control in a presidential year, and the first time Democrats did so since 1948.
The 2020 United States state legislative elections were held on November 3, 2020, for 86 state legislative chambers in 44 states. Across the fifty states, approximately 65 percent of all upper house seats and 85 percent of all lower house seats were up for election. Nine legislative chambers in the five permanently-inhabited U.S. territories and the federal district of Washington, D.C. also held elections. The elections took place concurrently with several other federal, state, and local elections, including the presidential election, U.S. Senate elections, U.S. House elections, and gubernatorial elections.
Following the 2020 United States presidential election and the unsuccessful attempts by Donald Trump and various other Republican officials to overturn it, Republican lawmakers initiated a sweeping effort to make voting laws more restrictive within several states across the country. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, as of October 4, 2021, more than 425 bills that would restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states—with 33 of these bills enacted across 19 states so far. The bills are largely centered around limiting mail-in voting, strengthening voter ID laws, shortening early voting, eliminating automatic and same-day voter registration, curbing the use of ballot drop boxes, and allowing for increased purging of voter rolls. Republicans in at least eight states have also introduced bills that would give lawmakers greater power over election administration after they were unsuccessful in their attempts to overturn election results in swing states won by Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The efforts garnered press attention and public outrage from Democrats, and by 2023 Republicans had adopted a more "under the radar" approach to achieve their goals.
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