A growing library of explainers covering how state-level elections actually work. The "By Office" set walks through each statewide and legislative office and explains how it is filled and what it does. The "By Election Concept" set explains voting methods, structural rules, and other mechanics that cut across offices.
By Office
How each office works: selection method, term length, duties, succession, and political context.
State Legislatures
Current partisan composition of all 99 state legislative chambers, seat counts, margins, and supermajority status. The foundational overview for the 7,386 state legislative seats nationwide.
Read →Governors
Current governors of all 50 states by party, term information, election history, and partisan breakdown. The most powerful single office in state government.
Read →Trifectas
What "unified control" means at the state level and why trifectas matter for policy. Current trifecta map and status for all 50 states.
Read →Attorneys General
The role of state attorneys general, how they are selected, and the rising influence of AG-led coalitions and lawsuits across federal policy.
Read →Secretaries of State
Elections administration, business filings, succession rules, and why the SoS office moved from the political shadows into the national spotlight after 2020.
Read →Lt. Governors
Selection methods, joint tickets, gubernatorial succession, and why the office matters in some states and barely exists in others.
Read →Ballot Measures
Citizen initiatives, popular referendums, legislatively-referred questions, and the bond measures that go to voters every cycle. State-by-state authorization and process.
Read →By Election Concept
Voting methods, structural rules, and mechanics that cut across offices.
Primary Election Types
How states pick party nominees: closed, open, semi-closed, top-two, Louisiana's jungle, and Alaska's top-four with ranked choice. State-by-state breakdown, the three Supreme Court cases that shaped the system, and what the political-science evidence actually says about reform.
Read →Legislative Districts & MMDs
Single-member versus multi-member districts, and the three voting methods inside MMDs: bloc voting, position-based, and staggered position-based. Plus subdistricting, NH floterials, and the VRA fight over Section 2.
Read →Runoff Elections
How runoff elections work in the ten states that use them. Thresholds, triggers, the history of America's majority-rule election systems, and Georgia's uniquely demanding general-election runoff rule.
Read →Supermajorities
State legislative supermajority thresholds: veto overrides, tax increases, constitutional amendments, and which parties hold them today.
Read →Certification & the Canvass
Why "called" isn't "certified": the canvass process, what changes between election night and the official result, and every state's certification window with statutory citations.
Read →Vacancies & Appointments
How legislative seats get filled between elections — special elections, gubernatorial appointments, and party committees — with a 50-state map of observed practice from our own tracking.
Read →Coalitions & Power-Sharing
When a majority isn't a party: Alaska's bipartisan coalitions, Minnesota's tied House, nonpartisan Nebraska, and how working control differs from party control.
Read →Off-Cycle Elections
Why Virginia, New Jersey, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky vote in odd years — and why the whole country reads their results as tea leaves.
Read →Recounts
Automatic thresholds, candidate-requested recounts, tie-only states, and the three states with no recount law at all — the rules in all 50 states, and how they drive the recount badges on our results pages.
Read →- Redistricting 101 (the 10-year cycle, who draws the maps, court fights)
- Election Administration 101 (mail voting and in-person rules; certification and recounts now have their own explainers)
- Ballot Design 101 (how layout choices affect outcomes)
- Recall & Removal 101 (recall elections, impeachment, vacancy fills)
- Special Elections 101 (when vacancies happen and how they get filled)