< Big Money Is Helping GOP Win In State Legislatures Too

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Republicans made headlines earlier this month with sweeping victories in races for state legislatures. They now control 31 state houses. The Democrats control 10. The rest are divided between the two parties. It's a battleground that the big-money national parties are seeing more and more as a good place to invest. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

PETER OVERBY, BYLINE: Every election cycle, the big money comes in for national party organizations on both sides. They send fieldworkers, funds and consultants into the states. Matt Walter, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, or RSLC, in Washington, D.C.

MATT WALTER: Election Day 2014 was a great success for Republicans across the country, certainly at the federal level, but it was really at the state level where all-time records were approached and broken.

OVERBY: Across town from the RSLC, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has always been relatively underfunded. The DLCC was pummeled in 2010 and again this year. But executive director Michael Sargeant says just wait. Things will look different in 2016.

MICHAEL SARGEANT: There's a real, you know, understanding and urgency that, you know, as much as we've been doing, everybody needs to be doing more. There's an excitement about the fact that, you know, we should be in a position to actually go on the - you know, a lot of real productive offense next cycle.

OVERBY: This fight isn't just about who gets the legislative clout in state capitals - although that's important, too, especially with a gridlocked Congress. There's also redistricting in 2020, a political price so precious both parties are already ramping up. And the parties always regard state legislatures as a place to train future candidates for national office.

WALTER: You have a real farm team aspect.

OVERBY: Again, Matt Walter at the RSLC.

WALTER: More than half of the new members of Congress served in their state legislatures, most notably Thom Tillis and Joni Ernst.

OVERBY: Tillis was speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives. Ernst served nearly four years in the Iowa state Senate. Both won election to the U.S. Senate this month. Meanwhile, the 2010 and 2014 elections thinned out Democratic ranks, weakening their bench of up-and-coming national players. As for the donors behind all of this, both sides say they realize the importance of engaging at the state level. Walter, at the RSLC, says his donors have what he calls a stake in where you want your country to go.

WALTER: And the spot where you can have the greatest impact on the process and the greatest return on your investment for driving your state or your country, in general, forward is at the state level.

OVERBY: The reality is that these donors are pretty much the same donors that you see on all the other lists around Washington. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other chambers gave the RSLC nearly $3 million for the 2014 campaigns. The DLCC got better than 5 million in all from 13 unions. Some donors give to both sides but not always equally. PhRMA, the trade association for prescription drugmakers, gave $100,000 to the Democrats and about eight times that much to the Republicans. Foreign corporations gave, too. Among them, Zurich Financial Services in Switzerland and AstraZeneca in Great Britain. Thad Kousser is a political scientist at the University of California San Diego. He follows politics in the states.

THAD KOUSSER: Spending on state races is a real bargain for the national parties. Right? You can get more bang for your campaign bucks in the states than you can from these national Senate races that were just saturated with tens and tens of millions of dollars.

OVERBY: It's a truth that's been appreciated more on the Republican side. The Democrats are working hard to catch up. Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.

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