Want to know how badly the Democrats fucked up 2020? Consider this:

The party helped Amy McGrath raise more than $88 million for her dud campaign.

$88 million is also the total amount the party raised to win back state legislative chambers ahead of 2021’s redistricting.
Not only did Democrats likely fail to flip a single state legislative chamber, they actually lost New Hampshire's house and senate.

Now, Republicans control 59 chambers nationally with trifectas (house, senate, governorship) in 23 states. Democrats have 37 and 15 respectively.
The damage is compounded by the fact Supreme Court precedent that partisan gerrymandering claims are non-justiciable and the fact that the Trump administration stopped the census counting early, which means we're dealing with less accurate numbers.
What's the end result?

GOP, with carte blanche from the SCOTUS, gerrymanders the hell out of the states it controls. Democrats have less accurate demographic information with which to fight back—to the extent they even can.

And those maps will be in place for the next decade.
Democrats had 2 election cycles to correct for this—and both were favorable: 2018 and 2020.

Midterms typically favor the opposition party.

Unpopular presidents who preside over weak economies are generally vulnerable despite incumbent advantage.

Yet, this is where we're at.
Where does this leave us as a country?

With a built-in GOP advantage in the legislatures as we face climate change, the pandemic, and the economic mess we're in.

Democrats needed to win this year down-ballot. They needed to and they didn't.
It's not like they didn't know the importance. In 2010, Democrats fell asleep as the GOP poured money into state races, winning 54 of the 99 chambers and gerrymandering their advantages at the state and national level. The GOP House stood despite a 2 million vote deficit in 2012.
Joe Biden even promised he would lead Democrats to victory in the state houses back in March. So what happened? https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1234927020913627140?s=20
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