In North Carolina, both political parties are paying particularly close attention to this year's state legislative elections:

That is because the legislature, as required by the U.S. Constitution, will draw new district maps for the legislature and for Congress in 2011 based on the census that will be conducted this year. Whether those maps are drawn by Democrats or Republicans - or jointly by both parties - could go a long way in deciding who holds power in Raleigh and who goes to Washington.

Democrats currently control both houses of the legislature, and leaders like Speaker Joe Hackney aren't downplaying the stakes for 2010:

"The conventional wisdom is that the election preceding redistricting is the most important one of the decade. I would not quarrel with that. We have seen redistricting make a big difference in legislative bodies."

For their part, Republicans are telling reporters that they are optimistic about their chances in this year's legislative races. But Democrats aren't taking the threat lightly. They're already hard at work recruiting strong candidates and laying the groundwork for victories this fall.

In a night when state Democrats were looking for good news, the New Jersey Assembly offered a sharp counterpoint to elections elsewhere.

Headed into Tuesday, Democrats held a solid majority, but Republicans had been talking about mounting a serious effort to cut into that margin, if not win the eight seats they would need to tie the chamber.

The Democratic Assembly Caucus met that challenge head-on. In the weeks before Election Day, New Jersey Democrats built up formidable advantages in fundraising, candidate quality, and organization. That in turn allowed them to counter a bad set of national trends and a strong statewide campaign from GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie.

Last night, the Democratic Caucus protected all of its incumbents. The only seat that appears to have changed hands was left open by retirement in District 4.

The NJ Democratic Assembly Caucus did nearly everything right in this year's election, and the advantages they banked during the summer allowed them to offset the Republican climate in the state last night.

Heading into the 2009 Election, Republicans and Democrats each held a majority they needed to protect. Tonight, the status quo remains the same.

In Virginia, buoyed by a set of strong statewide candidates and a national climate that put history on their side, Republicans have made gains in the House of Delegates. But the GOP believed that this election might help them wipe out all the Democratic gains of the past six years, and it did not.

We’ve known since June that Republicans were planning a hard charge to retake control of the New Jersey Assembly, but the Democratic Assembly Caucus appears to have met the challenge head-on. In the weeks before Election Day, New Jersey Democrats built up formidable advantages in fundraising, candidate quality, and organization, and that ultimately allowed them protect their chamber.

Across the country, Democrats still hold 60 legislative chambers and control 55 percent of the nation's partisan legislative seats. Our current position remains a solid one heading into the final election before the Census and the next round of Congressional and legislative redistricting.

Voters head to the polls today in elections across the country. Here are the voting hours for the legislative races we will be following most closely.

Virginia: 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

New Jersey: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Since 2003, Virginia Democrats have gained 11 seats in the House of Delegates. The 34-66 minority from six years ago has been cut to 45-55 today. To win a majority this year, Democrats must now pick up at least six of our top 14 offensive targets. That kind of gain is always a challenge, but we believe that the state’s changing demographics and the current political landscape offer us an opportunity to win the chamber.

Of the 14 districts that we are contesting, eight of them were won by both President Obama in 2008 and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine in 2005. The Virginia House Caucus, led by Democratic Leader Ward Armstrong -- a DLCC board member -- has recruited strong candidates who are running smart campaigns.

A significant cluster of vulnerable Republican districts are located in Northern Virginia, an area which has been trending more Democratic for almost a decade. In addition, Republican incumbents like Delegate Phil Hamilton -- who is under fire for a pay-for-play scandal involving Old Dominion University -- are doing their cause no favors.

Republicans are doing everything they can, however, to target Democratic incumbents, as well. Democratic members currently hold two seats in districts that President Obama lost last year, and a number of GOP challengers are raising serious cash in their races against our incumbents.

Many vulnerable Democratic incumbents are clustered in districts with strong ties to GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell. Activists and traditional-Republican voters from the area are sure to turn out in large numbers on Election Day.

The Republican State Leadership Committee is clearly concerned about their prospects in the state. With two weeks still left to go, the RSLC has committed serious cash in hopes of preserving their majority in Virginia.

In the state, the Democratic House Caucus outraised and outspent their GOP counterparts in the September. Last month, Democrats brought in nearly $2.7 million and spent more than $2.9 million, while the Republicans raised $2 million and spent $2.3 million.

Ultimately, both parties are tightly matched in this contest for control of the House of Delegates. Fundraising for candidates on both sides has been strong. The heated gubernatorial race is drawing attention from voters statewide. We expect that no one will know the outcome of this set of elections until deep into the night on November 3rd.

For more information, be sure to visit the Virginia newsfeed on DLCC.org.

Yesterday, we told you about Republican Rich Anderson, who sent a mailer to thousands of voters smearing Delegate Paul Nichols with false accusations. Each piece of mail also included Nichols' complete social security number – putting Nichols at serious risk of identity theft.

Now that Nichols has blasted Anderson for his incompetence and dirty politics, Anderson has stooped to whining that it’s not the campaign’s fault that their own mailer included their opponent’s social security number. (I guess now we know where Anderson stands on ethics and accountability….)

Nichols is also producing evidence against the accusations in the mailer -- that Nichols was involved in a DUI and hit a cop -- but Anderson’s campaign manager is calling Nichols’ evidence “hearsay” and claiming that their sleazy attack still stands.

Now, I haven't been to law school, but I'm pretty sure that eye witness testimony backing up Nichols’ story isn't “hearsay.” I’m also pretty sure that official police reports are not “hearsay” either, and they state unequivocally that (A.) Nichols was not driving, (B.) the car Nichols rode in was never pulled over by police, and (C.) no one was ever charged with a DUI. I’d call that extremely convincing evidence that Anderson’s accusations are a lie.

Most importantly -- The courts dropped all charges against Nichols, and a judge later cleared his name by expunging the record of the arrest.

The only one who may have broken the law is Rich Anderson, for the way he compromised Nichols' Social Security number.

And if legal action is coming, documentation will be easy to find. Evidence of wrong-doing is on every one of the thousands of Anderson campaign mailers sent to voters in the district.

No one expects a competitive election to be friendly. Emotions run high, feelings get hurt.

But Rich Anderson -- a Republican -- is setting a new standard for mudslinging in his race against Delegate Paul Nichols.

In 2006, Nichols was on a vacation in North Carolina with friends. On the way back from a dinner trip, the group was pulled over by the police. Nichols was not driving -- he was a passenger in the second of the two cars, which hadn't even been pulled over. But as a lawyer, Nichols thought he might be able to offer some assistance to his friend who had been stopped, so he stepped out of his vehicle.

As soon as he approached the first car, a police officer confronted him. The officer grabbed Nichols, and forced him to ground, where he struck his head and broke his nose. An ambulance was called for Nichols, but he was arrested for obstructing a police officer.

Now, as soon as the charges reached court, they were dropped. And Nichols' friends verify his account of the evening.

But that didn't stop Anderson from sending a mail piece to voters in the district which read:

In 2006, Paul Nichols and a friend were stopped by police for suspicion of DWI. … Fifty-one minutes later, an ambulance had been called to the scene, and Nichols had been arrested...

There's a difference between playing hardball and breaking the truth. With this mailing, Anderson blurs the line between fact and fiction and does a disservice to voters because of it.

To the prove the point, Delegate Nichols called his opponent from 2007. Faisal Gill -- another Republican -- confirmed that his campaign knew about North Carolina incident, but decided that using the issue as an attack would not be fair.

With this line of attack, Anderson is crossing lines even other Republicans avoid.

And if the dishonesty of the ad weren't bad enough, Anderson was also unbelievably reckless. His mail piece included an image of the arrest record -- with Nichol's personal information, including his Social Security number, clearly visible.

With less than a month before Election Day, Nichols is now spending time canceling credit cards and trying to verify that his identity hasn't been stolen.

As simple as that, in an election which had been focused on debating the issues, everyone is talking about an incident that never really happened.

Florida Democrats face a steep climb in the State House, where Republicans hold a convincing margin heading into 2010, but the wind is clearly at the Democrats’ backs as next year’s legislative races take shape.

Since 2006, Democrats have gained nine seats in the lower chamber, and conditions on the ground have produced a wealth of new targets for Democratic takeover:

Stemming chiefly from term limits, there are 25 House seats now held by Republicans where no incumbent is running, while Democrats have only three such openings. The disparity, helped along by voter trends, gives Democrats a chance to pick up – perhaps – 18 seats, [Democratic Rep. Ron] Saunders said.

Key to Saunders’ math, is even more calculus. In particular, it’s rooted in the performance of Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink in Republican-held districts during her 2006 race against then-Senate President Tom Lee, a Republican.

Across 18 districts, mostly narrowly GOP-leaning and concentrated in Central Florida, Sink gained at least 48 percent of the vote against Lee. Among them, are districts held by Reps. Pat Patterson, R-Eland, Alan Hayes, R-Umatilla, Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange, Ralph Poppell, R-Port Orange, Sandy Adams, R-Oviedo, Ed Homan, R-Tampa, and Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton.

In addition to the Republicans’ 25 open seats, Democrats are also buoyed by the Obama campaign’s massive voter registration effort in the state, which left the party with a 750,000-voter advantage in statewide registrations.

Even if Democrats fail to win back a majority next year, they’ll be working hard to gain as much ground as possible before 2011 redistricting.

Elections in Nevada are more than a year away, but that hasn't stopped many in their preparations for 2010.

Lawmakers in the state are limited to 12 years of service by a constitutional amendment passed by referendum in 1996. That means that 17 legislative seats will be left open across the state next year.

Complicating matters further is a new law that pushes primaries in the state from August to June. To run in the primary, candidates must file paperwork with the state by the end of May mid-March, and that has many would-be candidates laying the ground work for a run now.

These early preparations are giving us a picture of the themes that might emerge in next year's contests, and for the GOP, 2010 might shape up to be a battle for the soul of their party:

A tug-of-war within the Republican Party will likely pit moderate candidates against those with a more rigid conservative ideology. Political observers see a stronger potential that conservative Republicans could replace more moderate legislators in the Senate, tilting the GOP there to the right.

After a series of losses -- including control of the state senate -- it is somewhat surprising that Republicans would continue down the road of narrowing their appeal with most voters.

But to be honest, that's a decision we at the DLCC can't complain about.

Last month, when a prominent Alabama blog published election race rankings for every state legislative seat in the state, we noted that other state-wide rankings might be in the works. On Thursday, a Swing State Project contributor published rankings and summaries for every Michigan State Senate Race.

The cycle is still early in Michigan (primaries are August 3rd, 2010, with a May 11th filing deadline), but the senate landscape is slowly starting to take shape. One interesting pattern is that there will be almost no incumbents on the ballot for Michigan Senate races in 2010. Because of term limits, and barring any unexpected retirements, voters will fill 30 open seats while only 8 incumbents run for reelection (including the winner of an upcoming special election in District 19).

This year's special election is one we at the DLCC will watch very closely. Democrat Marty Griffin -- a former House member -- has announced his intention to run for the open seat.

Also, these rankings include presidential election results by district, and it’s pretty shocking to see how badly the Republican gerrymander broke down in Michigan last fall. Some of the most Republican senate districts in the state, even some ranked “likely Republican” by the author, were won by Obama. Between those results and the huge number of open seats, Michigan Democrats have to feel optimistic about gaining the 4 seats they need to take a majority.