In politics, any time you can get your opponent to repeat your own talking points, you’ve got the upper hand.

That’s what if felt like the other day when the Republican State Leadership Committee publicized a new Siena College poll showing only 27% of New Yorkers want the closely-divided State Senate to return to GOP control. Another 33% wanted Democrats to expand their 32-30 majority, and 34% said they were happy with the narrowly-divided status quo. We had highlighted the same poll earlier in the day.

The RSLC was thrilled because in their minds, that meant a “Majority of New Yorkers Oppose Democrat Gains in State Senate.” But they neglected to mention one important detail: the narrowly divided status quo is one in which Democrats nevertheless have a majority. Which means two-thirds of New Yorkers want either a small Democratic majority or an expanded one.

Only a quarter of New Yorkers actually believe that a Republican-controlled State Senate would be good for the people of New York.

Maybe that’s why the RSLC linked to the Siena College media release - which doesn’t even mention the question about State Senate control – and not to the poll results themselves.

And unless there’s any confusion about who those “keep it closely divided” voters are really planning to vote for, that 27% support for a Republican Senate looks pretty close to a high-water mark for the GOP statewide. In every single statewide head-to-head Siena tested, no Republican candidate earns more than 29% of the vote.

This is the clearest evidence yet that New York voters are not prepared to hand their government back to the party whose total disregard for middle class Americans caused the economic crisis we find ourselves in, and whose leaders have spent the last two years obstructing Democratic efforts to fix their mess.

Chas Sisk at The Tennessean recently profiled one Democratic State House candidate’s efforts and described how his campaign fits into the larger Democratic effort to regain a majority in the Tennessee State House:

Wanda Clew doesn't agree with Democrats on much, but when David LaRoche, a 30-year-old candidate for the state House of Representatives knocked on her door last week, she was ready to talk.

Standing on her front porch in southern Rutherford County on a late summer afternoon, Clew said the recession had cost her a factory job. Now retraining as a nurse, Clew has relied on unemployment payments to help make ends meet, and she resents Republican resistance to their extension.

"I'm a die-hard Republican, but they didn't back me up on that," Clew said. "I'm not happy with the president, and I'm not happy with the speaker of the House. But we'll see."

The Tennessee State House is one of a handful of states where Democrats are in position to go on offense this cycle. If they are successful, the field effort – candidates themselves and local volunteers going door-to-door speaking to voters – will play a major role in their success. Another major key to victory will be candidates’ knowledge of their communities and focus on local issues where state legislators can have a unique impact.

LaRoche, running in House District 48, gets it:

LaRoche has also set a goal of knocking on 10,000 doors before Election Day, a plan that will put him before countless swing voters like Clew. His pitch — that they should ignore the social and political issues that favor Republicans, at least in this one race.

"For me, it's all about Rutherford County," he said. "I'm not going to waste time on cable-news topics that maybe get people riled up on either side of the issue."

LaRoche isn’t the only one. Caucus Chairman Mike Turner – the newest member of the DLCC Board of Directors – will be carrying that same message to his House colleagues and Democratic challengers throughout the campaign season.

But the stakes for LaRoche, Turner, and Democrats everywhere go far beyond Rutherford County. As Tennessee GOP Chairman Chris Devaney revealed, picking up just two State House seats would shatter the Republican dream of gerrymandering three new congressional seats for the Republicans:

”we can pick up three seats (in Congress)," said Devaney. "The national Democrats know that, and they are going to be pouring money into the state. … That's why the Republican Party of Tennessee is going to do everything in its power to help our candidates."

Thanks to the closeness of the chamber and a wide disparity in potential pickup opportunities, the Democratic House Caucus has reason to be bullish about its ability to regain the majority they lost in 2008. Republicans are defending six open seats to the Democrats two, and they’re also defending eight first-term lawmakers compared to the Democrats’ four.

That puts the Republicans at something of a high water mark right now, forcing them to nearly run the table in order to cling to their 50-48-1 advantage.

New York Democrats have had to face a rocky economy and recession-induced budget shortfalls in their first few years as the majority party in the State Senate. But New York voters remember the previous 40 years of GOP control, and according to a new Siena College poll, only 27% of New York voters want to go back:

• 33%: Want to see Democrats expand their State Senate majority

• 34%: Prefer the status quo, in which Democrats hold a narrow edge
• 27%: Want to see Republicans re-take a majority

This has to be unwelcome news for State Senate Republicans. Between the GOP infighting occurring up and down the ballot and the collapse of the Senate Republicans’ statewide campaign apparatus, Republican Senate candidates were depending on a hostile electorate to carry them over the top in key districts.

But that electorate, while clearly hostile to incumbents (only 31% plan to re-elect their incumbent Senator in a generic question), is not scapegoating Democrats for the state’s troubles. And with Republicans showing extreme weakness in every statewide contest tested in the Sienna poll, there are no coattails for GOP legislative candidates to ride.

The New York Senate is a top redistricting priority for the Democratic Party this cycle, because Democratic control of the chamber would give Democrats complete control of the redistricting process for both congressional and state legislative districts.

Democrats have not held a majority in both legislative chambers in New York during a redistricting year since 1910 - exactly 100 years ago. The only other time this has occurred (since the advent of the Republican Party as a competitor) was in 1870.

Thanks to the 2/3 Democratic majority in the Connecticut Legislature, Democrats in 2009 overrode the governor’s veto of a bill to create “SustiNet,” designed to be the nation’s first true public option health insurance plan. But with the Connecticut Legislature and governorship up for election in 2010, many analysts believe that this year’s voters hold the fate of SustiNet in their hands.

And the choice couldn’t be clearer – if you live in Connecticut and believe in building a public option, you need to get out and vote for Democrats. The American Prospect’s Joanne Kenen explained the situation:

Though approved in concept by the state Legislature, SustiNet at this point is only a concept. It has a board, a cadre of volunteer analysts, and task forces as well as support from foundations, advocates, and Democratic legislators. But the commission must go back to the Legislature next year for final approval -- and funding -- in an environment that is fiscally challenging and politically uncertain. The race to succeed Gov. Jodi Rell, a moderate Republican who is not seeking re-election, is competitive, and the Legislature, which passed the SustiNet bill and then overrode Rell's veto, could have a different composition post-November. For political or economic reasons, SustiNet could be delayed or scaled down. But state Rep. Chris Donovan, the speaker of the Connecticut House, says the idea has broad public support. The message he has been relaying around the state, he says, is, "Better plan, costs less. Like that beer commercial: tastes great, less filling."

We hope you caught that – even a self-proclaimed “moderate” Republican vetoed the plan last year, despite broad public support (that seems to be happening a lot lately). Which means the best way to guarantee that SustiNet stays on track is to maintain the Democrats’ veto-proof majority in the legislature.

It would take a disastrous election cycle to break State House Democrats’ 114-37 advantage, but State Senate Democrats currently sit right at the 2/3 mark with a 24-12 edge. Just like the federal health care reform bill, not a single Republican State Senator voted to pass SustiNet.

And make no mistake, if SustiNet goes online in 2012 as planned, it will be a groundbreaking achievement for health care reform:

[SustiNet Board Co-Chair Kevin] Lembo and other advocates note that SustiNet is not just a coverage mechanism. It was conceived, too, as a catalyst for delivery-system reform, aiming to improve quality while restraining costs. Various task forces are working on creating or expanding medical homes and chronic -- disease management, electronic medical records, incentives for evidence-based medicine, and public-health initiatives on obesity and tobacco. Addressing racial and socioeconomic health disparities is also an explicit goal. Lembo said the public option could end up covering about 1 million people out of Connecticut's 3.5 million, meaning it could have a big ripple effect on health-care delivery and public health throughout the state.

If the experience of Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Oregon are any guide, it could also become a model for other states to follow – and possibly the federal government as well.

It isn’t always about majorities.

Even with Florida Republicans defending 25 open State House seats this fall (compared to the Democrats’ 3 open seats), strategists on both sides will admit that overtaking the GOP’s 74-44 House advantage or 26-13 Senate advantage would be a tall order even in a Democratic-leaning year.

But as the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Josh Hafenbrack explains, Florida Democrats are in an excellent position to achieve two other crucial goals this year. On the one hand, gaining just five of those open seats would deny the Republicans the ability to pass state constitutional amendments at will (a power they’ve enjoyed since 1998).

On the other hand, simply holding their current number of seats would deny Republicans the 2/3 majority they’ll need to override a (hopefully) Democratic gubernatorial veto. Hafenbrack describes what that unchecked GOP power would mean for Floridians:

The result, for Floridians, is likely to be statehouse politics that the Tea Party can love. Expect renewed legislative efforts to dismantle teacher tenure and mandate ultrasounds for women seeking abortions, proposals vetoed by newly independent Gov. Charlie Crist this year.

And, of course, a 2/3 Republican majority in the legislature would leave a Democratic governor with no leverage whatsoever to influence the congressional redistricting process in one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. George Bush won twice as many of Florida’s congressional districts as either Al Gore or John Kerry (winning 17-8 in 2000 and 18-7 in 2004), and even John McCain, who lost Florida by nearly 3% statewide, still won more congressional districts than President Obama (a 15-10 advantage).

Even if Democrats win back the governorship this year, unpacking that gerrymander depends on holding our ground in the state legislature or advancing by just a few seats.

Alaska, home to the nation’s largest state legislative district (Senate District C, which would stretch from Jacksonville, FL to Minneapolis, MN if superimposed over the continental United States), may be adding 6 new legislators in the next round of redistricting, if a state constitutional amendment proposed by the legislature is approved by voters:

The state Legislature has voted to expand both chambers by 10 percent, by adding another two and four Senate and House seats, respectively. The vote comes as the state sees increasing signs of a population shift from rural areas to bigger cities. It also precedes a coming shift in legislative district boundaries to match population estimates from the latest federal census, which is ongoing.

If the new members are approved by voters, the expectation is that rural areas will maintain the same number of Senators and Representatives, instead of losing some of them to fast-growing Anchorage.

It’s still unclear how the proposal would affect the political balance in the state. Both legislative chambers are competitive, with the Senate tied (though run by a unique coalition of Democrats and Republicans) and Democrats within two seats of tying the State House.

An earlier version of the amendment would have expanded the legislature even further.

CBS News recently published an in-depth report on reapportionment following the 2010 Census, including which states might gain, which might lose, and how that will impact political power in America.

Congressional reapportionment and redistricting are closely related, but it’s important to understand their separate impacts. Any state with more than one congressional district can be redistricted to favor one party or another. But in states that gain or lose seats, political control in the state legislatures will be crucial in determining which party the extra districts favor or, in states that lose seats, which party’s congressperson loses his or her district.

According to projections, those states will likely be:

Discounting states that redistrict though non-partisan commissions, Democrats currently hold majorities in many of the states set to gain or lose seats, while many of the Republican-held states in the South may have to create additional majority-minority districts to satisfy the Voting Rights Act.

But CBS also looked at the impact of reapportionment on future Presidential elections, in which the South and West are likely to gain electoral votes while the Northeast and Midwest lose them:

Electoral votes are shifted, too. Unlike the House, where district lines could determine which party gains advantage from a new apportionment, the presidential maps' winner-take-all formulas go directly to the totals. This means new electoral math, and perhaps a revised list of battlegrounds.

Voting differences by region are well-known even to casual political watchers: the Northeast is now solidly Democrat and often liberal (in fact, there are no GOP House members in New England at all) while the deep South and much of the Midwest remain strong Republican territory.

Of course, all such projections depend on an accurate Census count with full participation. We’ve already discussed what a challenge this is. And with participation rates in the Midwest running noticeably ahead of the South, the final congressional allocation could include some surprises.

Congressional Quarterly and Stateline.org both wrote this week about the impact the 2010 state legislative elections will have on redistricting, and they both drew the same conclusion we’ve been arguing here: this is a big deal.

From Stateline:

Democrats currently control 60 state legislative chambers, most of which will draw maps for 383 congressional and 5,074 state legislative seats, the party says. But 21 of those chambers in 17 states are within five seats of changing hands politically. These 17 states will shape 198 congressional districts during redistricting.

How important is it to keep as much of that ground as possible in Democratic hands? Considering that 15 of the 17 congressional seats that changed hands in 2002 did so because of redistricting, it’s very important. Add in the 5 seats Republicans gained through their mid-decade gerrymander of Texas -- in a year when Republicans only saw a net gain of 3 seats nationwide -- and the picture is even clearer.

CQ Politics, meanwhile, went a little bit deeper in examining some of the Party organizations forming to take on the redistricting task. Of particular importance is the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, formed to help advise Democratic legislators on how to draw legally-acceptable districts and to fund Democratic legal efforts to defend or challenge particular plans:

The parties are forced to use hard dollars or rely on outside groups without member involvement. But the trust asked the Federal Election Commission for an advisory opinion to clarify members’ roles in certain redistricting activities.

“The Trust seeks to confirm that members of Congress may solicit funds for the Trust outside the limits and source restrictions prescribed by the Federal Election Campaign Act,” according to the Feb. 19 letter signed by Marc Elias of Perkins Coie on behalf of the trust. “[S]uch solicitations are not intended to influence any federal or non-federal election and will not advocate the election or defeat of any candidate for office.”

“An advisory opinion is a shield, not a sword,” Elias explained in an interview about potential FEC complaints filed by opponents in the future.

Even though redistricting is an inherently political task, Democrats want the FEC to continue to differentiate between legal activity and electioneering.

Elias, you might remember, was the legal guru and public face of Al Franken’s masterful recount and legal defense operation in the disputed Minnesota Senate election. Any Democrat who followed those proceedings should rest easier knowing he’ll be involved in our redistricting effort.

We sometimes call the Texas House, where Democrats need just three more seats to take control, one of the biggest redistricting prizes at stake in 2010. But an article in today’s Texas Tribune explains some of the reasons why Texas -- even more than other large states -- is so crucial:

"Texas is the perfect shape for malleability," [Republican consultant Craig] Murphy says. "Perfect is a circle, and we're close." A state like California is harder to gerrymander, since you can't grab people from the north and put them in the same districts as people in the south. Texas, on the other hand, has enormous districts that stretch from San Antonio to El Paso, from Eldorado to Pampa, from Matador to Gainesville, from Seguin to Pharr, from Mentone to Burnet.

"We've done the most extreme things of any state," he says. "Drawing seats the other party can't win — we've been very good at that. It's partly our geography… and high population growth gives us lots of options."

The high population growth Murphy refers to will likely cause Texas to gain up to four new congressional districts after 2010. That combination of new seats and geographic flexibility would allow the GOP to wreak all kinds of havoc if they hold both legislative chambers and the governorship next year.

While the final maps must conform to Voting Rights Act redistricting guidelines, the Texas Legislature is responsible for drawing new congressional lines. The Speaker of the House is also a member of the state’s Legislative Redistricting Board, which draws the state legislative redistricting plan if the Legislature fails to produce a valid plan before its deadline to do so.

Democrats in dark-red states like Utah and Idaho know they have a tough road ahead of them this November, and we at the DLCC salute them for taking up the challenge. Discounting candidate home states, these were George W. Bush’s two best states in 2004, and legislative Democrats there are more outnumbered than anywhere else in the country.

But despite these challenges, Democrats in both states have successfully fielded enough legislative candidates to deny the Republicans a free ride to the majority.

The Utah Dems did quite well, in fact, fielding candidates in 60 of 75 House districts and 13 of 15 Senate Districts. Even though only half of the Senate is up for election this year, the seven Republican seats being contested are enough to flip the chamber if Democrats ran the table.

Idaho was a little bit dicier for the party, but according to the Secretary of State’s official candidate list (PDF), Democrats successfully fielded enough candidates to capture control in both chambers, and every competitive district will feature a Democratic candidate.

This is in stark contrast to the Republican recruiting performance in Arkansas and West Virginia, two states which were among John McCain’s best performers. Despite this advantage, Republicans still conceded control of both State Senates by failing to field enough candidates to win a majority. Republicans have the same problem in the Illinois Senate.

This means two things. First, it means Democrats are in better shape organizationally and at the grassroots in the two most challenging states for Democrats than the Republicans are in some states where they need to outperform this November.

Second, it means Democrats start this election cycle with a 3-1 lead in chambers where one party’s poor recruiting has made it mathematically impossible for them to take the majority. Add to that a 8-1 lead in chambers that aren’t up for election this year (Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Virginia), and it’s pretty clear Republicans have a lot of catching up to do.