Which U.S. states had Democratic trifectas as of January 2026?
Executive summary
As of January 2026, authoritative trackers report that Democrats held 16 state government trifectas — meaning control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers in those states [1] [2]. Major trackers (Ballotpedia, 270toWin, MultiState) converge on that count even as they note recent churn from the 2022–2025 election cycles that reshaped several trifectas [1] [2] [3].
1. The raw number: 16 Democratic trifectas, 23 Republican trifectas
By late January 2026, Ballotpedia reported 16 Democratic trifectas, 23 Republican trifectas, and 11 states with divided government, a summary repeated by other aggregators such as 270toWin and MultiState [1] [2] [3]. Those tallies reflect the standard definition used by these trackers: a trifecta exists when one party controls the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature, and in unicameral Nebraska the single legislative body plus the governor [2] [1].
2. What changed recently — the 2024 and 2025 effects
The overall Democratic trifecta count has been volatile: reporting notes Democrats lost two trifectas as a result of the 2024 elections, with Republicans breaking Democratic control in at least Michigan and Minnesota according to post-election analyses [4] [5]. Conversely, after the 2025 elections Democrats picked up at least one trifecta when Virginia moved from divided government to a Democratic trifecta following the gubernatorial win there, a change flagged by Ballotpedia’s 2025 election roundup [6].
3. Why trackers differ on a small number of states and triplex distinctions
Different organizations sometimes report slightly different tallies for related measures — for example, Ballotpedia distinguishes “triplexes” (governor, attorney general, secretary of state) from trifectas and shows a different count of states where those align, noting 15 states with both a Democratic trifecta and triplex as of January 2026 [7]. MultiState’s periodic pages reflected 15 Democratic trifectas at points in 2025 before updating to 16 in later 2026 reporting, illustrating how timing and definitions (and the date of retrieval) drive apparent discrepancies in public summaries [5] [3].
4. What can be named from the provided sources — and what cannot
The supplied sources consistently provide the national counts and recent shifts but do not include a single, extractable list of the specific states that constituted the 16 Democratic trifectas as of January 2026 within the snippets provided to this report; therefore this article does not assert a state-by-state list beyond the changes explicitly noted in those sources [1] [2] [6]. Ballotpedia’s full pages and 270toWin’s interactive maps contain state-level tables and maps, but those detailed listings were not included in the excerpts supplied here, so asserting the exact roster of 16 states would exceed what the provided reporting supports [1] [2].
5. What readers should take away — context and caveats
The headline fact is clear and consistent across reputable trackers: Democrats held 16 trifectas as of January 2026 amid a broader landscape where Republicans held 23 and 11 states had split control [1] [2] [3]. However, the composition of those Democratic trifectas changed in the 2022–2025 cycle (losses in 2024, a notable gain in Virginia in 2025), and precise, state-level identification requires consulting the full state-by-state tables or interactive maps on Ballotpedia, 270toWin, or MultiState that are outside the provided snippets [4] [6] [5].