Last week the Democratic Party made gains in legislative races in Mississippi and Virginia, resulting in the map that you see above. (See the National Conference of State Legislatures for a review of the 2007 elections and a table of the current partisan makeup in all states.) Support for one party at the state legislative level does not necessarily transfer into voter support for that party in presidential elections. Still, outside of the South, where the Republicans have spent about four decades slowly chipping away at Democratic strength at the local level, the map isn’t too different from the red vs. blue maps we all know from 2000 and 2004. And the Democratic nominee of 2008 might do well to concentrate on states where the party’s label seems less toxic; for example, I would suggest that North Carolina is more promising than Georgia, even if both states have been solidly Republican in recent presidential elections.

The map above gives a very rough estimate of the difference between voters who support Democratic presidential candidates and those whose support Democratic legislative candidates. A few things jump out at me. First, the correlation between presidential vote and state legislative vote seems relatively strong in large Rust Belt states with a history of political machines (historically reformist Minnesota being a notable exception). Second, the Republican Party has some major building to do in the Northeast Corridor and the West Coast. In George W. Bush’s three weakest states (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont), the Republicans are even weaker at the state legislative level. Finally, there are several states in which the GOP actually seems stronger at the local than at the presidential level. And two of them, Florida and Ohio, are swing states that produced nightmare results for Democrats in 2000 and 2004.

Our last map isolates states that went for one party in the last presidential election but another party in its most recent legislative elections. The blue states, which are mostly rural and away from the coasts, may be persuaded to go Democratic in 2008 — if the party’s nominee is not seen as captive to East Coast and California interests. (These states may be to the right of the national party on gun control and gay rights, but also more populist than Democratic leaders on NAFTA and other trade issues.) As for the Republicans, the industrial states of Michigan and Pennsylvania stick out as places they should be able to carry if their nominee can tap into the issues that work for the party at the local level.