section_path: Indicators/State Democracy Index
section_name: State Democracy Index
paragraph_text: State Democracy Index
  
  Jacob Grumbach published the State Democracy Index which evaluates states between 2000 and 2018 on the strength of their electoral democracy. While starting in 2002 and accelerating after the 2010 elections and redistricting, Grumbach found that almost all democratic backsliding in American states occurred under unified Republican Party control, while Democratic Party -controlled and divided states have become more democratic. Grumbach found Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina were the worst performers (with Wisconsin and North Carolina previously ranking at the top), and suggested a sense of racial threat was one of the main drivers in these states with larger black populations becoming more anti-democratic. Grumbach also cites economic inequality, the nationalization of state politics through declining journalism and an increase in national donors as contributors of backsliding. While he notes it would be difficult to compare across eras, he believes that the slavery and Jim Crow eras in particular had far greater gaps in the quality of democracy between states than the present day gaps he analyzes and notes that the US, in the eyes of some, was not a democracy until 1964. Vox describes this index as the first attempt to quantify democracy between U.S. states and as being widely-praised. 2018-2024 resulted in slight improvements overall thanks to the expansion of mail-in voting during COVID-19 and a couple states restricting gerrymandering.