Signs are emerging that Donald Trump is trying to steal an Electoral College victory through state legislatures. The US Constitution empowers those legislatures to “appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct” their presidential electors. Biden’s victory hinges on five states he appears to have won, but whose legislatures remain fully controlled by Republicans after Democrats failed to win them back in 2018.

The whole affair is a reminder of the importance of state races — and Democrats failing to prioritize them.

That failure not only imperils the presidential election results this year, but could also spell disaster in state and congressional elections over the next decade. Legislatures will begin redrawing federal and state legislative district maps after this year’s census — and Republicans’ continued dominance of legislatures gives them more power to draw those maps in ways that maximize their representation in the narrowly divided US House.