Kristie Hilliard opened her new shop, Kristie Kandies, in downtown Rocky Mount, N.C., after getting tired of her factory job at the local Pfizer plant. She’s seen a steady flow of customers, but says she’s doesn’t think either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump would change her economic fortunes. (Kevin Hardy/Stateline)

Editor’s note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these “swing states” may decide the future of the country.

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — The signs on the empty historic buildings envision an urban utopia of sorts, complete with street cafes, bustling bike lanes and a grocery co-op.

“IMAGINE What Could Be Here,” gushes one sign outside the empty, Neoclassical post office. “IMAGINE! A Vibrant Downtown,” reads another mounted on the glass front of a long-ago closed drug store.

In a place like Rocky Mount, North Carolina, it’s not such a stretch: Just across the street, white-collar workers peck away at laptops and sip lattes at a bright coffee bar lined with dozens of potted tropical plants. A few blocks away, a mammoth events center routinely brings in thousands of visitors from across the country. And alongside a quiet river nearby, a meticulously redeveloped cotton mill would be the envy of any American city, with its modern breweries, restaurants and loft living.

An industrial community long in decline, Rocky Mount is slowly building itself back. But in this city of about 54,000, sharply divided by race and class, many residents struggle to cover the basic costs of groceries, housing and child care.

North Carolina reflects the duality of the American economy: Unemployment is low, jobs are increasing and businesses are opening new factories. But high housing and food costs have squeezed middle-class residents despite the gains of rising wages.

“The economy stinks,” said Tameika Horne, who owns an ice cream and dessert shop in Rocky Mount.

Her ingredient prices have skyrocketed, she said, but she can’t continuously raise prices on ice cream cones or funnel cakes. She said last month was her slowest ever, with only $2,000 in sales.

It’s not just the slow sales at her store: Only a few years ago, she paid $700 a month to rent a three-bedroom apartment. Now, her similarly sized rental home costs her $1,350 a month.

Aside from the ice cream shop, Horne also runs a cleaning business with her family and just started a job delivering packages for FedEx.

“It’s just hard right now,” she said.

The economy, a top issue for voters during any election, is particularly important this presidential cycle: Prices of necessities such as groceries aren’t rising as fast as they were, but years of post-pandemic inflation have soured voter attitudes.

And across the country, millions of families are struggling with rising housing costs. In four of the seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada — more than half of tenant families?spend?30% or more of their income on rent and utilities, according to the 2023 American Community Survey.

In North Carolina, voter anxiety about the soaring rents and grocery bills could tip the scales.

“In terms of its political influence, it’s not actually your personal financial situation that is important, it’s your vision of the national economy,” said Matt Grossmann, a political science professor at Michigan State University. “So if I get a raise, I tend to credit myself. If I see higher prices, I tend to blame the government or the current situation.”

Around the corner from Horne’s ice cream store in downtown Rocky Mount, Kristie Hilliard greets a steady flow of customers to her new shop, Kristie Kandies. An armed cop, a nurse in scrubs and waist-high kids trickle in to grab a sweet treat.

After getting tired of her manufacturing job at the local Pfizer plant, Hilliard started making confections at home. As her following grew, she got a concession trailer and now has a storefront selling candied grapes, plums, kiwis and pickles.

Hilliard’s treats have attracted attention on social media, causing some buyers to drive in from as far away as Pennsylvania, she said.

A Democrat, she said she still hadn’t made up her mind on the presidential race. But she doesn’t believe either a Harris or a Trump administration would drastically change much for her business.

“They ain’t doing nothing for me now,” she said. “So, what would change?”

A community divided looks to the future

About 60 miles northeast of the state capital, Rocky Mount lies between the prosperous Research Triangle area and North Carolina’s scenic beach communities.

Railroad tracks and a county line slice through the middle of downtown. On the one side is the majority Black and lower-income Edgecombe County. On the other, the more prosperous and whiter Nash County.

While some officials say long-standing attitudes centered on division are fading, the county line has for decades provided a clear delineation of class, race and politics.

Edgecombe County is a Democratic stronghold, but the more populous Nash County is a bellwether of sorts. It was among the?10 closest of North Carolina’s 100 counties in the last presidential election, and one being closely watched this cycle. With 51,774 ballots cast, President Joe Biden took Nash County by 120 votes.

Around Rocky Mount’s downtown area, stately red brick churches and banks line the wide streets. But just a few blocks away, weeds overtake vacant lots, glass is smashed out of abandoned buildings, and razor wire tops the fencing of no-credit-needed car lots and used tire shops.

While the nearby Raleigh metro area has experienced explosive suburban growth, Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson said his community has seen an erosion of its middle class with the loss of corporate headquarters and factory jobs.

But he’s optimistic.

Young business owners are investing in downtown. Industries with operations in the Raleigh area are moving east. And both Republicans and Democrats just celebrated the news that Natron Energy plans to build a $1.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant nearby that will employ more than 1,000 people.

“We’ve got a lot of great things that are happening,” the mayor said. “But the key is, how do you build and retain a middle class? Because that’s who does the living and the dying and the investing in a community.”

The mayor’s position is nonpartisan, but Roberson is a Republican who in 2022 ran in the Republican primary for a congressional seat here. This election, however, is a difficult one for him.

Roberson said the economy and his financial position were unquestionably better during Trump’s term, but the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the chaos of the last Trump presidency make him hard to support. At the same time, Roberson worries about Harris’ economic policies; he believes the current administration has accelerated inflation by pumping too much money into the economy.

“At some levels, it feels like I’m voting for somebody who wants to either be a dictator or somebody who wants to create a socialist state,” Roberson said. “And I’m not in either place.”

‘Nobody is immune’

In North Carolina and other swing states, Trump’s television ads hammer the vice president over high prices and “Bidenomics.”

Nash County Republican Party volunteer Yvonne McLeod said the economy, along with immigration, are the top concerns locally. Businesses still struggle to hire, rents have soared and food prices are still up, she said.

“Economically, we’re hurting,” she said.

Democrats must be honest about the financial pressures facing voters, said Cassandra Conover, a former Virginia prosecutor who now leads the Nash County Democratic Party. She noted that Harris ads running in North Carolina speak directly to middle-class concerns.

“Nobody is immune from what’s going on,” Conover said. “She’s telling all of us who are hurting, ‘I know, and we’re working for you.’”

Polling has shown voters are sour on the economy, with?63%?saying the economy was on the wrong track in a Harvard-CAPS-Harris poll released this month. Republicans take a far dimmer view than Democrats.

“From past experience, we would expect Harris to inherit some of the blame or credit for the current economy, but so far in the polls, I would say there has been a surprising willingness of voters to not extend the blame for inflation that they had for Joe Biden onto Kamala Harris,” said Grossmann, the Michigan State University professor.

Housing anxiety

Housing costs have?outstripped?income gains in the past two decades, but those challenges have intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand increased, construction costs soared and interest rates spiked.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a buyer or a renter,” said Molly Boesel, an economist at CoreLogic, a financial services information company. “You’re seeing your housing costs increase.”

Affordability is “the No. 1 issue” among voters in Nevada this year, said Mario Arias, the Nevada director of the Forward Party, a centrist political party founded by former Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang.

A resident of the Las Vegas area, 30-year-old Arias said housing is his biggest financial concern. Throngs of Californians have moved into Nevada to lower their housing costs, but it’s driven up costs for everyone else, he said.

“If you want to get out of being a renter, you have to be in not just a good financial situation, but in a very stable financial situation,” he said.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates last week for the first time in four years, whichcouldopen the housing market to more homebuyers as mortgage rates ease in the coming months.

The Biden administration has?proposed?several housing-related policies, including incentives to loosen zoning regulations and capping rent increases from corporate landlords. Harris has announced a proposal to provide up to $25,000 in housing assistance for a down payment to some potential first-time homeowners and promised tax incentives that she say’s would lead to 3 million more housing units by the end of her first term, if she’s elected.

Trump has not waded far into the details of how he would address the affordability issue in a second term. He has?said?he plans to bring down prices by barring immigrants in the country without legal authorization from getting mortgages. But his proposed?immigration policies?could further reduce the labor force for building homes. Previously, Trump’s administration talked about trying to cut state and local housing regulations, and it suspended federal regulations on fair housing.

In North Carolina, more than a quarter of the state’s households are cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs. It’s particularly challenging for renters, nearly half of which are cost burdened, according to the North Carolina Housing Coalition, a nonprofit affordable housing organization.

Stephanie Watkins-Cruz, housing policy director at the coalition, noted that the federal government’s calculation of fair market rent in North Carolina has shot up 14% in just one year — and 38% over the past five years.

“So unless everybody and their mama’s getting 14 to 20 to 38% raises, the math begins to not math,” she said.

It’s a familiar challenge in every swing state.

Wendy Winston, a middle school math teacher in Grand Rapids Michigan, said that though no one political candidate is responsible for the state of the economy, the cost of groceries and housing is hard to ignore.

“I don’t think the economy is terrible. It is sometimes difficult to make ends meet,” Winston said. “I don’t believe that it’s the fault of the government or policies of the government. I feel like it’s the individual corporations trying to make profit off the backs of the middle class.”

The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Grand Rapids is about $1,550 a month, according to rental site Apartments.com. Though Michigan ranks fairly average compared with other states for rent prices, the state saw some of the steepest rent increases in the country in recent years, and wages have not kept up. Residents unable to rent new, “luxury” apartments find themselves short of options for places they can afford.

“It’s not just cost, it’s availability,” Winston said. “There are a lot of new housing developments. Apartments and condos and things are being built, but I’m priced out of them. And I have a college degree, so I don’t think that’s helping our families.”

Hoping for revival

Back in North Carolina, near the banks of the Tar River, Rocky Mount Mills has a healthy waiting list for the apartments and the revamped homes it rents.

A former cotton mill?built and once operated?by slave labor, the campus closed in 1996, reopened in 2015 after a $75 million renovation, and is now home to breweries, restaurants and dozens of high-end apartments.

Chapel Hill native and entrepreneur Cameron Schulz never had Rocky Mount on his radar. But the development’s brewery incubator helped him launch HopFly Brewing Co., now one of the state’s largest self-distributing breweries.

After outgrowing its original space, HopFly relocated to Charlotte, but still operates a taproom in Rocky Mount. The Mills project has reinvigorated the city, Schulz said.

“Rocky Mount’s got one of the most beautiful, quintessential downtown strips that I’ve ever seen anywhere,” he said. “We’ve just got to fill it up with cool places to go, and people to go into those places.”

Main Street suffered for decades after the arrival of malls and a highway bypass. Over at Davis Furniture Company, two employees keep watch over an empty storeroom of sofas, beds and home decor.

Co-owner Melanie Davis said business has been good, though she believes customers are anxious about the presidential election.?Pointing down the sidewalk to new restaurants and some loft apartments overlooking the railroad tracks, Davis said she’s bullish on the trajectory of downtown.

“I do feel like we’re on an upswing,” she said.

Michigan Advance’s Anna Liz Nichols contributed reporting.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris debate for the first time during the presidential election campaign at The National Constitution Center on Sept. 10 in Philadelphia. A handful of issues and groups of voters in battleground states could decide the race. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

It’s been a wild few months in the presidential race: President Joe Biden dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris captured the Democratic nomination. Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania and was targeted again at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Despite the historic lead-up to Election Day, the race has now settled into familiar territory: Much like 2020’s contest, top political strategists on both sides of the aisle expect control of the White House could come down to just a few thousand votes in a handful of battleground states.

“This is not going to be an election where you will see a landslide. It’s going to be won in the margins in six to seven swing states,” Democratic strategist Donna Brazile told a crowd of state lawmakers from across the country last month.

Brazile, who ran Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, shared the stage with Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway, who managed Trump’s 2016 campaign and advised him in the White House.

Unsurprisingly, the pair disagreed on much.

But while speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Kentucky, the two senior strategists framed the race similarly to the 2020 contest, when?fewer than 50,000 votes?in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from an Electoral College tie.

“It is a different race. It has turned in very short time, but the issue set hasn’t changed at all,” Conway said. “And I think that’s what’s important here.”

Like last cycle, the two campaigns are pouring millions into Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In “The Deciders” series, States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, explores the political issues and groups of voters that could make the difference in those seven states and, consequentially, in the race for the White House.

Unsurprisingly, economic issues?_—?namely, stubbornly high prices — are proving central for many voters across the swing states. But voters also are concerned about immigration, abortion access and the future of the Supreme Court.

In states such as Michigan and Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, labor unions could prove instrumental for Harris after years of significant gains by organized labor.

In Georgia and North Carolina, Black voter turnout could make the difference, while Latino voters are closely divided in Nevada after helping propel Biden to victory there four years ago. In every swing state, campaigns are focused on all-important suburban voters.

Swing states prepare for a showdown over certifying votes in November

The election’s outcome also could be shaped by the work of officials who have been debating who can vote and which votes should count since the mayhem of the last presidential contest.

Four years ago, a false narrative that questioned the security and integrity of elections took hold in some legislatures. New laws changed ballot-counting practices and made it more difficult to vote in many states, including swing states. In states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, there is broad concern that despite the checks and balances built into the voting system, local Republicans tasked with certifying elections will be driven by conspiracy theories and refuse to fulfill their duties if Trump loses again.

Fears that these efforts could sow chaos and delay results is not unfounded: Over the past four years, county officials in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania have refused to certify certain local elections.

With such a close race, voter turnout and motivation will be key in all the battleground states.

As in other swing states, North Carolina’s 16 Electoral College votes could hinge on how political independents vote, said Carter Wrenn, a longtime Republican strategist who has worked on many campaigns.

And those independents can be unpredictable in North Carolina: Their votes helped both Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Trump carry the state in the last two general elections.

“It’s the independents that are up for grabs, and they don’t mind splitting a ticket at all,” Wrenn said. “Ultimately, in the general election, that’s the key group.”

The economy

In every state this year, the economy is a central issue.

Harris unveils plan to curb price gouging, boost child tax credit, tackle rent hikes

As Trump tries to fault Harris and Biden for the high costs of everyday living, polling shows voters blame Harris less for the situation than they did Biden — though likely voters profess more confidence in Trump’s ability to manage the economy.

For her part, Harris has unveiled plans to?lower prices of rent, homebuying and groceries,?arguing she will remain focused on the middle class from Day One, contrasting her ideas with what she characterizes as Trump’s catering to billionaires.

In Georgia, Republicans and Democrats alike have found success in recent statewide campaigns by highlighting similar kitchen table issues. After attending a Harris rally in Savannah last month, Georgia voter Sarah Damato said she doesn’t believe Trump will fight for the middle class.

At the event, the vice president told listeners she would lower costs by fighting corporate price-fixing and touted her proposal for a “care economy,” a set of progressive proposals including benefits for parents of newborns and credits for first-time homebuyers.

“Kamala Harris made it very evident today that the American family is the most important thing on her mind these days, and she’s going to make it easier for each one of us to have a brighter future,” Damato said.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, meanwhile, Republican Party volunteer Sharon Buege said she supports the GOP ticket because she sees the race as a matter of “good versus evil.” Speaking outside a news conference by Trump running mate J.D. Vance, Buege said she opposed “the whole left agenda,” adding that her top issues in the race were border security, the economy, human trafficking, homelessness and “indoctrination” in public schools.

At that same news conference, a man who would only give his name as “John” said the economy and inflation mattered most: “I don’t need a reminder of why to support Trump. I can get that every time I go to the gas station or grocery store.”

Groups of voters

With Republicans looking to run up margins in rural parts of the battleground states and Democrats banking on big leads in cities, the suburbs remain pivotal.

Trump’s Jan. 6 case to extend beyond Election Day under timeline laid out by judge?

In Georgia, diverse and growing suburbs have helped move the state from reliably red to purple.

In the state’s two largest suburban counties of Cobb and Gwinnett, Biden picked up more than 137,000 votes in 2020 over 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. The same year, Trump boosted his total by just under 32,000 votes over his 2016 performance.

The Trump campaign boasts a mighty in-state operation: nearly 15,000 volunteers signing up between mid-July and the end of August, nearly 300 events scheduled for September, and 4,000 neighborhood organizers and canvassers — known as Trump Force Captains — joining the cause in July and August.

But Team Harris says they are running the largest Georgia operation of any Democratic presidential campaign cycle, with more than 200 campaign staff in 28 offices. Harris’ recent visit to the more conservative south side of the state marked her 16th trip to Georgia since becoming vice president and her seventh trip this year.

Harris is hoping to fire up the young, diverse Democratic base, but her team also is hoping she can hang onto or expand on Biden’s coalition of older, affluent, educated and largely white suburbanites.

“Those are the people who are actually kind of pivotal and who will modify or change their behavior,” said University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock.

“These people are largely Republicans, but they can’t bring themselves to vote for Donald Trump or for Republicans who are closely associated with him,” Bullock said.

Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia public affairs executive and political analyst, said the four suburban Philadelphia counties surrounding Pennsylvania’s largest city are key to winning that state. Once a Republican bastion, the so-called collar counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery have swung strongly in the other direction since 2016.

That complicates messaging for both campaigns, Ceisler said. Trump’s anti-abortion stance and Harris’ effort to back away from her earlier statements against fracking — both positions that appeal to rural and western Pennsylvania voters — are potential liabilities in suburbs.

Democrats have a 343,000-voter registration advantage over Republicans in Pennsylvania. But the state has been decided by narrow margins in the last two presidential elections.

Daniel Mallinson, an associate professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg, noted that the Trump campaign has paid attention to Black and Latino voters.

“One of the weaknesses that Biden had as a candidate was he had weakening support among African American voters. And then Trump has actually done fairly well, particularly in some other states, like in Florida, with Latino voters,” Mallinson said, adding that Harris’ nomination changes the equation somewhat.

After Democrats seemingly all but wrote off Arizona for Biden, the contest there is proving more winnable for Harris. Biden narrowly won Arizona in 2020, but he had been hemorrhaging Latino support this year.

In the manufacturing-heavy upper Midwest, labor unions could prove consequential in not only persuading voters but also motivating them to the polls.

Biden was the first sitting president to visit a picket line when the United Auto Workers last year took on the “Big Three” Detroit automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — by going on strike. That effort led to significant increases in pay and benefits for workers.

The UAW, which in August announced?a national campaign?to motivate its 1 million active and retired members to vote for Harris, says its membership accounted for 9.2% of Biden’s 2020 votes in Michigan alone.

“To me, this election is real simple,” UAW president Shawn Fain?told a crowd?of about 15,000 people last month at a rally in Detroit for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. “It’s about one question. It’s a question we made famous in the labor movement: Which side are you on?”

Political weaknesses?

While Democrats are more motivated than when Biden was the presumptive nominee, they still face internal conflicts, the most high-profile of which has been about the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Dee Sull, a Las Vegas attorney who works in immigration and family law, is a registered Democrat who said she would never vote for Trump.?Yet she doesn’t really want to vote for Harris, leaving her “very torn” this election.

“I believe our foreign policy in Gaza is completely ridiculous. I’m very disturbed,” she said of U.S. military aid to Israel. “If we’re going to spend money, I want it spent on my kids here — on my neighbors’ kids here.”

Sull said both parties have silenced the voices of those who protest the death and destruction in Gaza. And she was irritated that Palestinian American activists were not allowed to speak at the Democratic National Convention last month.

Sull won’t sit out the election, but said she would prefer to vote for a third candidate with a viable shot at winning.

“Probably like a lot of Americans would if they had that opportunity,” she said.

Move over, presidential race. These state governments also are up for grabs.

For Trump, voters’ overwhelming support for abortion rights could prove a huge liability in swing states.

While Trump has wobbled in recent months on whether he would veto a national abortion ban, the Supreme Court justices he appointed dismantled abortion access across the country in 2022 — an unpopular position even in red states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio that since have voted to expand abortion rights.

In Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood stopped offering abortions at its health clinics after the court’s Dobbs decision because of?an 1849 “trigger” state law that immediately took effect. Wisconsin women lost all abortion services there for a year and a half, until a court re-interpreted the state law.

This summer’s shakeup has reset the race, said Amy Walter, publisher of The Cook Political Report, an independent, nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections. So far, likely voters in the swing states view Harris more favorably than Biden, she said.?But with Trump benefiting from an electorate skeptical of the state of the economy, the newsletter characterized the race as “a battle of inches.”

The campaigns both face a lot of voters who are disenchanted with politics altogether, or else unhappy with their options.

Amy Tarkanian, a conservative television commentator who once lauded Trump to national audiences and was chair of the Nevada State Republican Party in 2011-12, said she’s at “a complete loss” this year.?She remains a Republican, even after the state party heavily criticized her when, two years ago, she endorsed a pair of Democratic candidates for state offices.

“I’m not happy, or necessarily sold on Kamala,” Tarkanian said. “… But I absolutely do not want to vote for Donald Trump.”

Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small, Michigan Advance’s Anna Liz Nichols and Jon King, Nevada Current’s Hugh Jackson, NC Newsline’s Galen Bacharier, Pennsylvania Capital-Star’s Peter Hall and John Cole, Georgia Recorder’s Ross Williams, and Wisconsin Examiner’s Ruth Conniff and Henry Redman contributed reporting.

A Kentucky polling place welcomes voters in November 2023. Kentucky is among the states where lawmakers are exploring legislation to protect against the deceptive use of artificial intelligence in elections. Matthew Mueller/Kentucky Lantern

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Inside a white-walled conference room, a speaker surveyed hundreds of state lawmakers and policy influencers, asking whether artificial intelligence poses a threat to the elections in their states.

The results were unambiguous: 80% of those who answered a live poll said yes. In a follow-up question, nearly 90% said their state laws weren’t adequate to deter those threats.

It was among the many exchanges on artificial intelligence that dominated sessions at this week’s meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, the largest annual gathering of lawmakers, in Louisville.

“It’s the topic du jour,” Kentucky state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, a Republican, told lawmakers as he kicked off one of many panels centering on AI. “There are a lot of discussions happening in all of our state legislatures across the country.”

While some experts and lawmakers celebrated the promise of AI to advance services in health care and education, others lamented its potential to disrupt the democratic process with just months to go before November’s elections. And lawmakers compared the many types of legislation they’re proposing to tackle the issue.

This presidential election cycle is the first since generative AI — a form of artificial intelligence that can create new images, audio and video — became widely available. That’s raised alarms over deepfakes, remarkably convincing but fake videos or images that can portray anyone, including candidates, in situations that didn’t occur or saying things they didn’t.

“We need to do something to make sure the voters understand what they’re doing,” said Kentucky state Sen. Amanda Mays Bledsoe.

The Republican lawmaker, who chairs a special legislative task force on AI, co-sponsored a bipartisan bill this year aimed at limiting the use of deepfakes to influence elections. The bill would have allowed candidates whose appearance, action or speech was altered through “synthetic media” in an election communication to take its sponsor to court. The state Senate unanimously approved the proposal but it stalled in the House.

While Bledsoe expects to bring the bill up again next session, she acknowledged how complex the issue is: Lawmakers are trying to balance the risks of the evolving technology against their desire to promote innovation and protect free speech.

“You don’t want to go too fast,” she said in an interview, “but you also don’t want to be too behind.”

Rhode Island state Sen. Dawn Euer, a Democrat, told Stateline she’s concerned about AI’s potential to amplify disinformation, particularly across social media.

“Election propaganda and disinformation has been part of the zeitgeist for the existence of humanity,” said Euer, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Now, we have high-tech tools to do it.”

Connecticut state Sen. James Maroney, a Democrat, agreed that concerns about AI’s effects on elections are legitimate. But he emphasized that most deepfakes target women with digitally generated nonconsensual intimate images or revenge porn. Research firm Sensity AI has tracked online deepfake videos for years, finding 90% of them are nonconsensual porn, mostly targeting women.

Maroney sponsored legislation this year that would have regulated artificial intelligence and criminalized deepfake porn and false political messaging. That bill passed the state Senate, but not the House. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont opposed the measure, saying it was premature and potentially harmful to the state’s technology industry.

While Maroney has concerns about AI, he said the upsides far outweigh the risks. For example, AI can help lawmakers communicate with constituents through chatbots or translate messaging into other languages.

Top election officials on AI

During one session in Louisville, New Hampshire Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan said AI could improve election administration by making it easier to organize election statistics or get official messaging out to the public.

Still, New Hampshire experienced firsthand some of the downside of the new technology earlier this year when voters received robocalls that used artificial intelligence to imitate President Joe Biden’s voice to discourage participation in a January primary.

Prosecutors charged the political operative who allegedly organized the fake calls with more than a dozen crimes, including voter suppression, and the Federal Communications Commission proposed a $6 million fine against him.

While the technology may be new, Scanlan said election officials have always had to keep a close eye on misinformation about elections and extreme tactics by candidates or their supporters and opponents.

“You might call them dirty tricks, but it has always been in candidates’ arsenals, and this really was a form of that as well,” he said. “It’s just more complex.”

The way state officials responded, by quickly identifying the calls as fake and investigating their origins, serves as a playbook for other states ahead of November’s elections, said Cait Conley, a senior adviser at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency focused on election security.

“What we saw New Hampshire do is best practice,” she said during the presentation. “They came out quickly and clearly and provided guidance, and they really just checked the disinformation that was out there.”

Kentucky Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams told Stateline that AI could prove challenging for swing states in the presidential election. But he said it may still be too new of a technology to cause widespread problems for most states.

“Of the 99 things that we chew our nails over, it’s not in the top 10 or 20,” he said in an interview. “I don’t know that it’s at a maturity level that it’ll be utilized everywhere.”

Adams this year received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for championing the integrity of elections despite pushback from fellow Republicans. He said AI is yet another obstacle facing election officials who already must combat challenges including disinformation and foreign influence.

More bills coming

With an absence of congressional action, states have increasingly sought to regulate the quickly evolving world of AI on their own.

NCSL this year tracked AI bills in at least 40 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C.

As states examine the issue, many are looking at Colorado, which this year became the first state to create a sweeping regulatory framework for artificial intelligence. Technology companies opposed the measure, worried it will stifle innovation in a new industry.

Colorado Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said lawmakers modeled much of their language on European Union regulations to avoid creating mismatched rules for companies using AI. Still, the law will be examined by a legislative task force before going into effect in 2026.

“It’s a first-in-the nation bill, and I’m under no illusion that it’s perfect and ready to go,” he said. “We’ve got two years.”

When Texas lawmakers reconvene next January, state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione expects to see many AI bills flying.

A Republican and co-chair of a state artificial intelligence advisory council, Capriglione said he’s worried about how generative AI may influence how people vote — or even if they vote — in both local and national elections.

“Without a doubt, artificial intelligence is being used to sow disinformation and misinformation,” he said, “and I think as we get closer to the election, we’ll see a lot more cases of it being used.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

A specially marked cup shows a beer purchased in Raleigh’s Sip n’ Stroll Downtown, a special social district the North Carolina capital created last year that allows open containers of alcohol within strict bounds. States are increasingly allowing cities to create these districts in hopes of boosting — or reviving — downtown businesses. (Photo courtesy of the city of Raleigh, N.C.)

Holly Smith Mount wanted to be first.

Smith Mount, chair of the city council in Huntington, West Virginia, was determined to see her community launch the state’s initial outdoor drinking zone — an idea made possible only after the legislature changed the state’s alcohol law earlier this year.

“I will fully admit I’m very competitive,” she told Stateline. “And I told the mayor, ‘I want to be first on this one.’”

You can feel ‘naughty’ in Kentucky, too

What Kentucky calls Entertainment Destination Centers or EDCs have blossomed from Ashland to Paducah.

Maysville calls its district The Landing at Limestone, a reference to the creek where even before Kentucky became a state, boats shipping barrels of bourbon entered the Ohio River.

Typically patrons can wander the districts, going from business to business, while drinking from a designated container. Some cities, such as Morehead, allow sip-and-stroll only during special events.

The Newport Board of Commissioners last month created the Newport Entertainment District as a pilot program, reports LINKnky.

The nearby Northern Kentucky cities of Bellevue, Dayton, and Covington already had entertainment districts.??

In Newport, Some residents and at least one council member voiced apprehensions about allowing people to walk and drink. Newport City Manager Tom Fromme said that if the pilot fails, the city will not keep pushing to make it work, reports LINKnky.?

“It could be a big success; it could be a failure,” Fromme said. “It could be in between and valuable only on special events. It’s a step forward for a pilot program, and then we’re going to monitor this to see how this goes as we move to the future.”?

The Newport district is awaiting state approval and probably will not open until next spring. Once received, people will be able to consume alcohol outdoors in a designated cup and bring it into participating businesses like shops that don’t typically serve alcohol.

A riverfront district in Owensboro allows alcoholic beverages on public property during weekends and permitted special events.?

Frankfort dubs its area the MIX District — for Meet, Interact, Experience — and allows open carry of alcohol during designated times.

Bowling Green launched Fountain Row in 2022.

Elizabethtown has The Hub.

The tiny, quaint city of Midway in Woodford County created a district in 2019.

In 2018, the legislature made the licensing more affordable for local governments by lowering the? fee to $2,577.?

So, when Huntington’s downtown drinking district launched this fall, Smith Mount aimed to be at the front of the line to grab a beer from a local taphouse. The new program sanctions open containers of alcohol within designated boundaries officially known as a Private Outdoor Designated Area, or PODA.

“I walked down the street and I felt so naughty,” she said. “I went into one of my favorite shops and I was like, ‘Look, I’ve got a beer!’”

Huntington leaders saw the district as a way to encourage economic growth by drawing more people to the heart of the city: The hope is that by allowing people to grab a drink and linger, they’ll spend more time and money downtown. Steps away from the banks of the Ohio River, the zone’s few square blocks include local restaurants, bars and shops.

“To me this was just a cherry on top of our already thriving downtown,” Smith Mount said. “It’s a way to kind of get people outside, get people socializing, and ramp up the economy even more.”

In recent years, several states have relaxed alcohol consumption laws to allow communities to create their own limited drinking zones. They aim to revitalize downtown cores hollowed out by the changing nature of retail and the post-pandemic loss of office workers.

North Carolina cities have been creating outdoor “social zones” since Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper signed a new law in 2021. Dozens of Ohio communities big and small have?created Designated Outdoor Refreshment Areas, which the legislature sanctioned in 2015 to allow people to walk around freely with a beer, wine or cocktail. Communities in Kansas and Indiana are exploring or creating new areas after legislatures in both states changed their laws earlier this year.

Indiana’s new outdoor refreshment areas largely mirror those in neighboring Ohio. Republican state Sen. Liz Brown sponsored legislation over the past three years after a constituent enjoyed one of the districts in Ohio and asked her why the Hoosier State didn’t have something similar.

“I don’t usually like to give other states credit, but I do have to give Ohio credit,” she said. “ … We copycatted them.”

Aside from bringing foot traffic to shops and restaurants, officials say the success of the new districts reveals the need to update antiquated liquor laws that long banned public consumption in most places to try to reduce public intoxication and drunken driving. While some critics have raised concerns about the new districts’ potential to promote drinking, crime or littering, organizers across the country say they have largely been adopted without incident.

In West Virginia’s second-largest city, officials said the drinking district faced little public opposition.

Huntington, a city of about 47,000, is home to Marshall University. On football game days, the area around campus is already “basically open container,” Smith Mount said.

The district is open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from April to October. But Smith Mount said the effort was already so successful that city leaders are looking at expanding the season. In the future, she envisions holiday shoppers clutching mulled cider while browsing in downtown shops.

The Private Outdoor Designated Area isn’t a free-for-all. Only licensed bars and restaurants can sell drinks, which must be served in clearly marked cups — no red Solo cups allowed. Drinks must be consumed within the district’s boundaries. And store owners can choose to opt in or out.

So far, the city hasn’t heard of any problems with the program, officials said.

“In the years past, you had to go to places like New Orleans or Key West to walk down the street just having a cold beverage,” Smith Mount said. “And those days are kind of past us.”

‘This is just the start’

In the northern stretches of Topeka, Kansas, Redbud Park is home to sculpture gardens and bright murals. Once a month, the park turns into a concert venue for the area’s First Friday art walks.

But those performances so far have been alcohol-free, said Thomas Underwood, executive director of the NOTO Arts & Entertainment District.

“At this point you can’t buy a beer from the place across the street and come over and listen to the band, because you can’t cross the street with a beer,” he said. “That just seems stupid.”

Until this year, Kansas law only allowed public consumption areas if streets were blocked off to traffic. Underwood’s nonprofit was among the groups that lobbied legislators earlier this year to make a change.

The First Friday events bring valuable foot traffic to the state capital’s arts district. But Underwood said businesses don’t want to see streets closed off — which could dissuade customers from attending, not to mention the complications of renting barricades and acquiring city permits.

This year, the legislature allowed communities to apply for Common Consumption Area permits that don’t require street closures. The Kansas Department of Revenue reports the state has licensed 32 common consumption areas, in a mix of tiny towns, larger cities and booming suburbs.

With little opposition, Underwood expects Topeka to approve a common consumption area soon. In late October, a Topeka City Council committee discussed creating consumption areas in downtown and in the arts district. The city will hold a series of listening sessions before voting on the matter, said city spokesperson Gretchen Spiker.

If approved, Underwood said, the common consumption area will bring more visitors to concerts, galleries and shops in the arts district — and hopefully boost sales for bars and restaurants.

“Nobody down here thinks it should be a seven-day-a-week-type thing,” he said. “We think it should be somewhat limited. We know there’s going to be some enforcement and management issues with this.”

Kansas Republican state Rep. Tory Blew was among those who supported the change in state law. She sits on the board of Great Bend Alive, a nonprofit that hosts a monthly Friday evening event in downtown Great Bend, a city of about 15,000 in the middle of the state.

Called Fridays on Forest, the event has been held on a side street as Great Bend’s Main Street happens to be a state highway — making street closures there prohibitively difficult. So, organizers have closed down Forest Street to bring in food trucks, games and alcohol. As many as 600 people will attend any given Friday, Blew said.

“People look forward to it,” she said. “It’s just everybody coming together. … I think it’s just a sense of something to do in town.”

She knew Great Bend wanted to expand its Friday events without closing down Main Street, but was surprised to learn how many Kansas communities were also planning big events and celebrations with common consumption areas.

“They all have a totally different vision,” she said.

Great Bend is currently exploring ways to expand the seasonal event now that the state law has changed. In her community, the consumption area is part of a wider effort to rejuvenate downtown: Younger people are moving back or into town, bringing new coffee shops and a brewery.

She said the alcohol district isn’t a panacea but has greatly helped improve downtown’s trajectory.

“We’ve got a great start with what we’ve done so far with the common consumption district,” Blew said. “I think this is just the start of the momentum.”

Recovering from the pandemic

Robin Davis had been worried about opposition in Norwood, North Carolina, a town of about 2,600 people about 50 miles east of Charlotte.

“Luckily, it was a Methodist church,” she said. “We went straight to them and said, ‘Look, this is our vision. We’re not looking to have an outdoor community where people are stumbling around drinking.’”

The church and the town embraced the idea, she said.

Davis owns 110 Main Mercantile, which houses a boutique, co-working space and coffee shop, and runs a nonprofit supporting the downtown businesses. She said the new social district complements other investments in rebuilding the downtown.

“There was really nothing going on downtown,” she said. “You know, there wasn’t a community down there for hanging out and socializing. We actually have built that community.”

Nestled just a few miles from Lake Tillery, Norwood was discovered during the pandemic by dwellers of North Carolina’s bigger cities, Davis said. The social district has helped downtown businesses, but it’s also elevated events such as the town’s annual Arbor Day celebration, which is now able to bring in wineries and breweries in addition to live music and other events.

In fact, some members of the town council questioned why Norwood’s recent fall festival didn’t have any alcohol vendors on hand, Davis said.

“So, it was kind of neat that they were asking for it and a bit disappointed,” she said.

More than 100 miles away, officials in Raleigh purposely created their social district in the parts of downtown most affected by the loss of office workers during and after the pandemic.

“We were avoiding our nightlife area because they didn’t have as many challenges,” said Rachel Bain, the city’s hospitality and nightlife planner.

Raleigh launched its Sip n’ Stroll Downtown in August 2022 centered around Fayetteville Street and the Warehouse District. The district allows patrons to carry around specially marked cups from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day.

That’s helped boost sales at places like Crank Arm Brewing Company, where business remains uneven more than three years after the pandemic.

“2020 was really, really rough, as was the early part of 2021,” said co-owner Adam Eckhardt. “So we are definitely looking for a way to recoup massive and catastrophic losses.”

More people are living in downtown Raleigh, he said, but the after-work crowd has not rebounded, as many employers remain on hybrid schedules or have closed their downtown offices altogether.

Eckhardt said some residents were worried that the social district would cause a rise in public drunkenness or other crimes. But he said that simply hasn’t happened, because all the same laws forbidding drunken driving and disorderly conduct are still enforced.

“Those laws aren’t being done away with. All that’s being done away with is essentially the retail open container law,” he said.

A man browses in the meat department at a market in Westwood, Mass. Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey cited the rising cost of living earlier this month in celebrating passage of the state’s first tax cuts in two decades. Massachusetts was one of more than a dozen states to cut taxes this year. (Charles Krupa/The Associated Press)

With a $750 million budget surplus on hand, there was little doubt whether North Dakota lawmakers would cut taxes earlier this year — the question was how much.

“The surplus was strong, and we believe it’s going to be sustained into the future,” said state Rep. Craig Headland. “So, it just made sense to cut taxes.”

Headland was among the Republicans who negotiated terms of the legislature’s $515 million tax cut this year — 70% of which came from lowering personal income tax rates. The cuts leave North Dakota with the lowest tax rate among the states that collect income taxes.

In a special session this week, the legislature is considering more tax cuts that would exempt about 50,000 North Dakotans who earn $60,000 or less from income taxes. And Republicans, who control both chambers and the governor’s office in North Dakota, plan to continue their march toward eliminating the state income tax; Headland said he plans to introduce such a bill when the legislature reconvenes in 2025.

“Those revenues are there,” he said. “We certainly could do more tax relief.”

It’s not just red states that are slashing taxes.

In reliably liberal Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey just celebrated passage of the first tax cuts the state has seen in more than 20 years.?Estimated to cost about $1 billion over the next four years, the changes will reduce estate taxes and capital gains taxes while expanding?child and family tax credits and earned income tax credits.

Signing the legislation in Springfield earlier this month, Healey framed the cuts as a means of combating rising prices that have forced working parents to choose between the benefits of work and the costs of child care. The increasing cost of living in Massachusetts pushes young adults to leave the state, she said, and prevents renters from saving enough for a house down payment.

“Everyone feels the pinch,” Healey said, “and our future starts to shrink.”

Flush after years of thriving economies, states this year have continued a yearslong trend of tax cutting. Strong consumer spending, increasing property values and inflation have boosted state revenues along with an influx of billions from the federal government.

Many lawmakers view tax cuts as a logical response to boom times: returning excess taxpayer dollars to taxpayers. But some experts think states have cut too deep, using short-term revenue trends to justify permanent reductions in state revenue, often through cuts that benefit the wealthiest residents.?And they warn that some states already are starting to bring in less money.

So far this year, at least 15 states have cut income taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal tax policy nonprofit. Since 2021, half of all states have cut personal income tax rates, according to the Tax Foundation, a conservative-leaning tax policy nonprofit.

State tax cut measures vary wildly. Many have slashed income tax rates across the board. Other states have implemented more targeted measures or relied on so-called revenue triggers, which usher in tax cuts or rebates if state revenues reach certain benchmarks.

Oregon, for instance, will return a record $5.6 billion to taxpayers through the state’s “kicker,” which is triggered when state revenues exceed official projections by at least 2%. The current state windfall means Oregon will credit taxpayers an average of $980 on their 2023 personal income tax returns when they file next year, according to the state Office of Economic Analysis. ?

“We really are in the midst of a tax-cut wave right now,” said Wesley Tharpe, senior adviser for state tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research and policy institute that advocates for left-leaning tax policies.

Tharpe said the wave resembles those that followed economic booms in the 1990s and in the years following the Great Recession of 2008, though states now are cutting deeper than ever before. The current trend may leave states with less money on hand for education and health care, the top drivers of state spending, Tharpe said.

Additionally, many states continue to make regressive tax changes that benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, he said.

“The real risk for states is that they’re being a bit penny wise, pound foolish by thinking that they can afford a tax cut in the short term because of those surpluses, because of reasonably strong revenue growth of late,” he said. “But as collections decline, as the cost of the tax cuts grow, states are really going to be potentially pinched over the next five to 10 years.”

State budgets are strong (for now)

Over the past two years, state spending has ballooned.

A survey from the National Association of State Budget Officers shows state general fund spending increased 12.6% in fiscal year 2023, totaling $1.2 trillion. That was after a 16.8% increase in fiscal year 2022.

Nearly every state saw its tax revenues exceed official estimates over the past two years. And cumulatively, states more than doubled the amount saved in their rainy-day funds since 2019, reaching more than $160 billion in fiscal year 2022, according to the association.

“I’d say overall states remain in a strong fiscal condition,” said Brian Sigritz, director of state fiscal studies at the association.

But state revenues already have begun to fall in some states, including Iowa, Kentucky and Mississippi — which all cut taxes in recent years. The association’s spring survey found state revenues have begun to decrease slightly — a trend expected to continue through the fiscal year because of tax cuts, slower economic growth and weaker stock market performance.

“We received record growth there for two years in a row and so now it’s lower growth off that high baseline,” Sigritz said. “In some ways, we’re returning to a normal pattern.”

Huge surpluses over the past few years essentially forced states to decide between major spending projects and tax cuts.

“It’s politically untenable to hold this amount of cash and not do something with it,” said William Glasgall, senior director of public finance at the Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit that works to support public sector workers.

While states have stockpiled billions in reserves, the threat of an economic downturn still looms. After decades of underfunding public pensions, states, cities and other agencies owe more than $1 trillion, Glasgall said, and many states still have numerous deferred maintenance needs.

This month, the federal government said Americans must resume student loan payments after a three-year pandemic pause, leaving some 43 million consumers with less discretionary cash. The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit policy organization, warned the move could ultimately harm state revenues if borrowers trim their other spending — a particularly troublesome prospect for states that rely heavily on sales taxes.

And states have largely spent or allocated the nearly $200 billion Congress handed out in pandemic relief funds, Glasgall said. Those funds must be spent by the end of 2026. The Volcker Alliance has warned of the potential for a “fiscal cliff” for states that used the one-time funds for recurring costs.

“The big sugar high from all the money that went into the economy during COVID is running down,” Glasgall said.

Helping specific groups

In August, Kentucky’s budget director informed lawmakers that tax revenues weren’t strong enough to meet a fiscal requirement set by the GOP-controlled legislature that would have allowed legislators to continue cutting income taxes.

The left-leaning research group Kentucky Center for Economic Policy framed the news as a “glimpse of future trouble” for the state, particularly since low unemployment and high inflation continue to push up incomes.

But State Senate Appropriations and Revenue Chair Chris McDaniel said including the so-called revenue triggers shows the state is cutting taxes responsibly. He said it’s a stark difference from the failed tax experiment in Kansas, where then-Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, led an effort in 2012 to dramatically slash income taxes in the hopes of spurring an economic boom, but instead was forced to cut education, infrastructure and other spending as revenues tanked.

“That will forever inform the way I think my generation of political leaders looks at the tax issue,” McDaniel said. “I would rather take 10 years to get the reform right than to promise people things I have to walk back in two years.”

The Kentucky General Assembly cut the personal income tax rate from 5% to 4.5% in 2022. Missing this year’s trigger means that rate won’t be going down next session. But McDaniel said he would still like to see the state realize a longtime GOP goal of eliminating the state income tax.

Aside from personal and corporate income taxes, states have made changes aimed at helping specific groups, including older adults, homeowners and families.

This year, 18 states implemented or changed earned income tax credits or child tax credits, said Aidan Davis, the state policy director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

“Those really are policies that are going to make a real difference in the economic security of millions of families,” she said. “So that was a really prominent trend this year.”

But many states took what Davis characterized as “steps backward” by making deep, permanent cuts that will not only hold down state revenue for years to come, but mostly benefit upper income residents.

That was the case with a recently approved change in Missouri that eliminated state income taxes on Social Security benefits, said Democratic state Rep. Deb Lavender.

The legislation, expected to cost Missouri more than $300 million per year, removed a previous income cap of $85,000 for single filers on pension benefits. That means high-earning individuals will benefit the most, Lavender said.

“We talked about our poor seniors,” she said. “This didn’t help a single one of those people that has to decide if they’re buying food or paying rent or getting medicine.”

The legislation was sponsored by Republican state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, who said retirees on fixed incomes shouldn’t see their Social Security benefits taxed. The new law, he said in January, “keeps seniors from having to hand over more money to government.”

That legislation came a year after nearly $800 million in tax cuts in 2022. The GOP-controlled legislature hoped to pass a $1 billion reduction in corporate and personal income taxes this year, but was unable to because of ongoing dysfunction in the state Senate.

Lavender said the state has plenty of needs those revenues could address.

Missouri is home to rising maternal mortality rates.?And starting teachers in Missouri earn on average the lowest salary of educators in any state.?

“I’m not an advocate for increasing taxes,” she said. “But could we just stop cutting?”

This story is republished from Stateline, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Taylor Swift performs on opening night of The Eras Tour at State Farm Stadium in March 2023 in Arizona. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)

There’s no question what motivated state Rep. Kelly Moller to push for changes in Minnesota law on concert ticket sales.

“Really, it was the Taylor Swift debacle for me,” she said.

A self-professed Swiftie, the Democrat found herself among millions of other Americans unable to buy tickets last year to Swift’s Eras Tour.

She preregistered for tickets, but never received a code to buy them. And on the day sales went live online, she sat by as friends with codes got bumped out of the ticket queue for no apparent reason.?Then Ticketmaster’s website crashed.

The ordeal convinced her that the concert ticket industry warrants more government oversight.

“I do think a lot of that is better served at the federal level, but that said, there are things we can do at the state level,” she said.

Moller introduced a bill this year that would force ticket sellers to disclose the full cost of tickets, including fees, up front to buyers in her state. It also would ban speculative ticketing — a practice in which resale companies sell tickets they don’t yet own.

The bill stalled, but Moller expects it to be reconsidered next year. It is part of a wave of legislation considered in more than a dozen states this year following the unprecedented disaster in the run-up to Swift’s Eras Tour, which is on pace to be the highest-grossing tour in history.

Swift and her legions of fans were outraged when Ticketmaster’s website crashed last November as it faced unprecedented demand from fans, bots and ticket resellers ahead of her tour.?Social media blew up over the fiasco, and news organizations published story after story. It sparked bipartisan legislative proposals in Congress, though no bill has become law yet.

That’s led state legislatures to step in: Lawmakers of both parties across the country introduced new bills this year to regulate concert and live event ticket purchasing.

It’s a rare bipartisan issue in statehouses. But lawmakers are learning how complicated — and controversial — the world of online ticketing is. In several states, legislators are caught in the middle between companies like Ticketmaster and secondary sellers such as StubHub.

“There are a lot of issues that beg for a national focus, a national solution. But because of the political dynamics in Washington, D.C., we haven’t gotten very many solutions. … So states believe they have to act,” said California state Sen. Bill Dodd, a Democrat.

Dodd sponsored a bill this year that would ban so-called junk fees on tickets — fees tacked onto the base price that lawmakers view as deceptive. The proposal targets other services, including hotel and resort fees, but Dodd said concerts were a major driver. President Joe Biden called out junk fees in his State of the Union address in February and has publicly praised companies that have committed to transparent pricing, such as Airbnb and Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company.

Dodd said he isn’t hostile to ticket marketplaces such as Ticketmaster and StubHub. He uses those sites to buy tickets to concerts and basketball games. But, he said, consumers should know the full price up front. The White House estimates junk fees cost Americans more than $65 billion per year.

“It’s outrageous,” he said, “and I think Californians are sick and tired of dishonest fees being tacked onto just anything.”

Dodd’s bill, which was backed by California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, passed the state Senate and is pending in the Assembly. It is one of several ticketing bills considered by Golden State lawmakers this session.

The state Senate unanimously passed a proposal from Republican state Sen. Scott Wilk that he said targets the “stranglehold” some companies have over sales. The bill would prohibit exclusivity clauses in contracts between a primary ticket seller such as Ticketmaster and an entertainment venue in California. Wilk said in his news release it would allow artists to work with other ticket sellers without the fear of retaliation from large ticket sellers — and ultimately reduce fees for consumers. It’s in committee in the Assembly.

‘The states are where it’s at’

Earlier this year, the Colorado legislature passed a bill that would have required sellers to fully disclose the total cost of event tickets, prohibited vendors from raising prices during the buying process and banned speculative ticketing.

But Democratic Gov. Jared Polis vetoed the act in June, saying it could prevent competition and “risk upsetting the successful entertainment ecosystem in Colorado.”

Chris Castle, an entertainment lawyer who tracks ticket legislation across the country, said the Colorado veto illustrates the industry’s ability to sway public officials.

Polis referenced concerns he heard from the National Consumers League and the Consumer Federation of America. Both of those consumer advocacy groups have received funding from secondary ticket marketplaces such as StubHub, the music publication Pitchfork reported.

“It’d be easy enough to say, ‘Well, I heard from the stakeholders, and I thought these guys had the better argument.’ But he didn’t say that,” Castle said of Polis. “He starts talking about these groups. And sure enough, it turns out, they’re all on the take.”

Conor Cahill, the governor’s spokesperson, did not answer questions about the influence of ticket marketplaces on the veto, but said Polis will apply a “consumer-first lens” to future legislation on the issue.

The National Consumers League has no problem being associated with groups like StubHub, said John Breyault, the organization’s vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud. He said the group shares a common belief with resellers that the marketplace needs more competition, not less. But it still disagrees on some specific issues, he said.

“There are problems at every level of the industry including in the secondary market that we are trying to address through both our advocacy at the state level and our advocacy at the federal level,” Breyault said.

Bills in several states backed by StubHub aim to protect so-called transferability of tickets — that is, the customers’ right to pass on or resell tickets they purchase.

Six states — Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Utah and Virginia — currently protect the right of fans to transfer or sell tickets. Without that right, some advocates say Ticketmaster’s terms and conditions can ban transferring tickets or require that they be resold on their own platform.

StubHub makes no secret of its efforts to educate and persuade state lawmakers.

“The states are really where it’s at in a lot of ways,” said Laura Dooley, the company’s head of global government relations.?“Our industry right now is almost exclusively regulated at the state level.”

This year, the company has tracked nearly 70 ticketing bills proposed across 25 states. Dooley said many state lawmakers introduce new regulations with good intentions, but don’t always understand the industry.

As an example, she pointed to state efforts to ban bots — software that can bypass security measures in online ticketing systems and buy tickets in bulk faster than humans.

Ticketmaster cited bots as a major cause of the Eras Tour fiasco. Bots are banned by federal law, though that regulation only has been enforced once since 2016, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Dooley said StubHub isn’t opposed to state bot bans, but does push legislators to consider enforcement measures in crafting their bills. That’s because regulators need cooperation from the industry and access to ticketing software to monitor for bots, Dooley said.

Dooley contends some lawmakers’ proposed solutions don’t target root causes, including the unique way live event tickets are sold, generally through exclusive deals with one retail platform.

“When you have millions and millions of people wanting to buy a product and they’re being asked to buy that product at the same time on the same day through an exclusive retail provider — in this case Ticketmaster and in many cases Ticketmaster — that system is going to be overloaded, right? And it’s going to be a frustrating experience,” Dooley said.

In a statement, Ticketmaster said the company was working with lawmakers across the country on “common-sense” ticketing reform measures. The company said it supports requirements for all-in ticketing pricing, bans on speculative ticketing and giving artists more say in how their event tickets are resold.

Brian Hess, executive director of the nonprofit fan advocacy organization Sports Fans Coalition, pointed out thatlawmakers have a variety of interests to consider: the primary ticket markets like Ticketmaster, the artists, the consumer, and secondary markets like StubHub.

“Ticketing fights are far more contentious than anyone anticipates,” he said. “Each side of the market likes to blame the other side, and consumers are stuck in the middle.”

The Sports Fans Coalition is in part funded by secondary marketplaces like StubHub and lobbies on ticket legislation across the country.

Hess said federal regulators should not have allowed the 2010 merger of Live Nation, an event promoter and venue operator, with Ticketmaster, a ticket provider.

“They are the monopoly in the industry,” he said. “They were the ones that botched Taylor Swift’s tickets, and they’re the ones that continue to have ticket sale problems when they launch new shows.”

A bipartisan focus

Texas Republican state Rep. Kronda Thimesch said she saw firsthand how bots can distort the marketplace and prevent customers from purchasing tickets.

That’s what she blamed for her own daughter’s unsuccessful attempts to buy Swift tickets last year.

“Fans then have to resort to paying hundreds, if not thousands, over face value to resellers in order to see their favorite artist,” she said.

That’s why she introduced a bill banning ticket-buying bots in Texas, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Thimesch noted that ticket issues aren’t just a problem for Swift fans — country star Zach Bryan named his December live album “All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster.” Thimesch said she is open to exploring more ticketing legislation when the Texas legislature reconvenes.

More than 1,500 miles away, Massachusetts Democratic state Sen. John Velis has a similar outlook. He’s interested in diving deep into the world of ticketing. But he’s starting off small.

“I think the art, if you will, of legislating is you kind of go little by little,” he said. “I think ticket pricing is a great and very logical place to start.”

Velis introduced a bill that would require upfront transparent ticket pricing and ban “dynamic pricing,” a practice in which sellers adjust prices based on demand. While he’s interested in eventually exploring ride shares or other services, his legislation is so far focused on concert and live event tickets, he said.

Before the Eras Tour mess, Velis said he got interested in the issue after hearing constituents and co-workers complain about exorbitant fees on live event tickets. Tickets advertised for $100 can sometimes end up costing double that once all the fees are tacked on, he said.

“I just thought to myself, ‘That is so incredibly wrong,’” he said. “If someone wants to spend their hard-earned money at $10,000 a ticket to go see Taylor Swift or Jay-Z or the Boston Celtics, giddy up. But I just want that consumer to know going into that initial transaction that they’re going to be spending $10,000.”

Velis said his bill should receive a hearing soon in the state Senate.

Jurisdictional bounds are likely to prove complicated, he acknowledged. After all, consumers often buy tickets for events in other states. But he said his bill is solely aimed at protecting consumers — a notion he says is hard to oppose.

“In my experience, this is without a doubt a bipartisan issue,” he said. “I’ve experienced nobody raising a concern from a partisan politics standpoint.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.