WASHINGTON — The midterm elections did not just change who governs five states. They changed who will stand up in court for them. Democrats will take over the state attorney general offices in Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas and Texas in January, Reuters reported on Sunday, November 8, and with those offices comes control of some of the most consequential lawsuits in America — cases on abortion, immigration, voting maps, pharmaceuticals, climate and religion that the outgoing Republican attorneys general built, defended or joined. Nothing has been withdrawn yet, and the incoming lawyers are choosing their words carefully. But as Reuters' factbox set out case by case, almost every one of those lawsuits is now in play.

Source: Reuters factbox, Nov. 8, 2026 (Scarcella and Wiessner)

Texas is where the shift is largest, because outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton's office acted, in the words of his Democratic successor, as a national legal command centre. "The Texas AG's office has been operating as the private law firm of the MAGA movement," Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson told Reuters in an interview. "No more." Johnson, a Democratic state senator from Dallas and the first Democrat elected to the office since 1994, said he will assess the pending lawsuits Paxton's office brought to determine whether he will support them: "Everything will be examined." The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported, and the White House referred to President Donald Trump's previous comments that Republicans lost because he was not on the ballot.

Source: Reuters, Nov. 8, 2026 (Rosenzweig-Ziff)

Abortion and transgender rights: the biggest pile

Texas is among the states suing the US Food and Drug Administration over its approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, arguing the agency failed to thoroughly evaluate its safety and effectiveness. If Texas withdraws, Florida — where Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier won a new term — would be the remaining plaintiff. In Kansas, Attorney General-elect Chris Mann could withdraw his state from a separate challenge to regulations that expanded access to mifepristone, which would leave Missouri and Idaho as plaintiffs. Texas has also filed numerous lawsuits against out-of-state providers for remotely prescribing mifepristone to Texas residents, and Johnson could decline to defend the state's near-total abortion ban in a lawsuit brought by the family of Tierra Walker, a Texas woman who died from a pregnancy-related condition after doctors refused to perform an abortion. The state could also back away from at least three pending cases enforcing its 2023 law banning gender-affirming treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors. In Georgia, Democrat Tanya Miller's election could change the state's defence of HB 481, its 2019 law banning abortion after six weeks, which the Georgia Supreme Court revived in 2024 and which remains in litigation.

Source: Reuters factbox, Nov. 8, 2026

Pharmaceuticals: Tylenol, Pfizer and the vaccine cases

Two Paxton-era drug cases will land on Johnson's desk. One accuses Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, of concealing purported links between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism and ADHD in children; Kenvue has denied any wrongdoing, and Reuters noted that doctors and medical groups consider acetaminophen the preferred treatment for pain and fever during pregnancy and that there is no firm scientific evidence of a link to autism or ADHD. In the other, Paxton in 2023 accused Pfizer of misrepresenting the efficacy of its widely used COVID-19 vaccine; Pfizer has said its representations were "accurate and science-based" and that the lawsuit has no merit. Republican Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who narrowly lost re-election to Mann, has also sued Pfizer over similar claims, so that case, too, now sits with a Democrat.

Source: Reuters factbox, Nov. 8, 2026

Environment, immigration and the cases our readers feel directly

Texas and 12 other Republican-led states are suing top asset managers including BlackRock in federal court, accusing them of violating antitrust law through climate activism that reduced coal production and boosted energy prices — one of the most prominent legal challenges to environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. BlackRock has denied any wrongdoing, and Vanguard settled its part in February for $29.5 million; Kansas is among the plaintiffs, so two of the case's state sponsors now change hands. On immigration — the issue that touches Punjabi and other diaspora families most directly — the new Texas attorney general could drop the state's defence of SB4, the Republican-backed law allowing state authorities to arrest and prosecute people suspected of illegally crossing the US–Mexico border, which the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals allowed to take effect in April while a challenge proceeds. Reuters' companion report added that the incoming attorneys general could also halt cooperation with federal immigration operations. In Iowa, Attorney General-elect Nate Willems could decline to defend Iowa's own immigration-arrest law if the US Supreme Court takes up the state's appeal of a ruling that blocked it.

Source: Reuters factbox, Nov. 8, 2026

Voting, maps and religion

Paxton's office is appealing a Boston federal judge's order that stopped him from pursuing a lawsuit against ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, over its donation practices; US District Judge Richard Stearns granted ActBlue a preliminary injunction in June after it argued the Texas suit violated its free-speech rights. In Georgia, a federal judge is weighing a fight over the state's congressional maps, which challengers said harmed Black voters; a federal appeals court in August vacated a 2023 lower-court ruling that the Republican-backed plan illegally diluted Black votes under the Voting Rights Act, and on Thursday US District Judge Steven Jones in Atlanta paused further action in the case, citing "impending changes" in the leadership of the state attorney general's office — a judge, in other words, already waiting to see who shows up for Georgia. At the US Supreme Court, Johnson could revisit Texas's defence of its 2025 law mandating display of the Ten Commandments in public schools; several Texas families, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, have asked the justices to invalidate the law, a divided appeals court ruled in April that Texas can require the displays, and the Supreme Court has not decided whether to take the case.

Source: Reuters factbox, Nov. 8, 2026

The people arriving with Johnson illustrate the range. In Iowa, Willems has pledged to prosecute corporate polluters and revive his office's consumer protection division, departing from outgoing Republican Brenna Bird, who drew national attention for halting state reimbursements for abortions for rape victims. In Ohio, Attorney General-elect John Kulewicz campaigned on curbing corporate price gouging. In Kansas, Mann said he wants to make the office nonpartisan since his state is so divided, told Reuters he is concerned about ICE raids in parts of the state, and also plans to review his predecessor's lawsuits, including the mifepristone challenge. None of them has filed anything yet — the offices, and the cases, become theirs in January.

Source: Reuters, Nov. 8, 2026 (Rosenzweig-Ziff)

What happens next

The first hard deadline is January, when the five new attorneys general are sworn in and the files formally change hands. Watch Texas first: a withdrawal notice in the FDA mifepristone case, a decision on defending SB4 and the abortion ban, and Johnson's review of the Kenvue and Pfizer suits will show within weeks how far the change goes. In Georgia, Judge Jones has already paused the maps case for the transition, so its next hearing will be an early tell. At the Supreme Court, two questions wait in the background — whether the justices take up Iowa's immigration-law appeal and the Texas Ten Commandments case — and in both, the person arguing for the state may soon be someone who campaigned against the law they would be defending.