When this gerrymander war started some pundit said that the GQP had the advantage in what they could accomplish. I don't remember the rationale, but it looks to be coming true.
Ohio: As many as 3 possible new GOP-leaning seats....
Missouri: 1 new GOP-leaning seat....
Plus, Republicans are eyeing more. In Indiana, Gov. Mike Braun is considering a November special session to redraw congressional maps after a pressure campaign from the White House, including a visit from Vice President JD Vance.
The White House has similarly applied pressure on lawmakers from Kansas, where Democrats hold one seat; Nebraska, where outgoing GOP Rep. Don Bacon’s Omaha district will be a top target of Democrats; and New Hampshire, which has two seats held by Democrats, according to reports. In Florida, a committee has been formed to pursue the idea of a mid-decade redistricting. All of those efforts may not come to fruition, but Republicans are certainly looking across the map.
Democrats have fewer options
California: Voters will get a say....
Utah: A court-mandated re-draw. A judge in Utah is requiring the legislature to redraw maps that ignored a nonpartisan redistricting commission and carved up a single Democratic seat around Salt Lake City among the state’s four congressional districts. The end result could be the return of a competitive district in Utah.
There are also nascent efforts to consider redistricting in New York, Illinois and Maryland....
There are no guarantees — look at Latinos in Texas
... In Texas, the gamble for Republicans is that Latino voters will continue to back the GOP at the same level as they did in 2024, when there was a dramatic shift despite Trump’s rhetoric about immigration on the campaign trail.
GoThinking LatinosGo!
Democrats have history in their favor
Trump and Republicans are fighting the tide of history with their redistricting efforts. Only twice since the Great Depression has the president’s party not lost seats in a midterm election. In both of those exceptions — 1998 and 2002 — the president in question had strong job approval ratings. Trump does not.
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But it’s also true that with fewer and fewer competitive seats, the pendulum does not swing as far. Democrats need to pick up a net of three seats to gain control of the House and gain a foothold of power in Washington, DC, to stand up to Trump.
President Joe Biden’s Democrats only lost nine seats in 2022, compared with the 40 Republican seats Trump lost in 2018.
No amount of redistricting is likely to save the House for Republicans if a true wave against Trump should materialize, but in this world of historically narrow House majorities, five to 10 more friendly seats could certainly change the equation.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Indiana Republicans are “ashamed of what they’re doing” on Thursday as he rallied opponents of a potential effort by GOP lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional maps ahead of next year’s midterm elections to add one or two US House seats more favorable to the party.
Buttigieg, the former South Bend mayor, returned to his home state for an appearance at the Indiana Statehouse where he urged Republican state lawmakers who are being pressured by President Donald Trump’s administration to redistrict to “show some backbone before it’s too late.”
“Refraining from cheating is a low bar,” he said. “But you’ve got to start somewhere, because they are under so much pressure from Washington to do something wrong.”
GoPete and Honorable RepubsGo
Even as Buttigieg enters the fray, Indiana Democrats face a daunting political reality: They have no way of stopping Republican Gov. Mike Braun and the state’s supermajority Republican House and Senate from redrawing its congressional maps to try to tilt the GOP’s current 7-2 House seat advantage to 8-1 or 9-0.
Braun and GOP legislative leaders have not yet made a public argument in favor of redrawing Indiana’s congressional maps. However, Braun told state reporters Tuesday that redistricting “probably will happen.”
... Republican state Rep. Ed Clere told CNN that Missouri’s approval of new congressional maps last week “has only increased the pressure on Indiana, but for all the wrong reasons.”
“This is being driven by very raw and very cynical politics,” he said.
Clere has been one of the Indiana GOP’s most vocal opponents of mid-decade redistricting. He said doing so “establishes a dangerous precedent,” and said there is deep opposition within the party to redrawing the maps.
“There are Republicans who are more concerned with upholding principles than with cheating to win elections. And that’s what this is: It’s cheating,” he said. “This is about a lot more than a congressional map or an election. This is about who we are as a people, and whether we are willing to prioritize democracy over politics.”
Multiple Indiana Republican lawmakers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they expect Trump will eventually get his way....
It's a Cult.
Lament the murder, not the murdered.
1312. ETTD. 86 47.
It's a Cult.