After Winning Redistricting War, GOP Poised for Even Bigger Wins in November

Republicans are likely to pick up three to four House seats from redistricting advantages after a series of recent breakthrough victories, bolstering their already favorable prospects in this midterm election cycle.

That’s a major change from early April, when Democrats were on track to pick up one or two seats. Republicans dealt a titanic blow to that edge with a crucial court victory in New York Wednesday and an aggressive, GOP-friendly map enacted in Florida last week.

TOP NEW YORK COURT TOSSES REDISTRICTING MAP IN DEFEAT FOR DEMOCRATS

“NY’s top court has turned Dems’ 2022 House outlook from terrible to potentially horrific. A court-appointed special master will draw a remedial map, perhaps costing Dems three NY seats they otherwise would have gained & making Rs clear redistricting winners,” Dave Wasserman, a national elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, tweeted.

House Republicans need to net five seats in the 435-member chamber to reclaim the majority the party lost in the 2018 elections. Republicans commenced the decennial line-drawing process last year with some advantages from the census, which added seats to GOP-friendly states such as Texas and Florida and took some seats away from Democratic-leaning states such as California and New York.

But Democrats quickly began humbling the GOP with aggressive redistricting plans in blue states and key court victories in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. The Democrats’ crown jewel was New York, where the party enacted a devastating map that was expected to boost its 19-8 congressional seat majority to 22-4. New York is losing a House seat after the 2020 Census found the state to have comparatively slow population growth.

The New York State Court of Appeals shattered that advantage Wednesday when it tossed out the map and ordered the adoption of a more neutral plan, which could give the GOP three to five more seats than the party likely would have had under the prior map. Because the ruling came from the highest court in the state, it will be difficult to overturn.

The ruling followed another loss last week out of Florida, which is gaining a House seat from its big population growth between 2010 and 2020. Sunshine State Republicans enacted an aggressive map that is projected to boost the party’s current 16-11 congressional advantage to 20-8.

In other woes for Democrats, a Maryland court ruling threw out a favorable map, forcing the party to retreat and transform a blue-leaning seat on its old map into a competitive seat in the new version. Additionally, the Supreme Court of Ohio seemingly ran out the clock on Democrats’ hopes of adjusting Ohio’s congressional map before the 2022 election. As a result, Republicans will likely have an opportunity to pick up a seat in the Buckeye State while setting the stage for Democrats to lose two seats. The state lost one seat during the most recent Census.

Not all of the recent redistricting news has been grim for Democrats. On Monday, the party procured a victory in Kansas that is likely to be upheld by a higher court, throwing out a GOP-friendly map. As a result, Democrats will likely preserve a seat held by Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids that the Republican map undermined.

After the decision in New York, Democrats found solace in the timing of the decision. They pinned their hopes of preserving their gerrymander for the upcoming cycle on a prior federal court ruling calling for the state’s primary to be held on June 28.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court of Ohio previously struck down congressional maps similar to the one Republicans have enacted, indicating the court may strike down the current GOP-friendly map at some point in the future. Additionally, Democratic-friendly groups have challenged the Republican-backed map in Florida, arguing it violated the Fair Districts Amendment, which restricts plans from being drawn “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party.”

“Republicans hate me because I fight and fear me because I win,” Democratic campaign lawyer Marc Elias crowed on Twitter Tuesday as his law firm backed a lawsuit in Florida and a slew of other legal challenges to curtail recent Republican victories.

Republicans are also at risk of shooting themselves in the foot in New Hampshire and Missouri. The two states have failed to enact a new congressional map so far, despite total Republican control of the process, because of an internal party brawl over how aggressive they should be on apportionment. As a result, redistricting in both states is at risk of being kicked to the courts, which will likely be more favorable to Democrats than the traditional process.

“I think where we have control, the most important thing is to draw a map — there’s no reason to turn over the power to draw districts to a court when you have full control over the process,” Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, previously stressed to the Washington Examiner.

While litigation remains ongoing in nearly a dozen states, Republicans’ redistricting triumphs are significant because the party will likely have more congressional seats that are favorable for them to win during the midterm elections and potentially over the next decade. This adds momentum to the growing red wave that the party is poised to surf in 2022 amid favorable historical trends and a slew of crises plaguing Democrats, such as rampant inflation, a surge of illegal immigration, and an uptick in crime.

“When we get into this fall, you’re going to have a lot of seats gettable for Republicans,” Kincaid said. “And I think we’ll be able to hold them in future cycles. That’s been the goal.”

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As the parties have intensified their pursuits of apportionment advantages, a shrinking number of congressional seats remain competitive. This risks amplifying partisanship in Congress.

“Redistricting tends to squeeze moderate members out, and this year is no exception,” Wasserman previously told the Washington Examiner. “That could lead to a more dysfunctional Congress because there are fewer competitive seats.”