The “Browning Of America” Changed The GOP’s Redistricting Strategy. It Weakened It.

OK, OK, OK, gimme a break. For 4 years His Lowness had an infrastructure month every week. One redistricting week outta me ain’t gonna kill ya. Besides, this is some pretty good shit.

Everybody knows that the Democrats face an uphill battle to retain the House in 2022, it always is in a first term midterm. But especially in 2022, there is a rare confluence of events that has the GOP feeling the wind in their sails for retaking the House with ease.

The first is the fact that the Democratic majority is so small that the GOP doesn’t need to flip that many seats to take control. But more importantly, 2021 was a redistricting year coming off of the 2020 census. And with GOP control of state legislatures, the plan was for the GOP to pick up enough news seats purely through gerrymandering that they’d already potentially take control of the House on that factor alone. But it isn’t working out that way.

The 4 most populous electoral states are California, Texas, Florida, and New York, an even split between the Democrats and the GOP. The original plan was for the GOP to pick 4-6 seats in Texas alone, with another 2-4 in Florida, possibly throwing in a couple from Georgia and North Carolina. California has an independent commission for redistricting, so the thinking was that it wouldn’t help much. But it isn’t working out that way.

The Democrats have played a bad hand brilliantly. The California commission was actually kind to the Democrats, giving them a few seats, including making Devin Nunez’ seat difficult enough to scare him off. Oregon actually picked up a couple of blue seats, and skillful redistricting in Illinois netted a couple of more. And New York is also expected to chip into the kitty. But the real shocker is the shift in the GOP strategy.

Earlier today, MSNBC had on the guy, I didn’t catch his name, who ran the Democrats House reelection campaign in 1994, when Clinton became only the 2nd President to pick up House seats in his first midterm. And he confirmed something I had already thought I saw. The GOP had shifted strategy, especially in Texas.

The Texas redistricting alone was supposed to break the Democrats back in the House. But instead of aggressively moving to create new safe GOP districts, and eliminate Democratic districts, instead the GOP moved the lines around to buttress the districts they already hold! The browning of America has come to visit battleground Texas. The huge population explosion that propelled Texas to 2 additional House seats was 95% minority population growth. A
s a result, several formerly safe GOP seats became competitive, and had to be shored up. And it isn’t over for Texas yet. Because their map is in court on racial gerrymandering claims because neither of the two new seats has minority representation, even thought it was minority growth that got them in the first place.

And it’s not going much better anywhere else. Florida is going conservative as well, propping up weak spots rather than aggressively moving to expand. And while both Georgia and North Carolina are trying to chip in, both are now tied up in court on racial gerrymandering charges. And North Carolina in particular has a miserable record in defending its maps in court on racial profiling cases.

And it isn’t just me and the dude who ran the DCCC in 1994 who picked up on this. The Cook Report took a close look at all of these redistricting maps too, and downgraded their estimate for redistricting House seat changes for 2022 to basically a wash. The Democrats still have an uphill battle, but at least it looks like they won’t be starting with a redistricting deck that’s stacked against them. And Trump and his insaniac legion of House challengers is always the wild card that can change the deck completely. Don’t touch that dial.