President Trump’s campaign to redraw House maps in GOP states around the country will make it tougher for Democrats to win back control of the chamber in next year’s midterms, but it won’t knock them out of contention altogether, according to leading election handicappers. While Trump and his Republican allies are battling to pad their slim House majority through partisan redistricting, a number of other factors leave Democrats well positioned to seize the chamber, according to election experts.
California is vowing to revamp its own map to counter the GOP advantage in Texas, and the national mood currently favors the more energized Democrats. Republicans are defending a razor-thin House advantage that leaves them little room for defeat, and historic trends predict significant midterm losses for the party of the sitting president. Democrats won 235 seats in 2018 on a map that was a little bit more skewed towards Republicans than the one in place currently.
The Texas redistricting push, designed to help keep the Speaker’s gavel firmly in Republican hands, came at the request of the president. The new Texas lines are expected to flip as many as five Democratic seats to the GOP, and other Republican-led states may follow suit. Democrats have responded in kind with their own redistricting effort in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is pressing ahead with new maps that would likely flip five GOP seats into the Democratic column.
Democrats are also hindered by another dynamic surrounding the redistricting fight: they simply don’t have as many options as the Republicans do. Illinois Democrats are eyeing new maps, but with only three Republicans in the entire delegation, their pick-up opportunities are slim. Republicans appear to agree, although they’re supporting the efforts of GOP states to redraw their maps ahead of the mid-terms, they’re attacking Newsom and Democrats for attempting an illegal power-grab.
