New House maps not the electoral bonanza many Republicans expected

But it hasn’t worked out that way. With the bulk of states done with redistricting, including the entire western half of the United States, Democrats would seem to have an edge in the once-a-decade reapportionment and redistricting process, when states gain and lose seats and then shift the lines depending on population changes.

Redistricting might not be enough to save the majority House Democrats won in 2018, considering President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings amid decades-high inflation and COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. But it may act as an insurance policy of sorts, limiting the type of gains Republicans were hoping for from redistricting.

In the pregame to the 2022 midterm cycle, Democrats have eked out some notable victories in recent weeks against Republicans in congressional redistricting battles.

An analysis by the Cook Political Report concluded that Democrats are on track to gain a two- or three-seat redistricting advantage by the time the process is over relative to the prior congressional map. FiveThirtyEight released a similar assessment, estimating that Democrats are on track to flip two seats due to their redistricting advantage.

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“We’re comparing this round to a baseline that was very favorable to Republicans. No doubt about it. It was always going to be hard for the map to get much worse for Democrats than the ones that were passed in 2011,” Dave Wasserman, a national elections analyst for Cook Political Report, told the Washington Examiner. “We estimate Democrats are on pace to net two seats owing to new maps alone. That sounds like a positive for Democrats, and it is, but it’s a pretty small shift.”

Wasserman said overall, redistricting in 2022 is “shaping up to be a wash,” with the Democrats having a slight advantage. He said Democrats have been able to enact somewhat aggressive maps in key states such as Illinois, New York, New Mexico, Oregon, and Nevada. He said they also managed to get favorable maps in California, New Jersey, and Michigan while staving off more aggressive Republican redistricting attempts in Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania with key court victories.

Some of those states, such as California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, lost a congressional seat due to the most recent census. The loss of congressional seats in key blue states and the fact that Republicans had control of redistricting in more districts initially led some analysts to believe Republicans would have the advantage in this redistricting cycle, but so far, Democrats appear to have been able to overcome that.

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Adam Kincaid, president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, disagreed with some of that analysis. He cited Nevada as an example of a state where he believed Republicans may actually benefit. The new map softened the Republican advantage in northern Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, held by the state’s sole Republican representative, Mark Amodei. In order to do this, the Democrats also weakened their advantage in other districts.

“I don’t believe they have an advantage,” Kincaid told the Washington Examiner, referring to the Democrats. “I think the playing field is right where we thought it was. Our goal through this whole process was to put ourselves in a good position to take the majority this fall and have a shot at holding it for future cycles.”

It is widely believed that Republicans gained significant advantages in the congressional redistricting process in 2011. The party had a resurgence in the 2010 midterm elections that put them in key positions of power in critical states just in time for the new census data that triggers redistricting. Wasserman estimates that Republicans gained a redistricting advantage of somewhere between five to 10 seats compared to the prior maps.

This time around, Democrats geared up heavily to try to reverse some of their losses in prior redistricting battles. Eric Holder, who was attorney general during the Obama administration, chaired the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. Other groups such as Democracy Docket, aided by the Elias Law Group, worked to help Democrats win critical court victories.

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The Democrats’ legal victories in North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have kept potential Republican redistricting gains at bay in those states. The state supreme courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania had a majority of Democratic-leaning justices. Ohio had a majority of Republican-leaning justices but had laws in place that swung the Republican chief justice against the party. Democrats are also looking ahead at additional challenges in states such as Kansas that have courts favorable to them.

“It’s not as if Democrats have some brilliant legal strategy. It’s that they won key down-ballot races that set them up for favorable rulings,” Wasserman said.

Despite the overall picture shaping up to be a modest victory for Democrats, redistricting has notably helped Republicans expand their advantages in some states, such as Arizona, Tennessee, and Texas. If Democrats’ legal challenges fail, Republicans could also expand their advantage in Kansas due to the new maps. They have also created safer seats for the party in states such as Indiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah, according to FiveThirtyEight’s redistricting tracker. Republicans also recently had a Supreme Court victory that upheld their Alabama map.

Kincaid said he believes that Democrats have largely already made the gains they were going to make during this redistricting cycle. He said Republicans anticipated many of the setbacks they faced in court cases for North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania maps and argued Republicans could still gain advantages in remaining states, such as Florida.

“Nationally, Democrats are done with the states that have the ability to draw maps,” Kincaid said. “There’s a few Republican states and a few split states out there. I prefer to look at these things in buckets. We knew we would take some lumps in the blue states, which we did. But we fought to a draw in the commission states, which was our goal, and we’re doing well where we have control.”

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With nearly a dozen left to go in adopting new maps and over half a dozen states in legal disputes over their new maps, there is still some uncertainty regarding what the final congressional map will look like. Wasserman and other political analysts still expect Republicans to perform well in the midterm election cycle due to Biden’s low approval ratings and historical trends that favor the opposition party in midterm elections. But Wasserman noted that increasingly partisan redistricting could harm centrist members in both parties in future elections.

“Redistricting tends to squeeze moderate members out, and this year is no exception,” Wasserman said. “It’s a House map that looks less skewed to Republicans than it has, but also one that could lead to a more dysfunctional Congress because there are fewer competitive seats.”