Jim Jordan could face tougher-than-usual reelection fight due to redistricting

Jordan is in line to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if, as expected, the GOP wins the majority in 2022. In that position, Jordan could play a lead role in oversight of President Joe Biden’s administration, with the power to issue subpoenas to officials.

Yet while Republicans control the Ohio redistricting process, they do face some constraints. In addition to the downsizing of Ohio’s House delegation, Republicans now dominate the state politically. That means it’s nearly impossible to draw a new map with more competitive districts that protects Republicans like Jordan, who has developed a national following.

“Unlike Illinois and New York, Ohio actually has a map with some potentially competitive seats,” argued David Myhal, a Republican strategist in the state, citing a pair of states where Democrats control the redistricting process.

So Jordan faces the prospect of running for reelection in a more competitive district than he has since 2006, when he cruised into an open seat that spans a swath of mostly conservative territory west and south of Cleveland’s suburbs.

Republicans in the state Legislature must grapple with a voter-approved redistricting overhaul, forcing them to consider politically uncomfortable congressional maps.

Jordan could be redrawn into a new district that pits him against Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, chairwoman of the influential Congressional Black Caucus. Her current district includes most of the state capital of Columbus.

Some Jordan backers are angry, blaming Republican Matt Huffman, majority leader of the Ohio Senate, for the risk to Jordan in the midterm elections. But Republican sources in the Buckeye State note that Huffman and the congressman are personally friendly and aligned politically, and they dispute suggestions the state Senate majority leader is purposely putting Jordan in 2022 peril. Rather, Republicans say, the possibility Jordan might have to work harder to win a ninth term is due to a 2018 initiative approved by Ohio voters mandating that congressional boundaries be drawn to produce more competitive districts.

“This was a bigger challenge for the legislative map-makers than people realize,” said Republican former congressman Pat Tiberi, now president and CEO of the Ohio Business Roundtable. “The old process didn’t hamstring the map makers as much — and it was purely politics.”

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The new process requires maps to be approved by a supermajority of the Ohio Legislature, the failure of which could lead to the implementation of a four-year map rather than one that lasts until the next decennial census.

Democrats, especially Beatty, might take issue with that assessment.

In hearings in Columbus on Wednesday before the Legislature’s joint redistricting committee, Democrats and liberal activists complained that the proposed maps, as they were shaping up, lacked competitiveness and community cohesiveness. Essentially, they said, the Republicans were engaging in traditional political gerrymandering.

Regardless of the final outcome of Ohio’s redistricting process, Republican insiders in Ohio doubt that Jordan will have much to complain about.

Trump won Jordan’s existing Fourth Congressional District with more than 67% of the vote last November. That made Jordan’s seat fertile territory from which to pull as the cartographers in the Legislature sought to fulfill their redistricting duties. But Republicans say a combination of Jordan’s high standing in Ohio politics and the overall strong GOP lean of the state make it a near impossibility that the lines of new seat will threaten his political career.

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“There is no way Jordan gets a tough district,” a Republican operative in Ohio said. “He’s very close with the state Senate.”

Representatives of Huffman and Jordan could not be reached for comment.