National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer slammed prominent Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, accusing the attorney of grifting off redistricting lawsuits.
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The Minnesota Republican, who expressed confidence in the GOP’s ability to take back control of the lower chamber despite Democrats fairing better than expected in terms of redistricting, argued that Elias, who works with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has been hypocritical with his rhetoric blasting partisan gerrymandering while helping lead the efforts on a recently rejected legal challenge to Maryland’s map and support for New York cutting multiple right-leaning districts.
“They’ve violated their own law. And by the way, this bottom feeder Mark Elias keeps filing suits everywhere. I hope people start writing about the fact that he does many of those lawsuits just to raise money. They’re just fundraising mechanisms,” he told the Washington Examiner. “And if you want to talk about lawsuits, take a look at what just happened in Maryland, where the Supreme Court of Maryland said unabashedly that Democrats unconstitutionally gerrymandered the districts in their favor and therefore threw the map out last week.”
Emmer said that redistricting has not been a major factor in the House GOP’s playbook for flipping the House, asserting that he believes problems such as inflation and crime, in conjunction with a strong candidate pool, will drive swing voters to support Republicans in November.
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“All Republicans have ever cared about is that the redistricting process be open, transparent, and fair,” he said. “And you may recall we said from the beginning of this cycle, we never expected to win a majority based on our redistricting. We expect to win it based on great candidates carrying a message that voters carry about and care about … that’s how we’re going to win.”
Top Democrats have expressed they feel the redrawn maps will help them stave off a red wave next fall, with DCCC Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney telling reporters earlier this month he feels the party is in a strong position to retain seats in play.
“We came out of redistricting with a better map than the one which we currently hold the majority — no one predicted that, and it has real practical implications,” the New York Democrat said at the House Democratic issues conference in Philadelphia. “We have a much better front line and a much better offensive battlefield. And the Republicans are going to pay a real price for having, in my view, mishandled redistricting.”
Emmer said the GOP has managed to recruit an even more diverse set of candidates than last cycle, and he believes Republicans will see backing from Latino voters continue to grow, which has been an area of concern for Democrats who saw a dip in support among the demographic last cycle.
“Last time, we broke all records when it came to women. We more than doubled the number of Republican women at our conference — this time, I expect similar. In fact, if you look back two years ago, at this time, I think we had approximately 225, maybe even 227, women that had filed as Republicans for the U.S. House. This time, we’re approaching 300 already,” he said.
“We’ve got more Hispanic candidates, minority candidates, than we have ever had in the history of this party, so building off of those things that we did last cycle is going to be important to our success this cycle.”
While the House GOP exceeded political forecasters’ projections during the 2020 election, Emmer said he does not see it as a success, but he expects the party to pick up well over the five seats needed to regain the majority. The NRCC expanded its target list to 72 Democrat-held or newly created seats on Wednesday.
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“I was extremely disappointed by the outcome of the last election. Unlike most people, I was not gratified. Coming up five seats short, I’m very grateful that my colleagues have given me the opportunity to finish what we started three years ago. We’re going to do that,” he said.
“If we win just 18 seats, it’s a bigger majority than in 1994. If we win just 30 seats, a bigger majority than 2010 — remember, they were starting at 179 in 2010, and if we would just win 35 seats, it’d be the largest Republican majority in 93 years.”
Elias did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
