However, Texas will gain 3 or 4 representatives locking up the south for Republicans over the next decade."
Actually, Alabama is set to lose a seat, and since the only Dem seat is a Black VRA (Voting Rights Act) seat, the GOP will lose the seat. Georgia is not set to gain any seats in 2022. Florida may gain 2, however with the unconstitutional approval of "Fair Voting Districts" (Read: Draw More Dem Seats for the Dem Minority), I can almost guarantee the courts will force the legislature to hand them to the Democrats. The "Fair Vote" is already responsible for giving the Dems 4 seats they wouldn't and shouldn't have.
Texas could gain 1-3 seats (not 4), but again, as with FL, Federal Judges will hang over the legislature the Sword of Democrats(sic) forcing them to hand most, if not all of those seats to Hispanic Democrats and trying to force down the current number of GOP seats (they're trying to do so even now).
Other potential changes: Arizona: +1 (to 10) - they have an "Independent Commission" which manages to help Democrats win a majority of seats despite only having a minority of the vote (they gave the Dems a 5-4 majority from 2013, with the GOP only narrowly capturing that 5th seat in 2014. If the legislature drew the seats, it would be a 7R-2D breakdown. I guarantee that "Independent" board will try to make it a 6D or 7D to 4 or 3R breakdown for 2023.
Colorado: +1 (to 8) - With a Dem Governor and half or whole Dem legislature, they will try to kick out the GOP majority and try to get the GOP down to 2 or 3 seats, probably with the help of a federal judge.
Illinois: -1 (to 17) - Certain to be taken out of the remaining GOP seats in an already badly gerrymandered Democrat plan, thanks to a heavy (and also badly gerrymandered Dem legislature). Even if Rauner wins reelection, he will be of no help to the GOP.
Michigan: -1 (to 13) - Again, likely to force 2 Republicans together. Just-Us will never allow 2 Black Detroit Dems into one seat despite being down to around only a half-million Blacks in the city.
Minnesota: -1 (to 7) - Could go either way, it would be tempting to put St. Paul and Minneapolis, both Commie Red political hellholes into one seat, but that's only if the GOP wins the Guv and legislature. As it is, the GOP should have a 6-2 majority instead of just 3 seats.
New York: -1 (to 26) - Which reflexively screws the GOP at every census now. They're already badly underrepresented at the Congressional level. The Dems will take it out of an upstate GOP seat or perhaps merge 2 Long Island districts.
North Carolina: +1 (to 14) - Dem Judges may force the GOP legislature to draw more Dem leaning seats. In this case, with an 9-4 GOP majority at present, they might be better off giving the Dems a seat in order to keep their seats safe.
Ohio: -1 (to 15) - GOP legislature will likely have to combine 2 Republicans simply because the Dems don't have but a few seats, designed to corral them into a few areas. It would be nice if we could take it out of Democrat Tim Ryan's district, which was swinging towards Trump as a White working class area.
Oregon: +1 (to 6) - Which has kept the GOP at 1 seat for years despite their deserving 2-3 of the seats. The Dems will probably try to create another Dem seat fanning out from Portlandia. They could empty a huge number of moonbats and still keep 2 or 3 seats safe just there alone.
Pennsylvania: -1 (to 17) - As with Ohio, the GOP legislature will likely have to put 2 Republicans together simply because there are too few Dem seats left, unless they can find a way to merge Philly's 1st and 2nd into one, though both are Black VRA districts, despite the fact that one has never elected a Black member (the Bob Brady seat).
Rhode Island: -1 (to 1) - The good news is that being reduced to a single at-large seat, the Dem majorities there can't gerrymander the seats, as if it would matter. The GOP might be competitive at some point in the future. They haven't won a House seat here since 1992.
West Virginia: -1 (to 2) - Unfortunately, here, too, just as the GOP finally regained a majority, WV's ultra-stagnant growth under the Democrats for decades is costing the GOP and this will eliminate a GOP seat.
Reapportionment of course won’t come into play until the 2022 midterms, will be the same map in ‘20 as ‘16.
It is VERY good that we have a GOP President overseeing the 2020 census.
In IL, if Rauner wins AND we can maintain over 40% in either leg chamber then there is a chance at compromise or the drawing the name out of a stovepipe hat or crystal bowl tiebreaker which we won in 1991 but lost in 1981 and 2001. If I had been Sec of State Jim Edgar in 1981 and drew a rat name I’d have overturned the hat and let the rats sue over it. Only thing keeping the GOP from full control of ‘82 redistricting was a 1 seat rat majority in the State Senate.
Even under the current map, rats should not have so many state leg seats, ugh. They gained way too many in 2006/08 and have managed to keep them. Only won the State House majority once in 5 tries under the 90’s GOP map. This state is so lame.
No way to stick Kildee and Levin in the same seat in MI? I thought we discussed this.
We need to win the GD MN Governorship next year and control it in that state, (which Trump should win in 2020) with all the liberal twin city burbs (Paulsen’s seat went for Shill) I’d go on the safe side and draw a 5-2 GOP. Winning sec of state and ag wouldn’t hurt either.
PA, can’t eff over Cartwright instead of an R?
The drawing of the seats of course doesn’t effect the changes to the electoral college, Texas gaining is helpful on that front, how does that break down? Looks like close to a push.
Well, I guess we will have to continue our regiztration gains and win these seats anyway.
DJ, your take on redistricting is way, way too pessimistic. Unless the GOP gets killed in state governor’s races next year, it will control redistricting in most of the states that you mentioned, and your claims of judicial interference are overblown. Case in point, NC, where even when a liberal judge forced the GOP legislature to redraw congressional districts (because they took race into consideration *exactly as the DOJ had mandated and Democrat redistricters had done in the prior two rounds of redistricting*), the GOP legislature redrew the maps and we still came away with the same 10-3 split as in the original map. (BTW, NC is one state that we don’t need to worry about whether the RAT steals the governorship once again in 2020, given that the state constitution does not grant the governor veto power over redistricting legislation.)
I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but I’ll mention a couple of states where you’re pessimism is unfounded. In OH (which will lose one seat), unless the 2018 and 2020 elections reveal that GOP gains in blue-collar NE OH were a total fluke, it will be relatively easy for GOP redistricters to eliminate Tim Ryan’s Mahoning/Warren-based CD. Moreover, If GOP blue-collar gains are real, it may not be necessary to have two RAT cities taking in Cleveland (a white one that stretches all the way to Toledo, and a black one that slinks down to take in black parts of Akron) and instead have one hyper-Democrat CD in Cleveland (still black-majority, so it won’t give us VRA problems), which would turn the already very Republican OH U.S. House delegation (12R, 4D) into a hyper-Republican 13R, 2D delegation, with the new GOP district being drawn in the Cleveland suburbs.
PA also will lose one seat, and if 2016 GOP gains in blue-collar areas were not a fluke (I’m not talking about Trump’s performance which I doubt can be replicated by House GOP candidates in PA; I’m using Toomey’s performance as a truer proxy of what we may expect from congressional candidates not just in blue-collar areas but in affluent areas, where Toomey’s drop from 2010 was not as great as Trump’s drop from Romney’s results), Cartwright’s Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Easton CD (which stupidly includes all of conservative Schuylkill County; Republicans were afraid of Democrat Congressman Holden winning any district with his home county in it) can be eliminated quite easily. And there is no need to draw a single heavily black CD in Philly (which, in any even, may lead to the courts intervening under the new liberal theory that having too large of a black majority in a black-majority CD is unconstitutional, since the three heavily RAT seats in the Philly metro area merely can be expanded to take in RAT voters from marginal GOP CDs that surround them (think of heavily RAT areas in Lower Bucks, Montco and Delco currently in the 8th, 6th and 7th CDs).
MN will lose a seat, and if the GOP gets to control the process it would be easy to draw two heavily RAT CDs in the Twin Cities area (again, no need to get greedy and draw a CD that combines Minneapolis and St. Paul, since the close-in suburbs are so Democrat that one won’t be able to avoid drawing another RAT CD there anyhow) and end up with a 5R-2D House delegation (a huge improvement from the current 5D-3R delegation in which three RATs represent GOP-leaning or marginal CDs and two Republicans represent RAT-leaning or marginal CDs).
TX will gain 3 seats (it would be shocking if it were only 2, and 4 is unlikely), and Democrats will not control the process or be able to increase their net numbers. Given Trump’s underperformance in affluent areas, it may be wise to draw CDs that combine close-in suburbs with some more blue-collar exurban areas so that the GOP could win those seats comfortably under both 2012 and 2016 scenarios.
Assuming that the GOP does well in state legislative and gubernatorial elections, my prediction is that, nationally, the number of CDs that would have voted for both Romney and Trump in 2012 and 2016 will increase, not decrease. So you can walk off the ledge, DJ. : )
The 2020 census results will be announced in the spring of 2021, so the change in congressmen and electoral votes won’t affect the 2020 presidential election.
I don't suppose there's any chance we could convince the RATs to gerrymander "conservative" (he'll turn traitor after about a decade in Washington, bank on it) LaThug Jr. into Cheri Bustos's district.