Posted on 03/30/2022 5:13:24 PM PDT by bitt
The Cook Political Report has lowered the number of seats Democrats are projected to gain from redistricting in the wake of major court decisions in two states.
“Owing to court decisions in Maryland & Ohio, Democrats are now on track to net 1-2 House seats nationally from redistricting alone,” Cook Political Report senior editor David Wasserman tweeted Tuesday. The Cook Political Report previously estimated that Democrats would net four to five seats in Congress.
The new, downgraded estimate is a sign that Republicans are posed to do better than expected in the redistricting battle.
The stunning development comes after a Maryland judge on Friday struck down a congressional map that bolstered Democrats, ruling the redistricting map violated the state’s constitution. The Democrat-endorsed map would have created seven safe Democratic seats and one Republican-leaning seat.
“If replaced [with] a neutral map, this could end up costing Dems 1-2 seats,” Wasserman tweeted about the Maryland ruling.
In January, the Ohio Supreme Court threw out the state’s first attempt at redistricting, which bolstered Republicans, for violating the partisan-fairness requirement in the state constitution. Democrats challenged an updated congressional map that was put forward in March, but the court isn’t expected to rule on the case until after the state’s May 3rd primary, Cleveland.com reported.
“This schedule would seem to preclude a legal challenge to Ohio’s GOP map before the May primary, paving the way for a map as lopsided as 13R-2D to be used for the 2022 elections – unless a federal court intervenes,” Wasserman tweeted.
“There are 10 solid R seats, two solid D seats and three competitive seats. There’s a real chance of a 13R-2D rout in 2022,” he added.
The Ohio Supreme Court gave Democrats and Republicans 25 days to present their arguments for why the maps should or should not get the judiciary’s sign off, according to Cleveland.com. Likewise, Republican-led states, such as Florida and Missouri, have yet to finalize redistricting maps, which could further erode the Democrats projected elections gains from redistricting.
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There’s a chance that New York’s atrocious 22-4 gerrymander could get struck down as well.
“There’s a chance that New York’s atrocious 22-4 gerrymander could get struck down as well.”
Perhaps, but as things stand now it won’t happen (if it ever does — don’t hold your breath) until after the 2022 elections.
Sean Trende of RCP is presenting the evidence of gerrymandering in NY. He just won a similar case in Maryland, and the NY map is more blatantly gerrymandered.
NY Judges deciding are more corrupt ... just saying
This is true, but the story is that a state judge (a Republican, or more accurately a RINO) has already decided it’s too late for 2022 to do anything about New York. So unless he is overruled it’s going to be a bloodbath there in November if redistricting dictates the majority of the election outcomes.
Unfortunately, the Republicans were just one vote short of stopping the gerrymander. If we invested in more into state Senate races we could have saved 4 congressional seats.
Per a story I came across a few weeks ago, Dems decided to go with thin margins in many of the new districts to maximize the number of Democratic leaning districts. For example, some districts might be gerrymandered to give a 5% Dem advantage, which would be ok in some years, but what happens if a ‘red wave’ develops?
The policy wonk that was being quoted in the story was, I think, a Dem. He was talking about the scenario where the Republicans win solid red districts, Republicans win toss up districts, and also Republicans win many of the newly gerrymandered Dem districts. He was talking about a bloodbath for Dems.
The good news is that Dominion is still in full control.
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