Republicans Score Last-Minute Redistricting Victories

Republicans have been making a roaring fourth-quarter comeback in the redistricting process, eking out some last-minute victories that could offset some of the gains Democrats procured earlier in the year.

Legal triumphs in Ohio, Maryland, and New York during recent days have put the Democrats on their back feet and prompted the Cook Political Report to lower its estimate for Democrats’ net favorable seat gain to 1-2, down from the 4-5 estimate the group released weeks prior.

“I think that Democrats spent a lot of time crowing — they were spiking the football at the end of the third quarter. We knew then, like I’m saying now, that we were exactly where we thought we were going to be at this at that point,” Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust told the Washington Examiner.

Each seat is crucial to both parties in redistricting, the decennial line-drawing process after the nationwide census. House Republicans need to net five seats in the 435-member chamber to reclaim the majority the party lost in 2018.

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Republicans inherited victories from the last round of redistricting in 2011, and they began this cycle defending a favorable baseline as a result. Adding to their good fortunes, the most recent census took seats away from blue states such as California and New York and increased seats in red states such as Texas and Florida. But Democrats quickly began outmaneuvering Republicans in court, raking in key victories in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and more.

“Republican Twitter is panicking because it has realized that the GOP has not won a single redistricting lawsuit. Not one,” Democratic campaign lawyer Marc Elias boasted on Twitter in late February.

“Republicans are so upset about our redistricting litigation victories, they are now complaining about the states we are not suing,” Elias tweeted a few weeks later.

Then came a blow from the Old Line State on March 25. A Maryland court struck down a state map that made the state’s sole Republican district competitive for Democrats. Another snag soon followed when the Supreme Court of Ohio announced last Tuesday it would not take up a case against the state’s congressional map until after the primary — seemingly running out the clock on Democratic hopes of changing the map for the election cycle. On Wednesday, Louisiana’s GOP Legislature overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and enacted a map that keeps the status quo of five Republican House members to one Democrat.

Finally, on Thursday, a New York court took aim at the Democrats’ golden goose, enjoining the state’s congressional map, which had been poised to give the party a minimum of a three-seat pickup.

Elias contended the New York ruling would be stayed upon appeal, likely leaving the map in place for the 2022 elections and its fate undetermined for future races. Maryland’s redistricting process could also still line up with state Democrats’ intended effect, with at least seven House members from their party to a single Republican, Rep. Andy Harris, in the state’s conservative eastern edge — though under the right political conditions, even Harris’s seat could be vulnerable, which would give Maryland Democrats an 8-0 House delegation shutout.

Still, in Ohio, Republicans will likely get a more favorable map for 2022, Dave Wasserman, a national elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, told the Washington Examiner.

“In Maryland, Republicans are likely to get a more favorable map,” but “it remains to be seen whether Democrats’ remedial plan will pass court muster,” Wasserman said.

As for Ohio, the redistricting picture “is still a bit murky. But it appears that Republicans have successfully run out the clock on challenges and time for the 2022 cycle.”

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While Republicans appear to be experiencing a resurgence in the final stretch of the redistricting clash, they had been dogged by prior local electoral defeats in states such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Democratic control over the courts enabled them to stymie any Republican attempts to gain ground in those states and likely secured one seat in North Carolina while taking one away from the GOP in Pennsylvania.

“We allowed Barack Obama and Eric Holder to outmaneuver the Republican committees in those states and the RNC,” Chris Christie, a co-chairman of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, bemoaned to reporters in February. “We can’t take for granted these Supreme Court elections and what impact they can have on the maps.”

Another problem has been self-inflicted — the GOP has been ensnared in intraparty melees in Florida, New Hampshire, and Missouri — states over which they enjoy full control. Both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu have vetoed congressional maps from their Republican Legislatures — but for opposite reasons. DeSantis wants a more aggressive map, while Sununu asked for a bipartisan one.

With primaries slated to take place in August and September respectively, the two states have ample time to sort through their differences. Missouri, by contrast, has already blown through a critical deadline failing to pass a map before the March 29 cutoff for candidates to file. Republicans in the state House touted a moderate map in January, but the Republican-led state Senate rejected that in favor of something more aggressive — leading to many back-and-forths. If Republicans fail to resolve the impasse, it could get kicked to the courts.

“I think where we have control, the most important thing is to draw a map — there’s no reason to turn over the power to draw districts to a court when you have full control over the process,” Kincaid said. “Republicans are having a hard time getting on one page.”

Still, with Republicans in control of those three states, they are still expected to attain a favorable outcome.

Kincaid maintained that Republicans “have raised their floor significantly” this redistricting round, while “Democrats have raised their floor a little bit, and the number of competitive seats has gone down.”

“When we get into this fall, you’re going to have a lot of seats gettable for Republicans,” Kincaid stressed. “And I think we’ll be able to hold them in future cycles. That’s been the goal.”

There are four states without legally binding maps: Florida, Maryland, Missouri, and New Hampshire. About a dozen states have pending lawsuits that could change the outlet. Some of the lawsuits, such as the ones pending in New York and Ohio as well as a possible future Supreme Court case over North Carolina’s map, could result in changes after the 2022 election.

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Ultimately, Wasserman predicted Democrats will have an edge — just less of an advantage than what they appeared to have a few weeks ago. He believes this round of redistricting was “a mixed bag,” with the two parties missing key opportunities but seizing others.

“Democrats in Illinois didn’t draw as blue districts as they could have outside of Chicago,” Wasserman said. “Republicans didn’t take maximum advantage of opportunities to eliminate Democratic seats in places like Kentucky and Indiana. They still were fairly aggressive in Tennessee and Texas.”