2022 Midterm Elections: NO RED WAVE! - GOP Takes U.S. House; Dems Keep U.S. Senate

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Texas GOP lawmakers propose
redistricting map protecting
congressional incumbents but
avoiding a new Latino-majority seat


Sept. 27, 2021


Republicans in Texas, the nation’s fastest-growing state, released a draft congressional map on Monday that would move GOP incumbents into more conservative districts in an effort to insulate them in the future against the state’s rapidly growing, more diverse electorate.

Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled state Senate responsible for drawing the lines created a new Democratic district in Austin but did not draw a new Latino-majority district, despite Latino population growth being the primary factor in Texas acquiring two new seats in Congress effective in next year’s election.

The draft map did not dramatically change the current makeup of the congressional delegation. Instead, it eliminated most competitive districts, in what appeared to be an effort to take away Democrats’ shot at flipping those seats during the next decade.

Republicans hold a 23-to-13 advantage over Democrats in the House delegation. Under the new GOP proposal, safe Republican seats would double from 11 to 22 and safe Democratic seats would increase from eight to 12. One seat leans Democratic and two lean Republican. Toss-up seats would be reduced from 12 to one.

The remaining competitive seat is held by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez Jr. (D), whose 15th Congressional District along the Rio Grande Valley has gone from having a narrow Democratic edge to a narrow Republican one. Texas Republicans are hoping that former president Donald Trump’s strong performance in the Rio Grande in 2020 creates an opportunity for them to pick up that seat.

The state Senate draft will need to be reconciled with one from the state Assembly, which has yet to release its version. The final map is expected to pass along party lines, given the large GOP majorities in both chambers, and be approved by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Texas is the first test of how far Republican legislatures would go to try to secure their party’s power in Washington, as they decide in many states where growth has been predominantly among Democratic-leaning constituencies whether to protect GOP incumbents or draw more competitive districts that, if won, could expand their standing in the House.

Michael Li, a redistricting expert at Brennan Center of Justice, said the map shows Republicans fear the changing demographics of the suburbs and have sought to protect incumbents there by drawing districts that combine a diverse urban area with a deeply rural one.

He pointed to Republican Rep. Roger Williams’s 25th District, which Trump won by nine percentage points in 2020. Under the new map, the district, which includes part of Fort Worth, now encompasses large swaths of conservative areas to the west, making it a district that Trump would have won by more than 32 percentage points.

“It’s not only do they get more seats,” Li said. “Start with the premise that they already had an advantage. They’re shoring it up and taking competitive seats that Democrats have a reasonable shot of winning off the table.”

Republicans control more state governments than Democrats, giving them the upper hand in redistricting. Republicans also completely control the drawing of the new congressional maps in three of the six states that are gaining seats in Congress — Texas, Florida and North Carolina, where the Democratic governor has no control over the map. In all three, population growth was driven overwhelmingly by expanding numbers of non-White residents in urban areas.

Of the 4 million new residents that Texas gained over the past decade, nearly 2 million were Latino, while only 5 percent were White.
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Thread by @marcushjohnson on Thread Reader App
I don’t know how the “Democrats need to stop talking about race” takes still exist. The idea is that it alienates working class whites (sure). But how can they believe refusing to talk about race won’t provoke a backlash of poc/college educated? That we’ll just roll with it?
Its not an unusual or unpopular concept, you hear it from MY, from Shor, etc etc. I think the idea is totally bogus. They can perceive a white backlash to Dems talking about race, but funny how they cannot conceptualize a poc backlash for Dems dropping racial equity.
I also think they dramatically overstate the extent that the white working class can be won back in these highly polarized (because of race) times. Dems aren’t winning back Iowa and Ohio if they start saying Obama and CRT are bad.
Because of demographic changes and who the party represents, there has to be more talk about race over time. The white percentage of the population is shrinking, while the poc % of the Dem party is increasing. The result is more talk about lived experiences of poc.
People want to return to the depolarized, less racial era where Dems did well with wwc and could win in rural states in Sen races. Those years had a much higher white share of the electorate, so poc not as salient and both parties were more racially conservative.
Given the demographics of the country there is no going back. For better or worse, the Dem coalition is poc and college educated whites. And its a growing coalition relative to shrinking rural non college white GOP base.
Does it present challenges with rural states, sure. But its also the coalition that flipped GA and AZ in 2020 and turned VA into a conventionally blue state. Where the Prez margins in TX keep shrinking every four years. I’d much rather have the growing coalition going forward
And that’s why I think MY and Shor and all those guys are wrong. The outlook for the Dem Party is strong (if they win in 24 they’ll have won 6/9 last EC votes and 8/9 last pop votes). The white share of the population/electorate is shrinking over time, not growing.
As poc and college educateds age and move to the suburbs it will continually get harder for GOP to gerrymander states. Texas will eventually become purple as more college educateds move there for corporate jobs.
The power of the wwc voter, even though it is disproportionately stronger right now, shouldn’t be the only thing driving Dem politics. Democrats have to maintain their heterogeneous coalition and that means, as it becomes more diverse, talking more, not less, about race.
Biden talked more about white supremacy than probably any nominee ever. It flies in the face of what the “don’t talk about race, don’t alienate the wwc” crowd said. He ran against the modern George Wallace and won.
What if Biden refused to talk about race? What if he put a generic white guy on the ticket as VP? What if he says “No Trump has never done or said anything racist and we should stop talking about that altogether.” Does he do as well with Black voters? Does he win GA?
I think these people are underrating the extent to which Black support for the Dem Party is conditioned on the party’s support for fighting for racial minorities. There’s a reason Black voters didn’t support Bernie Sanders in 2016 or 2020. Can’t ignore us and expect to win. ‍♂️
 
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