Let the redistricting scramble begin.
The Census Bureau on Thursday will release the data used to draw voting districts, setting up a scramble of map-drawing and litigation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections that could influence the balance of power in the House.
The release of the detailed once-per-decade data was delayed due in part to the coronavirus pandemic, squeezing the timeline for legislatures and state commissions to draw and finalize the lines and maps before primary elections begin.
Some states will see bigger changes in their maps than others. The Census Bureau in April announced that seven of the House’s 435 congressional districts would shift states due to changes in population. Forty-four states will have an opportunity to chisel new lines, with six staying the same because they have only one at-large House member: Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.
Working through the nitty-gritty details behind drawing lines cannot start until states have the detailed population information from the Census. Map-drawers must ensure roughly equal populations in each district and make the maps comply with Voting Rights Act requirements concerning race and ethnicity, among other regulations.
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One factor that map-drawers can consider, as the Supreme Court ruled in 2019, is the partisan makeup of the districts.
House Republicans are looking to the redistricting process to upend the five-seat Democratic majority in the 435-member chamber. Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Texas Republican elected in 2020, said as much at a conservative conference hosted by Faith & Freedom Coalition on June 18.
“We have redistricting coming up, and the Republicans control most of that process in most of the states around the country,” Jackson told the audience. “That alone should get us the majority back.”
But it may not be so simple.
Republicans do have full control of the line-drawing process in Texas, which is getting two new seats, bringing its total to 39. And they also have control in Florida, which is getting a new district, raising it to 28. The GOP also controls the process in North Carolina, where population growth over the past decade is bumping up the state’s House delegation by one, to 14.
But both parties have pickup opportunities in other states, including those whose overall number of congressional districts are not changing, depending on how aggressively they draw partisan maps.
Partisan operatives knew the importance of coming redistricting in the 2020 election. Both the Republican State Legislative Committee and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee spent tens of millions on the battle for state legislatures, with Republicans staving off any Democratic flip and turning the New Hampshire Legislature to GOP control.
That could put New Hampshire Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, who flipped the seat in 2018, at risk.
“Because of the stunning upset the RSLC helped achieve in flipping both legislative chambers in New Hampshire, Republicans have full control of the redistricting process in the Granite State,” said Andrew Roemo, an RSLC spokesman. “Gains through the redistricting process alone could knock the Democrat majority down to 218-217, making the House very much in reach for Republicans in 2022.”
Being too aggressive risks divvying up GOP pools of voters too thinly or triggering Democratic lawsuits over civil rights violations and other maps. That’s a conundrum state Republicans will face as they consider “cracking” the largely urban seats of Reps. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, based in Nashville, and John Yarmuth of Kentucky, who represents the liberal bastion of Louisville.
Democrats have some decent chances at staunching the political bleeding of redistricting.
Illinois, for instance, will have one less seat due to population loss, and its House delegation will shrink in 2022 from 18 districts to 17. The current 13-5 Democratic edge could grow to 14-3.
One political casualty could be Rep. Adam Kinzinger, in north-central Illinois, who has been among the most vocal critics of former President Donald Trump. Kinzinger reflects the take-no-prisoners approach to redistricting often used by state line-drawers. His bipartisan work with congressional Democrats, including being a member of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by Trump supporters, likely won’t save him.
Democrats also have a chance to make Maryland a clean sweep for the party. The state’s House delegation is now 7-1 in favor of Democrats, with Republican Rep. Andy Harris begin the outlier as he represents a district along the conservative Eastern Shore and the Delmarva Peninsula.
Maryland state Democrats, who have complete control of the process in Annapolis, could tuck pieces of the current district represented by Harris into adjoining ones in the Baltimore area, which lean strongly Democratic. With House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer representing Maryland, ejecting Harris from Congress figures to be a high priority for Democrats.
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New York, too, is losing a seat, bringing its House delegation from 27 seats to 26. Democrats dominate the state, with 18 seats to Republicans’ nine. That’s far from a low-point for New York Republicans, however.
If drawn artfully enough, Republicans could be left with a mere three seats and Democrats with 23. A batch of current New York Republican House members could find themselves facing off in primaries, including rising star Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chairwoman who represents a large swath of northwest New York, and conservative Rep. Claudia Tenney, in the state’s traditionally Republican central region.
Changes in New York’s redistricting process could limit partisan gerrymandering, though. Unlike in 2010, an independent redistricting commission will prepare maps for the legislature’s consideration rather than the lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled body. But lawmakers may end up drawing the maps if they reject plans put forward by the commission.
One seat certain to be lost by House Republicans in 2022 will be in West Virginia. The Mountain State’s population shrunk by 3.2% from 2010 to 2020, by far the nation’s largest people drain. West Virginia’s three House districts now are all held by Republicans, and when the map shrinks to two seats, Reps. David McKinley, Alex Mooney, and Carol Miller will have to fight it out among themselves to stay in Congress.
