Three weeks ago, many Republicans were feeling gloomy about their chances of keeping a majority in the US House of Representatives after the upcoming midterm congressional elections.
Donald Trump’s approval ratings, particularly public perception of his handling of the economy and inflation, had declined in the two months since the start of the Iran War. And Republican attempts to gain partisan advantage by redrawing congressional district lines in Texas and a handful of other conservative-dominated states had been offset by Democratic responses in California and Virginia.
“If the election were in May, Republicans would lose,” former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told the New York Times in April. “The war, the sense of affordability and gasoline – some of that has to be cleared up in order to win.”
That all changed after two recent court decisions.
“Republicans have momentum heading into November,” Congressman Richard Hudson, who runs the House Republican campaign committee, said in a statement after the Virginia ruling. “We’re on offence, and we’re going to win.”
The week before that, the US Supreme Court reversed a decades-old precedent and ruled that the Voting Rights Act, passed during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, did not require states to create congressional districts that provided minority voters with the opportunity to elect candidates roughly in proportion to their overall population in the state.
Only overt racism, the court’s conservative majority held, was grounds for nullifying a state’s congressional map. “Gerrymandering” districts to provided partisan advantage – as the process is called – is constitutional, even if it dilutes minority voting power.
That prompted a series of Republican-dominated southern states to scramble to dismantle their court-mandated majority minority districts – which, because of historic political preferences, were mostly held by black Democrats – and replace them with ones that Republicans were likely to win.
Bloomberg via Getty ImagesTennessee was the first to act, approving a map that gives Republicans the upper hand in all nine of the state’s congressional districts.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Louisiana Senate approved a map that is likely to flip one of the state’s two Democratic districts. The Republican governor had delayed the state’s congressional primary, originally scheduled for this Saturday, to accommodate the change.
Alabama is currently taking steps to follow suit.
Although a handful of Republicans in the South Carolina legislature joined Democrats to block a similar move there, that state’s governor may call a special session to force the issue.
When combined with a Florida redraw that was approved the same day as the Supreme Court’s ruling, a redistricting fight that had appeared to be heading towards a stalemate is now poised to give Republicans the upper hand in at least eight new seats.
The party currently holds a 218 to 212 majority – with three Democratic and two Republican vacancies – so the task for Democrats to take back the chamber has become more daunting.
“These recent changes have left Democrats with less room for error,” writes Geoffrey Skelley of the election analysis website Decision Desk HQ.
In the end, even a redistricting fight that favours the Republicans may not matter in November if Trump continues to be widely unpopular. The political headwinds may simply be too strong.
In the 2018 midterms, during Trump’s first term when the president’s favourabilty ratings were higher than they are currently, Democrats won 235 seats – representing a net gain of 40.
“Given the highly unfavourable political environment confronting House Republicans, the extremists will not meaningfully benefit from their scandalous gerrymandering scheme,” Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, said in a letter this week to fellow Democrats.
With the entire House of Representatives up for election every two years, however, it won’t be long before there is a more hospitable political climate for conservatives. When that time comes, the current electoral playing field could give Republicans a decided advantage.
That’s one of the reasons why Democrats are promising “total war” to even the playing field before the next round of voting.
“Our effort to forcefully push back against the Republican redistricting scheme will not slow down,” Jeffries wrote. “We are just getting started.”
