There’s a dichotomy shaping up in this midterm election year. The national political landscape could hardly look worse for Trump and Republicans.
At the same time, the GOP is suddenly resurgent in the redistricting fight, getting significant wins this week in Virginia and Tennessee that could soften the blow they might have suffered without them.
One potential upside is that Democrats are out-performing expectations by double-digits pretty much everywhere. Every district that they carve out to be Trump +8 will go blue if Dems continue to outperform by these margins.
This Gerrymandering could be setting Republicans up for a loss like they have never seen before. Such a self-own would be very on-brand for Republicans these days.
That’s the thing about gerrymandering - it’s dangerous because you set up those razor thin margins to get the most seats possible, but what happens when there is a political landslide?
This is precisely why Texas has been going purple and outright at risk of turning blue in the last 10-15 years.
On the other hand - while It’s likely going to be a total shellacking of Repugs, this regime hasn’t shown a willingness to accept defeat and the “opposition” party hasn’t really shown a willingness to hold them to account for their crimes and flagrant disregard for the law. The future is very uncertain, and I’m not convinced at all that it’s possible to vote our way out of this mess.
It’s also exactly why Kentucky isn’t redistricting. They don’t want to try to get one more district and end up losing two.
There could be some very strange results, I hope they don’t come crying about election fraud if they lose even more seats then they expect.
I’ve been thinking about this as well.
The added trouble for them is they’re doing all of this 6 years after a census. Good hard data that they’ve used to get those razor thin (but safe) margins just isn’t available.