With the census data released Monday, we’re getting our first glimpse of what the playing field will look like for 2022 and 2024. First, the winners and losers. As you can see from our friends over at 270towin, Texas is the only state that gained two seats. Florida, Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, and Montana will gain one seat each, while California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York will lose one seat. New York was only 89 people shy of keeping their seat! The shift largely continues a pattern we’ve seen over the last few decades of power shifting from the rust belt to the sun belt, and from the northeast to the south and west. The only state to buck the trend was California, which lost a seat for the first time in it’s history.
Put another way, states that Trump won gained 3 seats and states that Biden won lost 3 seats. If the 2020 election were rerun Biden would have won 303–235, instead of 306–232. The 3 EV swap may not seem like much but if Arizona, Georgia, and Wisonsion, which Biden won by a combinded 42,918 votes, had gone to Trump instead, it would have resulted in a 272–266 victory for Trump. On the 2020 map that would have been a 269–269 tie, which would have been thrown to the House. The end result would have been the same, since Republicans control the most state delegations they would likely chosen have Trump, but the path would be different.
Another interesting scenerio, as pointed out by folks on Twitter, New York lost their seat to Minnesota by 89 people. If somehow Minnesota goes red in 2024, bringing Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with it, and the Democratic candidate swaps winning North Carolina for Arizona, that would result in a 269–269 tie, meaning whoever wins the Presidency will have won it by 89 people!
But it’s not all good news for Republicans.The swing states that lost seats, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, all have been trending right over the years. Michigan has moved 14 points to the right since 2008, Pennsylvania nearly 10 points. Ohio meanwhile flipped from blue to red and moved 12 points to the right. Meanwhile all of the states that gained seats have been shifting left. McCain won Texas by 12 points in 2008, Trump won it by 5 in 2020. Arizona went from a 9 point win for McCain to Biden ekeing out a win by less than a percentage point, and Georgia went from a 5 point McCain victory to a Biden eke in 2020. North Carolina hasn’t moved much since 2008, a fact that has been quite frustrating for Democrats, but if you compare 2020 to 2000, it’s shifted left by nearly 12 points. The long and the short of it is, almost all of the states that gained seats are trending towards Democrats, while almost all the states that lost seats are trending towards Republicans. The only exception to the rule being Florida, which gained a seat and has been steadily shifting to the right.
On the House side things look much better for Republicans. They will have sole power to draw the lines for 187 districts, compared to 75 for Democrats. 167 districts will be drawn by independent commissions or divided government. Look for Republicans to press their advantage in Texas and Georgia, as well as Ohio and possibly Florida (though Florida has a constitutional amendment against partisan gerrymandering, GOP gains in state courts may make them less likely to jump in). Democrats will probably try to cut their losses by gerrymandering, Illinois, and New York. New York is interesting because though they have an independent commission draw maps, the commission can be overruled by the state legislature, in which Democrats hold supermajorities. In the end Republicans are still likely to come out on top, and with Democrats holding a slim 5 seat majority, redistricting could be a deciding factor in 2022.
The other big question mark is whether the voting rights bills that are making their way through Congress will be passed in time. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would return the Section 5 preclearance formula to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which courts struck down as outdated in 2013, meaning that states with a history of voting rights violations will need to preclear any changes to voting, including new maps, with the federal government. It’s hard to say who would be covered under the new formula but Arizona, Geogia, and Texas were each covered under the old one so they seem like the best bets. It’s worth pointing out though that the VRA would only deal with racial gerrymandering, partisan gerrymandering is still perfectly legal. Which is why the Supreme Court has failed to step in in the past.
That’s where the For the People Act comes in. The For the People Act would ban partisan gerrymandering, giving courts a legal mechanism with which to strike down unfair maps. It would also require that states set up independent redistricting commissions. Though this could theoretically be done in time for the 2021 redistricting cycle, many of the bill’s supporters privately concede that it’s already probably too late for this cycle, and because the census data is coming out so late, lawsuits challenging maps will have less time to make their way through the courts. All of this means that we’re likely to see some pretty gerrymandered maps for 2022, but could see a more level playing field by 2024, if the ban on partisan gerrymandering becomes law.
There are still a lot of question marks going forward but with the release of this first trove of census data the state of play for 2022 and 2024 is finally starting to come into view.
Originally published at http://wonknessblog.wordpress.com on May 2, 2021.
