Cook Political Report’s resident redistricting expert Dave “I’ve Seen Enough” Wasserman says the 2023 US House reapportionment is actually more or less a wash. “On the current trajectory, there will actually be a few *more* Biden-won congressional districts after redistricting than there are now (224/435)” says Wasserman in a Twitter thread analyzing the state of play.
Wasserman says that with aggressive gerrymandering in both blue and red states increasing the number of 2020 Biden +5 seats from 138 to 144 and Trump +5 seats from 106 to 117, the real casualty is “highly competitive” seats, down to 19 from 34 in the prior decade. “The biggest threat to Dems’ House majority isn’t redistricting; it’s Biden’s approval rating” says Wasserman.
Like we’ve said here before, it’s ridiculous to expect Dem-run states to just unilaterally disarm on Gerrymandering when – for example – Utah is splitting Salt Lake City into four different districts to make their state 4R and 0D. More than enough states have these lame bipartisan redistricting commissions that either leave everything static or worse – get ignored by GOP-run legislatures. Of course we’d rather see every state use real bipartisan redistricting commissions with the absolute final word than have New York sharpie out five GOP seats in retaliation.
Overall outlook: Generic ballot polls are looking a little less shitty lately for Dems, a few even show them in the black. Just on Wednesday a Zogby survey put Dems ahead of the GOP 44 to 40 while a YouGov Economist poll showed Dems leading 43 to 36. In the last Midterm in 2018 an 8.4% national popular vote win by Dems mapped to a 41 seat gain in the House – a result that a lot of pollsters called mostly accurately beforehand (the RCP average was +7.3 Dems). All said there are not a whole lot of things that need to go right for the Dems to hang on to the House. That’s not to say it’ll be easy, but the right combo of MAGA misbehavior (guaranteed, but it’s a question of severity) turning off suburban voters and Biden’s approval improving (tougher given the complete shitshow America finds itself in beyond his control) and it juuuuuust miiiiight work out.