For Republicans, Redistricting Offers Few Gains
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
NYT
WASHINGTON — On paper, the sweeping gains Republicans enjoyed last year in statehouses across the country gave the party a profound advantage in the nascent and increasingly contentious power struggle to create new Congressional districts.
But those gains are likely to add up to fewer than 10 seats in the House of Representatives, largely because Republicans took so many seats from Democrats in 2010 that there are not many left to change hands through redistricting.
As a result, Republican leaders are focusing on making sure that incumbents, especially their 87 freshmen, end up defending districts with even more Republican voters than they had in the last election, with the hope of ensuring that they maintain control of the House for the long term.
“The overwhelming success of Republicans in 2010 actually poses a problem for them,” said Michael McDonald, a senior fellow and redistricting expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “They can’t go much farther than they are, but that doesn’t mean they can’t use redistricting to shore up their incumbents and those who seem most vulnerable.”
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON — On paper, the sweeping gains Republicans enjoyed last year in statehouses across the country gave the party a profound advantage in the nascent and increasingly contentious power struggle to create new Congressional districts.
But those gains are likely to add up to fewer than 10 seats in the House of Representatives, largely because Republicans took so many seats from Democrats in 2010 that there are not many left to change hands through redistricting.
As a result, Republican leaders are focusing on making sure that incumbents, especially their 87 freshmen, end up defending districts with even more Republican voters than they had in the last election, with the hope of ensuring that they maintain control of the House for the long term.
“The overwhelming success of Republicans in 2010 actually poses a problem for them,” said Michael McDonald, a senior fellow and redistricting expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “They can’t go much farther than they are, but that doesn’t mean they can’t use redistricting to shore up their incumbents and those who seem most vulnerable.”
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
why can't we write districts that enforce balance and get rid of safe seats and have competitive elections every year?
One of my policy goals has been to encourage politicians to stop writing safe or 'carve out' districts protecting certain incumbents or ensuring one party will win election in that district no matter what. In Minnesota, we have way too many safe districts and generally uncompetitive seats due to having far too many legislative districts. I would love to see every person running for office have to compete for that seat on a generally level playing field and would love to see incumbents have to have something more than a heartbeat and a "D" or an "R" behind their name as the sole criteria for earning re-election.
If I were tasked with writing legislative districts, there would be no 'safe seats' for anyone.
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