Fact: Democrats represent 54% of all House districts but 95% (!) of the 100 districts with the highest shares of foreign-born residents.
The only Rs who represent districts in the top 100: #FL25 Diaz-Balart, #GA07 Woodall, #TX22 Olson, #TX24 Marchant, #TX02 Crenshaw. Dems have strong opportunities in 3/5 in 2020 so the Dem share could plausibly go up to 98% soon.
Flip side: Republicans represent 83% of the 100 districts with the highest shares of native-born residents & have strong opportunities in 4/17 Dem-held seats, so the GOP share could go up to 87% soon.
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NEW: as expected, TX Republicans unveil a 30R-8D gerrymander (up from 25R-13D today) that puts Reps. Henry Cuellar (D) and Vicente Gonzalez (D) in double-digit Trump districts and axes one Dem seat each in DFW, Houston & Austin/San Antonio.
Interestingly, however, the map doesn't *totally* doom Cuellar & Gonzalez. Cuellar's #TX28 would move from Trump +7 to +10, Gonzalez's #TX34 would move from Trump +5 to +10. Both are potentially survivable given ancestral Dem ties & a midterm without Trump on the ballot.
In Houston, the GOP map merges Rep. Al Green's (D) #TX09 with the vacant safe Dem #TX18, and creates a new #TX09 in eastern Harris County that's 61% Hispanic but also Trump +15. That would be a pretty safe GOP pickup.
Thread: the key difference between when Biden was “counted out” last time vs. now is that in Feb. 2020, there was a plausible path to a comeback: Black voters & other Dems of color in SC, etc. hadn’t weighed in yet.
In fact, I made the argument after IA/NH in 2020 that there was still a lot of upside for Biden, though that view wasn’t widely shared at the time, and that he was among the most electable Dems in the race vs. Trump. nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1…
Today, a vast majority of voters believe Biden is incapable of finishing a second term, and there’s no legitimate reason to believe that defect will go away or become less of a dealbreaker for voters in the next four months.
How is it Dems are cleaning up in special elections/referendums if their national poll numbers are so bad? Because in the Trump era, Dems are excelling w/ the most civic-minded, highly-engaged voters.
Their biggest weakness? Peripheral voters who only show up in presidentials.
A big reason Dems beat pundit/historical expectations in the midterms? Only 112M people voted, including a disproportionate turnout among voters angry at Dobbs/abortion bans (many of them young/female).
But there will be ~160M voters in 2024. So who are those extra 48M voters?
They skew young, unaffiliated, nonwhite and non-college. They’re also more likely to base their choice on a simplistic evaluation of whether the economy was better under Trump or Biden.
On this question - and on immigration/age concerns - Biden is routinely getting clobbered.
Fact: of the 301 new House districts that have now been adopted, just 17 (5.6%) went for Biden or Trump by five points or less, down from 39 of 301 (13.0%) districts in the same states currently.
Back in 2012, after the last redistricting round, 66/435 districts went for Obama or McCain by five points or less. By 2020, only 51/435 districts went for Biden or Trump by five points or less - in other words, voter self-sorting explains a lot of the competitive decline.
But the 2022 redistricting cycle is rapidly compounding the decline. There may only be 30-35 seats in that range by the time all is said and done.
So the House's pro-GOP bias may be reduced or eliminated, but the House is also on pace to be more anti-competitive than ever.
NEW: for the first time, Dems have taken the lead on @CookPolitical's 2022 redistricting scorecard. After favorable developments in NY, AL, PA et. al., they're on track to net 2-3 seats from new maps vs. old ones.*
*There's still quite a bit of uncertainty in:
- FL, where Rs are debating how aggressive to be
- NC/OH, where courts may order big changes to GOP maps
- PA, where the state Sup Ct will select a map
- AL/LA/SC, where SCOTUS could decide on additional Black opportunity seats
*Evergreen disclaimer: this doesn't mean Dems are on track to gain House seats *overall* in 2022. A 2-3 seat redistricting gain is significant, but a 42% Biden approval rating could be worth several dozen seats to the GOP in November.