If you guessed Charlottesville, VA, you win. A month ago I wouldn’t have guessed we would be moving #VA05 - a deeply polarized, Trump +11% seat - to Toss Up.
But could it be deja vu? In 2008, Tom Perriello pulled off the upset of the cycle in #VA05 against a "biblical" R who ran a stone age campaign.
In 2020, Cameron Webb - perhaps Dems' best House candidate anywhere in the country - is running against a "biblical" R & divided GOP.
Perfect storms still happen b/c candidates still matter. In #CA25 earlier this year, Rs flipped a Clinton +7% seat by nominating a "unicorn:" Mike Garcia was a young, Hispanic fighter pilot and defense contractor w/ deep community ties. The profile simply worked.
In #VA05, Dems may have found their own their own "unicorn:" Webb is a young, telegenic Black doctor w/ deep ties in both Charlottesville & Southside who touts strong backing from law enforcement and working for "both presidents Obama & Trump."
Meanwhile, Bob Good (R), a former Liberty Univ. athletics official and wrestling coach, launched his campaign b/c Rep. Denver Riggleman (R) officiated a gay wedding.
If Riggleman (who called his GOP convention loss "rigged") lifts a finger for Good, it might be his middle one.
But if you really want to know why Webb is running *ahead* of Biden in multiple #VA05 polls, watch these ads:
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.