Ya gonna be hearing this for the next 10 months….
Democrats are in a bad place for the November midterm elections….
Probably?
Maybe?
The latest Cook Political Report ratings for the House show Democrats defending 8 Toss Up seats in next year’s midterm elections, while Republicans are defending six Toss Ups.
However, three Democratic-held seats are now rated Lean Republican and another two are rated Likely Republican. In comparison, just one Republican-held seat is currently Lean Democrat.
Republicans need to net just five seats in take control of the House, a goal these ratings show is clearly within reach.
David Wasserman has some important caveats, including the fact that 19 states still aren’t included on this chart because they haven’t finalized district lines.
It also doesn’t include two “safe flips” from Democrat to Republican in Georgia and North Carolina redistricting.
One of the country’s most gerrymandered political maps has suddenly been replaced by one of the fairest.
A decade after Michigan Republicans gave themselves seemingly impregnable majorities in the state Legislature by drawing districts that heavily favored their party, a newly created independent commission approved maps late Tuesday that create districts so competitive that Democrats have a fighting chance of recapturing the state Senate for the first time since 1984.
The work of the new commission, which includes Democrats, Republicans, and independents and was established through a citizen ballot initiative, stands in sharp contrast to the type of hyperpartisan extreme gerrymandering that has swept much of the country, exacerbating political polarization — and it may highlight a potential path to undoing such gerrymandering.
With lawmakers excluded from the mapmaking process, Michigan’s new districts will much more closely reflect the overall partisan makeup of the hotly contested battleground state.
“Michigan’s a jump ball, and this is a jump-ball map,” said Michael Li, a senior counsel who focuses on redistricting at the Brennan Center for Justice. “There’s a lot of competition in this map, which is what you would expect in a state like Michigan.”…
By Nick Corasaniti New York Times,
Updated December 30, 2021, 5:35 p.m.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/30/nation/ungerrymandered-michigans-maps-independently-drawn-set-up-fair-fight/