A key factor in who wins the House majority, how lines are drawn for the bulk of its 435 districts, may not be clear until later this year. And that’s adding an element of chaos to the 2022 election cycle.
It’s not even clear at this point how many House seats each state will have in the 435-member chamber. That’s because the U.S. Census Bureau in February announced that processing of data needed to allocate House seats, based on population, would be pushed back from March 31 until Sept. 30. COVID-19 is largely to blame for the delays, as census-takers couldn’t as easily as in previous years knock on doors and count the U.S. population, as mandated by the Constitution every 10 years.
EXTENDED DELAY IN CENSUS REDISTRICTING DATA COULD LEAD TO ELECTION MAYHEM
That’s putting a lot of politics on hold amid an already pitched battle for control of the House, where Democrats have 221 seats, compared to Republicans’ 211. Three seats are vacant in the House, where 218 makes for a majority.
Yet when it comes to the power centers where congressional seats are drawn, state legislatures, Republicans hold the bulk of power, including full control of redistricting in states expected to pick up House seats ahead of the 2022 elections, such as Florida, North Carolina, and Texas.
Some states use independent commissions or have other methods to redraw House seats.
Still, partisan redistricting could be enough to topple the Democratic majority in the House, says Adam Podowitz-Thomas, senior legal strategist at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.
“That does not necessarily mean we definitely think it’s going to happen,” Podowitz-Thomas told the Washington Examiner. “But they are in control of enough new seats where it is very feasible for them to flip the House just via that mechanism.”
To win back the majority House Republicans lost in 2018, they would need to flip about six House seats. That’s a process made easier for them by advances in mapping technology even since the last round of redistricting, in 2011-2012.
“In the past, gerrymandering has been an American institution, but over the last decade or so, polarization and computers have made gerrymandering much, much easier,” said Jason Rhode, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s national coordinator.
Podowitz-Thomas argues that the 2019 Supreme Court decision ruling that partisan gerrymandering is out of federal reach could also give states a freer hand in engaging in drawing maps that favor their party.
“I think the big question is whether state supreme courts continue to intervene and stop it. We obviously saw this last cycle,” Podowitz-Thomas said, citing an eleventh-hour 2019 ruling by North Carolina’s high court deeming the state’s legislative maps unconstitutional.
But delays in census data are complicating the process. Many states are likely to miss their constitutional deadlines for when they have to be done with redistricting, simply because the dates will pass before the Census Bureau says they’ll be done with the data.
That paves the way for a busy litigation season, on top of shorter congressional races due to delays in candidate recruitment and shifting dates on primaries.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit suing officials at the U.S. Commerce Department and the Census Bureau for delaying the release of the 2020 data needed to redraw districts, citing the holdup as unconstitutional.
Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which aims to assist state legislatures in drawing maps, said he expects a lot of lawsuits to come out from census delays, on top of litigation that’s already pending.
“There’s going to be a wave of census lawsuits that are going to be brought both by red states and blue states over the next couple of months. These delays start impacting them more and more,” Kincaid told the Washington Examiner. “You’ll have a lot of states suing to have their deadlines extended. It’s just the beginning of what we see as a very, very busy litigation process for these states.”
Kincaid said the delays will also affect congressional fundraising and recruiting, while the potential new districts remain in limbo.
In some cases, incumbents are already eyeing political alternatives as they wait to see if their district will be affected by population loss.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, whose risen as a GOP firebrand over her loyalty to former President Donald Trump, hasn’t ruled out a gubernatorial run in New York, though the Upstate lawmaker has said she’s focused on her reelection to the House. In Western New York, GOP Rep. Tom Reed is considering a gubernatorial bid. So is Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, whose Long Island district is furthest east in the state.
Political analysts also predict Rep. Conor Lamb, a Pennsylvania Democrat who won in a competitive Pittsburgh-area district that could be redrawn to his detriment, is very likely to consider a Senate run next year.
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Whether new lines can even be drawn in crunch time this fall might be unlikely, says Colin Strother, a Democratic strategist based in Texas, which is poised to gain between 2-4 House seats. That could lead to courts stepping in to draw district lines at least temporarily.
“I don’t believe there’s going to be enough time for us to get the numbers in October, draw the lines, process all the various court challenges, and then hold elections,” Strother said. “I don’t think there’s going to be an appetite among incumbents to do so.”
