Tag: redistricting

Redistricting Won’t Hurt GOP Chances at Keeping the House, Experts Say

Georgia Star News Staff
US Capitol building

Changes in congressional district boundary lines across several states do not appear to have damaged Republicans’ chances of maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives after 2024’s elections, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and New York have experienced redistricting processes ahead of the 2024 election. While experts had previously forecast adverse changes from redistricting in these states that could have cost GOP incumbents their seats, the processes have resulted, on balance, in races where likely losses of some GOP seats could be offset by the gains in other states, experts told the DCNF.

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North Carolina May Upend Dems’ Dreams of Redistricting Their Way Back into Power

Georgia Star News Staff

North Carolina’s recently redrawn congressional map could upend Democrats’ use of redistricting to gain back the House majority ahead of 2024.

The Supreme Court declined to allow Alabama to use its Republican-drawn congressional map in late September, a federal judge is requiring Georgia to redraw its maps to better represent black voters and another case in Louisiana could result in an additional majority-black district. Democrats could lose up to four congressional seats in North Carolina after the GOP-controlled state legislature’s new map was approved last week, which is expected to end up in court, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

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Mark Gonsalves Says Lucy McBath Should Return GA-06 Constituent Donations After District Switch

Addison Basurto

Republican nominee Mark Gonsalves (R-GA-07) criticized Lucy McBath (D-GA-06) for her decision to change from the 6th District to the 7th District in the middle of a congressional cycle when he spoke with The Georgia Star News on Monday.

“In essence it provides a person a credential that they do not deserve or warrant, and there a lot of people that vote and think, ‘oh, well she must have been my Congressperson.’ Well, that’s not true for 86% of constituents. So, I think it’s very deceptive. That’s how I would describe it,” Gonsalves said. 

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Democrats’ Dreams Turn to Dust as Adjudicated Redistricting Maps Set the Stage for Large Republican Gains in 2022

Georgia Star News Staff

The Democratic Party’s hopes of gaining seats from redistricting have been crushed as court decisions and an increasingly aggressive GOP produced more Republican-friendly maps.

Democrats were initially optimistic that they could mitigate projected midterm losses in the House when it appeared they were poised to score wins in the redistricting process. However, the party’s hopes have been dashed after key losses in major states erased their redistricting advantage.

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Louisiana’s Republican Legislature Overrides Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards Veto of Redistricting Plan

Aaron Gulbransen
John Bel Edwards

Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature voted to override Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’s veto of the congressional redistricting plan they passed in mid-February.

The new congressional maps will maintain the partisan makeup status quo of the the state’s delegation to the United States House of Representatives.

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New Hampshire State Senate Set to Vote on House-Passed Redistricting Proposal

Aaron Gulbransen
New Hampshire State Capitol

The New Hampshire State Senate is set to vote on the House-approved redistricting plan on Thursday.

New Hampshire is one of four remaining states that have yet to complete their congressional redistricting process. The others are Louisiana, Florida, and Missouri.

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Democrats Currently Lead in National Redistricting Efforts with Four States Still Completing Process

Aaron Gulbransen

Democrats currently have the lead in redistricting efforts with four states still working on new maps.

Forty states, 46 if the states that have one congressional district are included, have finished the process of drawing new maps for U.S. House of Representatives districts. Only Florida, Missouri, Louisiana, and New Hampshire have yet to finish their redistricting process.

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Georgia Redistricting Causes Democrat Incumbent U.S. Representative Lucy McBath to Flee the State’s 6th Congressional District

Aaron Gulbransen

Georgia’s redistricting process has caused Democrat Incumbent U.S. Representative Lucy McBath to flee the 6th Congressional District, leaving an open seat.

McBath has left the race for the Sixth district and is running in the much bluer neighboring new Seventh district, taking on fellow Democrat incumbent U.S. Representative Carolyn Bourdeaux. The new GA-7 has a partisan rating of D+16. According to the FEC, McBath has raised $3,199,954.75 and has a war chest of $2,452,731.80 cash on hand. Bourdeaux has $2,005,771.81 cash on hand and has raised $2,406,048.45 for the 2022 election cycle.

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New York Officially Adopts New Congressional Lines that Could Axe Half the GOP Delegation

Georgia Star News Staff

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul late Thursday signed a new congressional map into law that could eliminate half of the state’s Republicans in the House.

The signing, reported by the Associated Press, comes just days after the state legislature advanced the map on near party lines. The map gives Democrats an advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 seats.

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Analysis: States Where Unelected Bureaucrats Took over Redistricting Experienced Difficulties

Georgia Star News Staff

In Michigan, the state’s civil rights agency said proposed maps of legislative districts “do not measure up to the requirements of the law.” In Pennsylvania, Republican lawmakers complained about an “extreme partisan gerrymander.” And in Virginia, incumbents and potential challengers scrambled to work with proposed district maps.

In theory, new bureaucracies to draw up maps for congressional and legislative districts were supposed to save democracy from politics and block the practice of gerrymandering.

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Pennsylvania House Committee Releases Public-Drawn Congressional Redistricting Map

The Center Square

The Pennsylvania House State Government Committee has unveiled a preliminary map for new congressional districts, selected from one of 19 submitted by the public.

Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, chair of the State Government Committee, said a map submitted by Lehigh County resident Amanda Holt was selected because it was crafted without political influence, met constitutional standards and limited splits of townships and municipalities, among other factors.

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Georgia Rep. McBath’s Move to New Congressional District Highlights Republican Strength, Says Candidate Jake Evans

Cooper Moran

U.S. Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA-06) on Monday announced that she will run in a different district established by Georgia’s redistricting process, abandoning her current district.

Republican Jake Evans, a candidate for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District, argued the move by McBath highlights growing support for the GOP as the 2022 elections approach.

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North Carolina Adopts New Congressional Map That Favors Republicans

Georgia Star News Staff

The North Carolina General Assembly on Thursday finalized the state’s new U.S. House map that gives Republicans a distinct advantage over Democrats.

The map creates 10 safe Republican seats, three safe Democratic seats and one competitive seat, up from the current 8-5 map now. North Carolina is the only state where the legislature has full control over the redistricting process, meaning that the new lines can skirt what would be an all but certain veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and go into effect.

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Pennsylvania Bill Would Clarify That Courts Can’t Redraw Electoral Maps, as State Supreme Court Did in 2018

Bradley Vasoli

Legislation currently in the works in the Pennsylvania General Assembly would spell out two rules for redistricting in the Keystone State: Elections cannot legally take place in outdated districts and courts can’t create new districts themselves.

In Feb. 2018, the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court not only struck down Pennsylvania’s congressional maps as unconstitutionally gerrymandered, it reimposed new maps created with no input from the legislature, something state law does not grant the court the right to do. The new maps strongly favored the Democrats’ electoral prospects.

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