No two elections are the same. But some are more alike than others, and the 2012 campaign is already showing some intriguing similarities with 2004: a vulnerable incumbent, an opposition party base desperate to drive him from office, and an unimpressive field of would-be challengers devoid of a genuine political star.
The ’04 parallel is most significant when it comes to the GOP race and its front-runner, Mitt Romney. While Romney remains deeply vulnerable within his party, he enjoys sizable advantages in money, name recognition, electability and plain charisma that will be difficult for his foes to overcome. This is especially true if, as expected, Rick Perry soon enters the race and splits key conservative segments with Michele Bachmann. If Romney continues running a smart campaign, he should win the nomination.
If he does, this would be cause for concern for Democrats, because Romney is the GOP’s best choice for the general election. As the party’s most disciplined and telegenic option, he would give President Obama big headaches, as national and swing state polling already suggests. As Nate Silver wrote last week, an Obama-Romney race looks now to be a toss-up.
Here’s where ’04 comes into the picture. The nation’s current economic instability is likely to be a more potent political liability than Iraq was, so Obama figures to face even rougher sledding than Bush did seven years ago. Bush’s winning strategy, though, could provide a blueprint that Obama could use for a campaign against Romney — especially when it comes to how he handled his opponent. From the moment John Kerry captured the nomination to oppose Bush, Republicans made it their singular mission to define him for the nation before Kerry could define himself. And they succeeded.
As candidates, Romney and Kerry are surprisingly similar. Both men made their political careers in Massachusetts, are fabulously rich, and have some awkward personality traits. Just like Romney now, Kerry was seen as his party’s best bet to topple an incumbent loathed by the base. And there’s also the matter of flip-flopping on key policy matters: Romney is as guilty of it as Kerry was.
When the 2004 general election campaign began, the Bush team launched a procession of attacks on Kerry with a deadly precision and didn’t let up until the election was over. Portraying Kerry as a serial equivocator and reinforcing perceptions that he could be aloof, and unapproachable, Republicans brutalized him before he could get out of the gate. Before long, Kerry’s poorly phrased “voted for it before I voted against it” explanation of Senate procedure had been lodged in Americans’ minds for all time.
While perhaps lacking some of Kerry’s foibles, Romney is vulnerable to the same approach. Romney’s painful primary season attempts to play down his enactment of a healthcare reform plan in Massachusetts that became the model for “ObamaCare” is obvious fodder for fall attack ads. And this is hardly the only significant example of Romney’s chameleon tendencies. After all, he launched his career by adopting moderate positions necessary to operate in Massachusetts, and he’s now forsaken them to curry favor with a rabidly right wing Republican primary electorate. Thus, the menu of material available to Democrats to negatively define Romney coming out of the primary would be voluminous, hardly limited to one or two issues.
Using Republicans’ general tack from 2004 could have benefits beyond the original Bush strategy. In 2004, the Democratic base was united to drive Bush from office, and any appeals to win over modern Reagan Democrats were useless. Karl Rove knew this, and the visceral attacks on Kerry were designed to gin up their base and convince just enough wary independents that despite any qualms they may have had with Bush, Kerry was too weak to be trusted. It worked as Bush broke even with Kerry on independents, and won a narrow national majority.
Playing up Romney’s flip-flopping could have two benefits for Democrats, souring swing voters on him while also reminding the GOP base of his past apostasies and depressing their enthusiasm — and turnout — for him.
Of course, the wild card remains the economy, and if unemployment remains at or near its current level, the shrewdness of any Democratic attacks might not matter. Nonetheless, Democrats should be developing a strategy now to neutralize Romney, and the Bush ’04 playbook offers an attractive template. Romney’s vulnerabilities are even more pronounced than Kerry’s were, and Obama could conceivably strip the bark off his candidacy before he can even introduce himself as a viable alternative.
Sometimes, elections can repeat themselves.
In the wake of Anthony Weiner’s unprecedented press conference Monday, most commentary is focusing on what is almost undoubtedly the end of his quest to be New York’s mayor and his possible fate before the House Ethics Committee.
But when it comes to his political future, Weiner has a more immediate problem: He could find himself without a congressional district next year.
Because of stagnant population growth in the most recent census, New York will lose two of its 29 seats in the House of Representatives through the reapportionment process that will precede the 2012 elections. For some time, Democrats in Albany had planned to draw favorable new lines that eliminated exclusively GOP seats, but their narrow loss of the state Senate last November scuttled plans for a harsh gerrymander. Consequently, it is a near-certainty that the final map will eliminate one Democratic and Republican seat.
While there are theoretically 20 Democratic seats to choose from, legal and geographic considerations severely limit the number that might actually be targeted, and Weiner‘s Brooklyn/Queens-based 9th District is among the few that could be at risk.
For instance, four of the seven Republican-held seats are upstate, all of them captured from Democrats last year, and the lost GOP seat will almost certainly come from this group. The only GOP seat in New York City, anchored around Staten Island, would be difficult to divide, and would anger too many powerful interests in the borough. This is bad news for Democrats like Weiner because, given the dire economic straits of the region, state legislators are unlikely to allow both axed seats to come from the upstate area. The Democratic seat will be slashed from downstate.
Where?
Cutting a seat on Long Island would be more difficult because of the complexities that would be involved in shifting lines west, thereby insulating Southampton’s Tim Bishop and Huntington’s Steve Israel. Plus, because the Voting Rights Act protects the autonomy of minority seats, House members like Charlie Rangel, Ed Towns, Jose Serrano, and Yvette Clarke essentially have immunity from elimination. Realistically, this means the eliminated district will probably be one of the majority-white districts based in the city.
The smart money has generally been on members like Gary Ackerman, whose district is based in Queens and stretches into parts of Long Island, and Manhattan’s Carolyn Maloney to lose this game of musical chairs. Both are well into their 60s and are seen as being in the twilight of their careers. 64-year-old Eliot Engel, whose district reaches from the Bronx to suburban Rockland County, is another potential target.
But Weiner’s embarrassing scandal changes this calculus and puts the biggest target squarely on his back.
For one thing, Weiner’s district would be very easy to carve up. Occupying narrow swath of Brooklyn (Midwood, Marine Park, and Sheepshead Bay) and Queens (Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, and Howard Beach), it could be broken up and dispersed among his Democratic neighbors in short order.
Politically, this would make a great deal of sense. Weiner’s district clocks in at D+5 in the Cook Partisan Index (a commonly cited measure of a district’s partisan tendencies in relation to the average national vote share of the party’s two previous presidential nominees), which actually makes it the city’s second least Democratic district (after the Staten Island-based 13th District, which is now held by a Republican. Moreover, Weiner’s district is actually trending away from his party. No district in the nation swung more from Democrat to Republican between 2000 and 2004 — a whopping 25 percent in the wake of 9/11 — and Barack Obama actually did worse in there than John Kerry. Given his problems, it’s not inconceivable that Republicans could wage a serious campaign against Weiner next year, providing a clear incentive for Democrats to dismantle his district.
But more important, Democrats in Albany and in Washington may now have the excuse they‘ve been looking for to rid themselves of Weiner, who has always been a lone wolf and is not particularly close to his fellow New York delegation members. His aggressiveness and political savvy (at least before this past week) have made him a well-known figure in Washington and a frequent talking head on the national cable circuit, but that stardom irritated his colleagues.
This could now come back to haunt Weiner. After all, in redistricting, as any congressman knows, it’s everyone for himself (or herself). Folks like Ackerman, Maloney, and Engel, who have faced speculation on the loss of their own careers in the last few months, will have no compunction turning on Weiner now, especially if it will guarantee the preservation of their own seats.
If Weiner’s seat is chopped off, his plight would have fascinating parallels to that of Steve Solarz, the late Brooklyn congressman whose seat was eliminated after the 1991 census. While Solarz was not tripped up by scandal, he had (like Weiner) become a well-known Democrat nationally, stoking the ire of some of his Empire State colleagues, who had no qualms about eliminating his seat. Solarz tried to run in a newly created district, but fell short in the Democratic primary to Nydia Velazquez, who has been in Congress ever since.
If the same fate befalls Weiner, he’ll have his own brash personality to blame. It would be a sad end for a once-promising and completely self-made career.
To look at the Republican presidential field from afar is to conclude that — of all people — the governor of Indiana would be well-positioned to win the nomination, should he decide to run.
Yes, trying to predict the electoral outcomes a year ahead of time can be a fool’s errand, but it’s not hard to see the opening for Mitch Daniels: The GOP field is deeply flawed — the most prominent “candidate” at the moment seems to be a reality show host who’s become obsessed with birtherism — and deathly stale, littered with dried-out pols. Daniels, by contrast, would be a genuinely fresh face on the national stage and would combine the appeal of an outsider — he was overwhelmingly reelected in Indiana in 2008, even as President Obama carried the state — with the savvy of a D.C. insider (which he was during the first part of George W. Bush’s administration).
Daniels has been coy about his intentions so far, but his potential strength on the GOP side is made clear in part by a simple process of elimination.
Mitt Romney, the nominal GOP front-runner, may be President Obama’s strongest potential foe, but he has been on the national scene for nearly a decade and hasn’t been able to garner overwhelming intra-party support — even though he started running for the 2012 nomination as soon as his 2008 run fizzled. Romney’s anemic poll numbers among conservative voters speak to this. Mike Huckabee, Romney’s chief personal nemesis, has somewhat similar problems. He fared better than expected in 2008, but in the three years since then, he’s failed to establish a broad line of party support.
Parallel deficiencies plague the rest of the field. If a presidential “freshness test” exists, Newt Gingrich expired as a viable contender years ago — even before he became House speaker in 1995. Haley Barbour was only elected governor of Mississippi in 2003, but he’s had a long career on the national stage and has been well-known as a Republican operative since the Reagan years. Tim Pawlenty doesn’t suffer from the same freshness problems, but there’s little discernible enthusiasm for him among rank-and-file Republicans — despite his relentless efforts to create it. Perhaps he could slip through if others falter, but on his own legs, he’s a classic “Where’s the beef?” candidate.
As for Sarah Palin, her collapsing poll numbers notwithstanding, it’s easier being a celebrity than a leader, and Palin is not abandoning that lifestyle when she well knows the example set by Rudy Giuliani, whose high appearance fees dropped like a stone with his pathetic 2008 loss. And no one who served in a prominent position in the Obama administration, as Jon Huntsman did, is ever winning a national Republican primary in the existing climate; not in a million years.
Given these realities, Daniels could enter the contest and separate himself immediately. Like Barbour, he was a key member of a GOP administration figure, serving as George W. Bush’s first OMB head. But unlike Barbour, Daniels’ D.C. days are not well-known or remembered. He’s not instantly associated with the Beltway — and he only became widely known during his time as Indiana’s governor. Daniels could run as an outsider governor from the heartland, attacking the D.C. establishment and Obama administration from afar.
He would also be able to use his gubernatorial record to appeal to the party’s conservative base. Indiana’s jobless rate sits below 9 percent, better than many states and something Daniels can grab some political credit for. And whatever you think of them from a policy standpoint, his stubborn opposition to tax increases and his early attacks against unions (on which Scott Walker seems to have modeled his own approach in Wisconsin) would have enormous appeal to conservatives searching hard for the genuine article.
Daniels would face hurdles. He would be vulnerable to more vociferous culture warriors like Pawlenty and Huckabee — the result of the pro-life Daniels’ call for a “truce” on social issues. But as the rise of the Tea Party demonstrates, today’s GOP base is almost obsessively fixated on budget-cutting rhetoric and the elimination of the left’s favorite government programs. This could benefit Daniels, with his fiscal emphasis.
It’s true that Daniels, with his small physical stature and penchant for dry, technical language, isn’t exactly a natural candidate. But if any of his prospective GOP primary foes were truly political rock stars, there wouldn’t be such a vacuum right now. And while many Republicans dream of Chris Christie or Marco Rubio riding to their rescue, there’s no reason to believe that either of them — or any other potentially attractive dark horses — will be entering the race.
Thus, the Republican race remains wide open. And should Daniels decide to run, he would be in a strong position to swoop in and grab the nomination. Of course, whether he would ultimately capture the big prize is another matter entirely. But when it comes to the GOP contest, he’s a bigger player than he looks.
Last week, the Washington Post explored George Allen’s likely pursuit of a rematch with Sen. Jim Webb, the Democrat who unseated him in 2006, next year — and the potential that Allen could face a stiff GOP primary challenge from the right.
The Post was smart to play up the likelihood of a primary battle; Allen would only be the latest prominent conservative to be targeted for supposed ideological impurity in this Tea Party era. But there’s a bigger problem with Allen’s comeback attempt, one that goes far beyond his own party’s base: He is fundamentally a creature of Virginia’s political past — to the point that he would have a difficult time reclaiming his seat despite Webb’s currently weak poll numbers.
Before his infamous meltdown in ’06, which was triggered by his infamous “macaca” moment (and also by Michael Scherer’s report here at Salon about Allen’s use of the n-word as a collegian). Allen had earned recognition as a shrewd politician, an up-and-comer who had won the three major races of his career in resounding fashion: for a seat in Congress in 1991, for governor in 1993, and for the Senate in 2000 (by defeating two-term incumbent Charles Robb).
As a campaigner, Allen matched his bread-and-butter issues — opposition to abortion and support for the death penalty (and tough-on-crime policies in general) — with unrelenting efforts to tie his opponents to Democrats who were (then) unpopular in Virginia — mostly notably Bill Clinton, whom Allen made the focal point of his nasty race with Robb.
But the Virginia of 2010 is not the Virginia of the early 1980s, when Allen launched his political career as a member of the House of Delegates, or even the Virginia of 2000, when he last won elected office. Allen captured the governorship on the cusp of the 1994 Republican Revolution and ousted Robb while George W. Bush was running well ahead of Al Gore on the top of the ballot. Today, Virginia is a burgeoning swing state, and the issues that Allen relied on are no longer as effective or simply as important.
Granted, Virginia is hardly a blue state right now. Republicans easily recaptured the offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general’s offices in 2009, and won three new House seats this past November (and came within a hair of picking up a fourth).
But the broader trends are unmistakable. Mark Warner, a Democratic senator who served as governor from 2001 to 2005, is Virginia’s most enduringly popular leader today. And, more importantly, President Obama defeated John McCain in the Commonwealth in 2008 on the back of impressive strength in Fairfax, Loundoun, and Prince William’s Counties. Democratic-friendly Northern Virginia continues to grow exponentially, and very early poll numbers for 2012 suggest that Obama will be stronger in the state than conventional wisdom might suggest. What was once red is now purple.
Consequently, Allen — even if he were to fight off a challenge from the right and claim the GOP nomination — would have a difficult time gaining his footing in a general election. Like many Republicans in the 1990s, he rose to state and national prominence with a caustic political approach. But he had few accomplishments during his one term in the House and one term in the Senate, and those accomplishments Allen had as governor — going after the welfare system and abolishing the state parole system — have zero resonance with the current electorate.
The rise of Bob McDonnell, the state’s current Republican governor, is strong evidence of this. McDonnell may be as conservative as Allen, but in campaigning for governor, he avoided much of the poisonous, reflexive partisanship that Allen relied on, winning easily on a banner that deemphasized abortion and gun rights and has remained popular through 2010.
Allen’s favorite campaign season foils are equally outdated. Ironically, his old favorite whipping boy, Bill Clinton, is no longer the toxic figure in Virginia he once was. Yelling “Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton” will no longer get you elected in Virginia (although Allen would presumably replace Clinton’s name with Obama’s in any ’12 effort).
Of course, the outcome of the ’12 race will depend heavily on two other factors: Obama’s own popularity and Webb’s status. If the economy remains stagnant (or worse), Obama’s presence will badly hurt down-ballot statewide Democratic candidates, buoying even a flawed GOP candidate like Allen. And if anyone might conceivably say “screw it” and leave the cushy Senate, it would surely be a loner like Webb, who has shown virtually no interest in the perks of power. With Webb out, Allen’s chances would brighten significantly, because in politics, as Harry Reid just showed, you can never beat something with nothing, and the Democratic bench in Virginia is very thin. Either way, Allen’s only asset with nonconservatives would be name recognition.
That Allen would even want to stage a comeback is itself telling, given that when he was in office he was known to be largely uninterested in his Senate career and saw his seat mainly as a springboard for a run at national office in 2008. Obviously, that plan didn’t pan out, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that the old pol is bored and itching to get back in the game, even if it is to win what is probably a consolation prize to him.
Still, Allen is a political anachronism, one that will be exposed even more clearly if he runs. “Macaca” may have been a slip-of-the-tongue, but it also exposed the inherent risks of living on the political edge as Allen always has. It cost him in 2006, and it could cost him again in 2012.
Tuesday’s announcement of the final census numbers confirms that Republicans will for the next decade be the primary beneficiaries of massive exurban population growth. Right-leaning states like Arizona, Florida, South Carolina and Utah are set to gain seats in the House of Representatives when the lines are redrawn for the 2012 election, while strongly Democratic states in the Northeast and Midwest will shed seats.
Moreover, the sweeping gains Republicans posted in gubernatorial and state legislative races last month will give them control of the map-making process in virtually every key malleable state. In other words, the GOP could be positioned to use redistricting to cement its new majority in the House for years to come.
If Republicans do decide to mount a concerted push to radically redraw congressional maps in their favor, they could potentially squeeze out an impressive number of new seats. But they could also be stopped in their tracks — if the Obama administration is willing to use the Voting Rights Act to fight them.
Pursuant to Article I of the Constitution, congressional reapportionment takes place every 10 years. Because the stakes are so high, the process has been bitterly contested by the major parties since the start of the 19th century. The lines are due to be redrawn for the 2012 national elections, and with the 11 new governorships they won this fall, Republicans have the upper hand.
In many smaller states where Republicans control (or will soon control) both governorships and state legislatures — like Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wyoming — this monopoly matters little for redistricting, since their delegation sizes aren’t that big to begin with (and in many cases, the GOP is already squeezing the most it can out of them). Yet in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are already due to lose seats because of stunted population growth, the GOP could have leeway to cut down blue seats at will.
In some key states, Democrats will have majorities in at least one legislative chamber, which will give them a measure of power to resist aggressive GOP mapping efforts. By far, though, Democrats’ best weapon will be the Voting Rights Act. But they’ll only get to use it if Republicans over-reach just enough — and if the Obama administration is really willing to get aggressive.
Passed by Congress and signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, the Voting Rights Act mandates that states may not hinder minority voting rights through various means, including by breaking up majority-minority congressional districts. It was intended to prevent state legislatures, particularly those in the South, from diluting minority voting strength.
This will be relevant in big, Republican-controlled states that have sizable minority populations. In Michigan and Ohio, which will lose seats, Republicans will probably consider eliminating districts based around Cleveland and Detroit. This would hurt congressional Democrats, given the party’s strength in these areas — but it would also potentially eliminate minority districts. In Georgia, Republicans might attempt to cut majority-black Savannah in half in order to eliminate a current Democratic seat that was specially created by the state Legislature when it was still run by Democrats.
Then there’s Texas. Unlike Rust Belt states losing seats because of population shifts, the Lone Star State is set to gain four new House seats. With a fiercely partisan Republican governor, Rick Perry, and huge new GOP majorities in Austin, Republicans are already considering making three of these new districts solidly Republican, even though the state’s population expansion comes in large part from Latino growth in South Texas (as well as enormous growth in the Dallas and Harris County suburbs). Additionally, Republicans may seek to change the composition of two swing districts in heavily Hispanic areas (one around Corpus Christi, the other El Paso) that they just won from Democrats last month.
Collectively, Republicans could net 15 new seats nationwide by imposing a series of brutal maps. But gerrymanders of this scale would likely violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Voting Rights Act. Any violation would have to be pursued by the Obama Justice Department, on the grounds that the new districts unlawfully minimize minority voting rights. Doing so, though, could lead to a years-long legal fight — one that would spill over to the political arena, with vicious partisan recriminations. If his weak record on the judiciary is any indication, Obama will have little appetite for such a raw fight.
In his two years on the job, Obama has offered fewer judicial nominations than any of his modern predecessors (despite enjoying an enormous Senate majority), the Justice Department has failed to settle on a location for trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and it wasn’t until the past few weeks that Obama bothered to issue his first pardons — nearly all for minor, uncontroversial offenses. While all of this is unrelated to voting rights, the administration’s record shows a clear aversion to tackling critical legal decisions with deep political implications.
There is no legal area with greater partisan impact than congressional redistricting. Given the stakes, it’s really just a question of how far Republicans will extend themselves for partisan gain in the forthcoming redrawing. Because of Republican control of the Justice Department in all of the prior reapportionment years dating back to Nixon, the DOJ hasn’t taken an active role in challenging redistricting plans since the early 1960s, when John F. Kennedy was in the White House. Would Obama have the stomach to follow JFK’s example? It’s a good question we may get an answer to next year.
To everyone’s surprise, Nancy Pelosi wants to return as the Democrats’ leader in the next Congress. But if she’s hoping for a big Democratic year in 2012 that would give her the speaker’s gavel back, she might want to look closer at Tuesday’s results: Based on the breadth and scope of their losses, it is going be almost impossible for Democrats to retake the House in the next 10 years.
While Democrats’ historic loss of at least 61 seats (results are still pending in a handful of districts) can be traced to a diverse set of factors, the majority of the Democrats defeated were either elected to Republican-friendly seats in the wave elections of 2006 and 2008 or were long-term incumbents who represented heavily GOP districts. The seats in that latter category are likely gone for good, while many in the former are clustered in a handful of states where GOP state-level gains will ensure that they are fortified in next year’s redistricting trials, making them even more difficult for Democrats to take back than they were entering the ’06 and ’08 cycles.
The losses of Democrats like Rick Boucher (southwest Virginia coal country), Lincoln Davis (increasingly conservative central Tennessee), Chet Edwards (College Station, Texas), Jim Marshall (Macon, Ga.), Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota), Ike Skelton (the Ozarks) and Gene Taylor (Biloxi and Pascagoula, Miss.) are particularly painful for Democrats, given the treacherous political terrain they face in those districts. Democrats were incredibly lucky to hold these seats as long as they did, and they were able to because incumbents like Skelton (elected in 1976), Boucher (1982), Taylor (1989), and Edwards (1990) had adeptly burrowed themselves in. Democrats were always going to lose these seats when these representatives stepped down, but the tidal wave of 2010 washed them all away in one fell swoop.
Put another way, of the 20 most Republican-leaning House seats held by Democrats on Election Day, 17 of them fell. With Partisan Voting Index scores ranging from R+9 in Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin’s South Dakota at-large district to an unfathomable R+20 for Edwards’ Texas seat and Taylor’s south Mississippi district, it’s a miracle Democrats held these seats for as long as they did. Altogether, Democrats dropped 25 seats this week with PVI ratings of R+6 or more. It’s difficult to envision the party winning many of these seats back in the short- or long-term future.
Looking at Tuesday’s results from another angle, around two-thirds of the seats Democrats lost were held by members elected in the ’06 and ’08 elections. With a small handful of exceptions, nearly all of these districts are Republican-leaning, though most not overwhelmingly so. They represented the spoils of Democrats’ own wave elections. As currently drawn, many of them could theoretically be competitive in 2012, but Republican state legislative and gubernatorial gains could help the GOP use the forthcoming redistricting to fortify many of them.
New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, where approximately one-third of Democrats’ overall House losses occurred, are potentially prime targets for this. With Republicans winning back both the governorships and state legislative chambers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, they will have carte blanche to strengthen the lines of the seats Democrats just lost through 2020.
Republicans in Pennsylvania attempted to do this last decade, but they miscalculated and spread themselves too thin — leaving several Republican members of Congress vulnerable in the Democratic tide of ’06 and ’08. Don’t expect to see the same mistake twice, though. Look for the new GOP map-drawers in Harrisburg to fortify the lines of the Erie County-based 3rd District and the suburban Philadelphia districts that Democrats Pat Murphy and Joe Sestak have represented. Even the traditionally Democratic Scranton district of 13-term veteran Paul Kanjorski might be altered in order to protect Lou Barletta, the Republican who ousted Kankorski this week. There’s also the 12th District, where Democrat Mark Critz survived Tuesday’s massacre; but with the state due to lose a House seat next year, expect Critz’s district to be carved up in short order.
Similarly, with Republicans now in full control in Ohio, the five seats Democrats just lost based around Cincinnati, Columbus and Canton, along with the seats in the east and southeast being given up by the vanquished Zack Space and Charlie Wilson, will be strengthened by the GOP to keep them in the party’s column for the next decade. And with the census chopping off two Ohio districts, a couple more House Democrats will likely be in the cross hairs next year.
In New York, the situation is a bit different, as Democrat Andrew Cuomo was easily elected governor. But Democrats are in enormous peril of losing the state Senate, a development that would prevent them from imposing favorable lines that would help them reclaim the five districts they just lost (and maybe more — Republicans lead incumbent Democrats in two outstanding races in the state). And while Florida’s governorship and state legislature will remain in Republican hands, the passage of a state constitutional amendment that seeks to make it harder to draw partisan gerrymanders could be helpful to Democrats. But it’s questionable whether it will drastically affect the current lines to their benefit. With the loss of four Democratic seats, the state delegation now sits at 19-to-6 in favor of Republicans. And even with Florida gaining two new seats next year, expect little turnover in the near future, as Republicans will seek to insulate their freshly-won seats.
Furthermore, Republican state legislative gains in Colorado, Indiana and Texas could also strengthen newly-won GOP seats — this is especially true for two new GOP prizes in South Texas. In California, the passage of Proposition 20, which removes redistricting power from the Legislature and awards it to a nonpartisan commission, couldn’t have come at a worse time for Democrats, with Jerry Brown winning the governorship this week.
It’s just hard to see how Democrats will be able to score the broad gains they’ll need to win back their House majority any time soon. It might just be another 12-year wait.
Left: Protesters wear flip-flops to deride Kerry in 2004. Right: Mitt Romney. 
U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner, D-NY, addresses a news conference in New York, Monday, June 6, 2011. After days of denials, a choked-up New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner confessed Monday that he tweeted a bulging-underpants photo of himself to a young woman and admitted to "inappropriate" exchanges with six women before and after getting married. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)(Credit: Richard Drew) 
FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2011 file photo, Indiana Gov Mitch Daniels speaks in Washington. With a wary eye on Wisconsin, Republican leaders in several states are toning down the tough talk against public-employee unions and even abandoning union-limiting measures altogether. Indiana's governor urges GOP lawmakers to give up a right-to-work bill for fear the backlash could derail the rest of his agenda; Ohio senators plan to soften a bill that would have banned collective bargaining, and the Michigan governor says he'd rather negotiate than "pick fights." (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)(Credit: Jose Luis Magana) 
Senate candidate George Allen reacts to the cheers of the victory party along with his wife, Susan, in Richmond, Va., Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2000. 
President Barack Obama speaks before signing the $858 billion tax deal into law in a ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Friday, Dec. 17, 2010 in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)(Credit: AP) 
U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) listens to questions during a news conference about the failure of a bill to provide a bailout for the current financial and banking crisis on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 29, 2008. The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday rejected a Wall Street bailout bill that would have authorized the Treasury Department to spend up to $700 billion to purchase soured mortgage-backed assets from banks with the goal of jump-starting stalled capital markets. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES)(Credit: © Jim Young / Reuters) 