GOP stomachs reality that redistricting math may not save them

WASHINGTON — Last year, when top GOP operatives brainstormed ways to defy historical trends and cling to the House by averting a blue wave, one of their top strategic bets was redistricting.

When the dust settled on the redistricting arms race that ensued, there was talk about how Republicans gained about 13 to 14 pickup opportunities as a result.

But with the Nov. 3 election fewer than four weeks away, the GOP is now only favored to win about five of those, and its political apparatus has spent about $100 million on the other nine, Punchbowl News reported.

GOP House whizzes have insisted that some of the Democrats’ counter-redistricting efforts have still failed — such as in court-overturned Virginia — while others haven’t made districts in deep blue states a lock — like in California’s 13th, 22nd, and 48th.

“One of the most unsettling things you can do in politics is change the voters one is trying to communicate with,” one senior Republican aide told The Post, while stressing that their party’s candidates almost always “under-poll” and it’s “unknown” how redistricting will affect 2026 midterm results.

In all but two elections since 1938, the party in control of the White House has lost House seats during midterm cycles. GOP leaders had repeatedly pointed to redistricting as a factor in why they were so bullish in public about the chances of clinging to power in the lower chamber.

“The job of redistricting is to set the battlefield. Then we run campaigns, and we recruit candidates,” noted Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

“As far as redistricting this cycle goes, we did our job,” he later added. “But some of these new districts may be hard to win this cycle.”

Most of the Republicans’ potential redistricting gains took place in Florida and Texas, where operatives set their sights on about nine pickups. A complicating factor has been the Hispanic and Latino vote, with that category of voters showing signs of turning into a swing bloc.

“It looked like they were using rosy projections in Texas and making assumptions that the gains we made among Latino voters in 2024 were permanent,” one national Republican consultant vented to The Post. “We built a lot of these things … on one successful election cycle, and not a long-term pattern.”

“Don’t tell me Republicans are having second thoughts,” snarked House Democratic hopeful Johnny Garcia, who is running in Texas’ newly drawn 35th District, noting that Hispanic voters were ready to vote for “common sense” candidates after economic uncertainty driven by tariffs and immigration crackdowns.

“I always felt from the get-go that it was a mistake when they came in and redrew these lines, as we’re seeing the economic climate and the political climate [shift] here in Texas,” Garcia also said.

“Republicans are on defense and scrambling as the political floor falls out from under them,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairwoman Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.). “When the Speaker is campaigning and Republican Super PACs are spending in newly-drawn districts in Texas that were supposed to be easy wins, it shows how much their schemes to rig the midterms have backfired.”

“Whether it’s Texas, Florida, North Carolina, or any of the other states Republicans redrew the congressional lines, Democrats actually have more opportunities to win seats because of their dummymanders,” DelBene added. “Voters across the country are going to stand up to Republicans’ flailing agenda and deliver us the majority in November.”

Kincaid insists that wasn’t the case and that Republicans were “very, very careful” not to dummymander or put incumbents in tough races into even harder ones.

The consultant also fretted that the redistricting effort could feed the perception Democrats are trying to create that the GOP is “trying to rig the system.”

“[It] just further contributes to some of the consternation around [President] Trump and how he does things,” the consultant, a veteran of campaigns for tough GOP seats, added. “Trump against an opponent is successful, but Trump as a binary choice has not gone well in the last decade.”

Still, the consultant conceded that “[w]e may pick up four seats or five seats” due to redistricting.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella contended that the GOP is “well-positioned to hold the House and grow our majority.”

“Democrats’ embarrassing redistricting efforts from Virginia to California have been colossal failures, leaving them to defend 22 vulnerable House Democrats squatting in districts President Trump won across the map,” he said.

“Now they’re stretching their resources thin to defend endangered incumbents while trying to drag their radical socialist nominees across the finish line.”

Republicans have been widely seen as the underdogs in the battle to hold the House due to historical trends and bleak polling. The Cook Political Report has assessed that there are 22 toss-up races, 205 seats leaning toward the GOP and 208 seats tilted to the Dems.

“Redistricting has created real opportunities for Republicans across the country, and we intend to take advantage of them,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) explained to The Post. “We’re competing everywhere, and we’re not going to leave anything to chance.”

“We have great candidates, strong momentum, a record of delivering on our promises, and a common-sense agenda that stands in stark contrast to what the crazy communist Democrats are offering.”

McClain and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) have previously admitted that Republicans are unlikely to win all of the 13-odd seats that were initially seen as redistricting-related pickup opportunities.

Either way, Kincaid believes that the GOP’s redistricting effort was a matter of fairness and set the party up with new opportunities that it will either take advantage of this cycle or in the future. ones.

“If Republicans had not gone on offense in redistricting, then Democrats would have been able to steal the majority away before a single vote was cast or dollar was spent,” he continued.

“Politics is a team sport. We all do our jobs and the chips fall where they will.”