The gop doesn’t need to gain voters. They just need to restrict others from voting. (On top of gerrymandering).
Which is why there is such an uproar about the new voting laws that make it harder to vote (after there were no impactful showings of voter fraud in 2020 that should have led to easier voting).
After every presidential election I can remember , the losing party has done some form of self reflection of where they went wrong. The current gop did not do this. And is part of the major issues with the current gop. They have no interest in gaining voters.
And look at the states that gained house seats based on the 2020 Census and those that lost them. The GOP is already ahead of the game even prior to re-districting.
It isn’t like the states that lost seats are guaranteed to lose a Democratic seat. They will gerrymander the shit out of their districts too. CO and OR also gained seats.
My point was that it isn’t a sure thing that the GOP takes back Congress. They are doing everything they can to make it so they are out of power for a long time. I could hardly ask them to do more. People are leaving the GOP, and not just casual Republicans. When you see the polls showing 70% of Republicans think Biden didn’t actually win, remember that is 70% of people who still self-identify as Republicans, that is a shrinking and ever crazier cohort.
The GOP has to defend 20 Senate seats to the Democrats 14. And 4 of the Republicans have already announced they are retiring with no Democrats retiring that I see.
We will see. The Democrats definitely underperformed in Congressional races in '20. So of course they have plenty of time and certainly have the ability to fuck it up. It has only been 3.5 months, give them time. But so far I give them the advantage heading into '22.
Agree with much of what you say. I don’t think that it is a sure thing the GOP takes back Congress, even with a stacked deck.
However, I recognize how narrow the Dems victories were in 2020, the unique anti-trump sentiment in that election, the changing of house seats due the Census and re-districting in 2022 and beyond, and historical congressional seat loses in off year elections for the party of the current President.
The Dems need to continue to work their asses off if they want to hold the majority they earned in 2020 given all of that.
And yes, the Reps are helping them, but is that enough? I don’t know.
But also remember 2020 also brought out a LOT of DJ fanatics. Fanatics adore pointing out that DJ got the most votes ever. Over 13 million more than in 16. Never mind that the vote percentages were almost unchanged (46.1% in 16 vs 46.9%), but that was a lot of R fanatics voting in “lower” races.
There is a path R take the house but I don’t think there’s a way for them to retake the senate until at least 24.
And you’ve got to look at where the new house seats will be. People aren’t moving to Steve’s area, they are moving to DFW, Houston, Austin, Charlotte. They are making the blue dots in the sea of red bigger. It comes down to how aggressive states can gerrymander