World War G Is Spreading

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

The California Legislature has approved a special election to redraw coingressional district lines. Democrats stand to pick up five seats.

Liz Crampton, Dustin Gardiner and Nick Reisman at Politico:

Texas Republicans on Saturday passed a new map that will help the GOP flip as many as five House seats — a partisan play at the hand of President Donald Trump. On Thursday, California Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom preemptively agreed to send a retaliatory ballot measure to voters — the first step in potentially offsetting Texas’ maneuver by creating new Democratic-leaning seats.


The nation’s two largest states had fired the opening salvo in what is likely to become an intense and protracted redistricting campaign by both parties to grasp power in Washington. Now other red and blue state governors face pressure to follow their lead and aggressively gerrymander their congressional maps.

Republicans hold a clear advantage in the arms race: The GOP is poised to move forward with redistricting in Florida, Ohio, Missouri and Indiana, which could yield at least half a dozen more seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have struggled to get gerrymandering efforts moving in blue states beyond California, though leaders in New York, Illinois and Maryland say they are weighing options.

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Efforts are underway to carve out more GOP seats in Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Florida — and Trump’s political operation is pressuring individual state lawmakers to act. On Thursday, Trump declared on X that Republicans in Missouri — where the GOP could pick up one more seat by splitting a district in Kansas City — are “IN!” to call a special session to redistrict.

The legal hurdles for Democrats in other deep-blue states could prove more formidable, hampering their party’s quest to retake the House in the 2026 midterms.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to disband a quasi-independent commission in charge of drawing House map. But the panel, created by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, cannot be erased until 2027 at the earliest.

California Pulls the Trigger

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

The California Legislature has approved a special election to redraw coingressional district lines. Democrats stand to pick up five seats.

 Laura J. Nelson, Seema Mehta and Melody Gutierrez at LAT:

Newsom initially said that new electoral districts in California would only take effect if another state redrew its lines before 2031. But after Texas moved toward approving its own maps this week that could give the GOP five more House seats, Democrats stripped the so-called “trigger” language from the amendment — meaning that if voters approve the measure, the new lines would take effect no matter what.

“They fired the first shot, Texas,” Newsom said before signing the bills Thursday. “We wouldn’t be here if Texas had not done what they just did, if Donald Trump didn’t do what he just did.”

The ballot measure language, which asks California voters to override the power of the independent redistricting commission, was approved by most Democrats in the Assembly and the Senate, where they hold supermajorities.

Lawmakers have the power to place constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot without the approval of the governor. Newsom later signed two bills that fund the special election and spell out the lines for the new congressional districts.

Cornyn, Paxton, and the Attention Economy

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

At Politico, Adam Wren notes that Democratic Senate candidates are mismatched in the attention economy.

ON THE REPUBLICAN SIDE: A similar gap exists on the right, as Cornyn faces a primary challenge from Texas AG Ken Paxton. Senate Republicans would much prefer Cornyn, worrying that Paxton could lose to a Democrat in the general under the right conditions.

But Paxton has adapted to our new, disruptive attention-based political era. He has run to where MAGA eyeballs are. Yes, that means doing hits on Fox News, but it also means going into less-mainstream media appearances, including as a guest on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. “We had you really early on this — before it got kicked off,” Bannon told Paxton in a gerrymandering-centric appearance earlier this week, effectively vouching for his MAGA bona fides.

Cornyn has taken a more institutionalist approach. Perhaps his most prominent foray into the redistricting fight came in the form of a sternly worded letter to the FBI asking for their help in tracking down the absconding Texas Dems. To be fair, that move was successful in generating its own earned media and resulted in the FBI approving a request to locate the contingent of quorum-breaking Democrats, though it remains unclear what that means in practicality and the FBI is declining to comment, as POLITICO’s Gigi Ewing writes.

Cornyn is also using tactics that have failed against Paxton in the past, POLITICO’s Andrew Howard sharply observes. In May, Cornyn’s campaign launched a website attacking Paxton titled CrookedKen.com, highlighting a number of Paxton’s flaws. The site’s content is almost identical to a website rolled out by George P. Bush during his primary race against Paxton in May 2022, called KenTheCrook.com. Bush’s political team had a lot of overlap with Cornyn’s, and Paxton won that primary by more than 30 points.

Cornyn declined an interview with Playbook.

“Every campaign I was ever on, including in 1980, our objective was to get in the local paper when we visited it, and get on the local radio station, and get on TV as much as possible,” Dave Carney, the Abbott strategist, told Playbook. “The difference between that — which is the exact same strategy, get as much attention as you can earn — now is: There’s 600,000 … places to get noticed.”

 

World War G

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. The gerrymander war is the big news of 2025.

 Jake Sherman at Punchbowl News:

Republicans are hoping to net a minimum of three House seats in Florida, as we scooped Thursday. Add that to the five seats in Texas, one each in Missouri and Indiana, plus two or three in Ohio, where state law mandates a redraw ahead of 2026.

The Supreme Court also has yet to rule in a high-profile Louisiana redistricting case on the 1965 Voting Rights Act that could further alter next year’s congressional landscape.

The Sunshine State effort, officially announced by Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez on Thursday, is only the most recent Republican initiative to cushion the blow from what’s expected to be a difficult midterms for the GOP. Republicans are hoping to redraw three districts in their favor, likely those of Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz in Trump-tending South Florida, as well as Darren Soto in the Orlando area.

...

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — a 2028 hopeful — is doing everything he can to sidestep his commission, but he’ll need Golden State voters to back his efforts in a special election. This will be extremely expensive and may not work. If it does, the prize could be five new blue seats, which could negate the proposed Texas map.

Where else can Democrats find more seats? Maryland could offer one. But Democrats tried to pass such a map in the 2022 cycle and a court shot it down as an illegal partisan gerrymander.

Oregon is another possibility, although Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic. It’s possible that Democrats could gain a seat out of Illinois, although the Land of Lincoln is already heavily gerrymandered in their favor.

Democrats in other blue states would have to amend their own constitutions in order to get into the redistricting fight. The deadline has passed to do this before the 2026 elections in New Jersey and Colorado. Democrats don’t have the votes in Washington State. New York would require court intervention, and state judges haven’t favored Democrats in redistricting there in recent years.

Immigration Policy Threatens GOP Gains

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Shortest political honeymoon ever

— Mike Madrid (@madrid_mike) August 5, 2025

Marianna Sotomayor at WP:

Hispanic Republicans in the U.S. House say they are increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign could backfire with Latino voters, as they look for ways to protect some undocumented immigrants from deportation.

These Republicans expressed fear that the inroads Trump and the GOP made with Latino voters in 2024 could erode because of what they see as a haphazard approach to mass deportations, which are starting to disrupt their communities and threaten local businesses. They are growing especially anxious about the push to arrest and deport migrants whose only crime is crossing the border illegally.

“We’re all against criminals and gang members and those with deportation orders. But as this is starting to touch some folks who have known somebody who’s been here 20 years, more and more [people] are starting to see it, and there’s more and more response in the districts,” Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R), who represents a predominantly Hispanic district in South Florida, said in an interview.

The concern from Latino Republicans — along with some of their conservative colleagues — comes as the Trump administration, through White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, has directed immigration officials to make a minimum of 3,000 arrests daily.

And the leakage of Hispanic support could cause the looming Texas gerrymander to backfire.   Pooja Salhotra at NYT:

Texas Republicans are hoping that the surge of Hispanic support for President Trump in 2024, which was especially sharp in South Texas, will last through the 2026 midterm elections. They also hope that voters, Hispanic or not, in districts like the currently Democratic one around Laredo will not be overly angry about the Republicans’ aggressive mid-decade redistricting push, a hardball tactic to retain power in Washington that is being pressed by Mr. Trump.

More than a dozen conversations with voters in South Texas over the weekend showed that neither hope is a sure thing.

“The Republican Party is going to lose a lot of votes around here,” said Ricardo Sandoval, 35, a trucking and warehousing businessman in Laredo who supported Mr. Trump in November.

Mr. Sandoval said he agreed with Mr. Trump’s campaign promises for tax cuts, tariffs on China and an immigration crackdown along the border. But now, he said, he feels he was misled. The roller coaster of on-again-off-again tariffs has depressed cross-border trade and upended his business, pushed prices up and forced him to lay off more than a dozen employees. Mr. Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions have been disrespectful to the thousands of Hispanics who supported him, Mr. Sandoval said. And he said the Republicans’ redistricting effort in Texas was an unethical way to try to hold onto power.

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” he said.

Recent polling has suggested that misgivings like Mr. Sandoval’s might be spreading among Hispanic voters, especially those who say they are feeling the impact of rising prices for groceries and imported goods, as well as a slowdown in the labor market.

 

Gerrymandering Is a Zero-Sum Game

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Lindsey Holden at Politico:

Two of California’s safest House Democrats say they’re preparing to take one for the team — accepting slightly more competitive districts as part of the state’s quest to find five new blue seats.

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to counter President Donald Trump’s effort to increase the number of GOP seats in Texas with a midcycle gerrymandering of his own. State lawmakers could vote soon after they return from recess on Aug. 18 to hold a November special election asking Californians for the power to redraw congressional districts ahead of the midterms.

But decreasing the number of Republican seats means some deep-blue California districts will take on a slightly more purple tinge.

San Diego Reps. Scott Peters and Sara Jacobs — both of whom represent overwhelmingly Democratic areas — are among the members who would likely see an increase in Republican voters if lines are redrawn. Both told Playbook they would prefer to avoid the sudden redistricting, but that Trump’s Texas push warrants it.

“This is bigger than me and my seat,” Jacobs said. “This is about the survival of democracy and our country. I don't think any of us want to go forward with this, but it's the only way to respond to what they're doing in Texas.”

Peters said he actually agrees with Northern California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley’s crusade to outlaw redistricting outside the typical 10-year time span. But, he added, “We’re not the ones who picked this fight.”

Jonathan Martin at Politico:

Which gets to the cold reality for GOP lawmakers in California and New York: The very Republicans who helped deliver their party’s congressional majority by winning in the two mega-states in 2020 and 2022 could be collateral damage to Trump’s gambit.

That includes House veterans such as Reps. Darrell Issa and Ken Calvert, both of California, but also younger, promising Republican lawmakers such as [Kevin] Kiley, 40, and Rep. Mike Lawler (N.Y.), 38.

“This creates a situation where you’re going to lose blue state members, which over the long haul are critical to keeping the majority,” Lawler told me.

It’s all, Lawler said, “mutually assured destruction once people go full throttle.”

The redistricting threat is especially cruel to Lawler, who was already eager to avoid yet another tough race in his Hudson Valley district by running for governor next year. But Trump made clear he preferred Rep. Elise Stefanik, a born-again MAGA disciple, as the standard-bearer even though running a Trump acolyte statewide may only ensure Stefanik ends next year where she started this year: hoping for a Trump cabinet appointment.

For Kiley, the Newsom reprisal to Trump may extinguish a congressional career that just began in 2023.

 

Duel in the Sun: Texas v California

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Eleanor Klibanoff at Texas Tribune:

The Texas House voted Monday afternoon to track down and arrest more than 50 Democratic lawmakers who were not present when the chamber gaveled in. After the 85-6 vote, House Speaker Dustin Burrows said he would immediately sign civil warrants for each of the legislators, empowering the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms and state troopers to arrest and bring them to the Capitol.

They will not face civil or criminal charges from the arrests. The warrants apply only within state lines, making them largely symbolic as most of the legislators in question decamped to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts to forestall passage of the GOP’s proposed redraw of Texas’ congressional map.

The House used the same tactic to try to force Democrats back to work in 2021, when a majority of them left for Washington, D.C., to protest GOP voting restrictions. Some of the lawmakers challenged the warrants in court, obtaining an injunction against arrests that was later struck down by the Texas Supreme Court.

While the Texas Constitution “enables ‘quorum-breaking’ by a minority faction of the legislature, it likewise authorizes ‘quorum-forcing’ by the remaining members,” the court ruled.

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Democrats left the state Sunday afternoon to deny the House a quorum — the number of people necessary for the chamber to advance legislation — and delay passage of a new congressional map.

The current congressional map, drawn by a Republican-dominated Legislature in 2021, has netted 25 GOP seats in the last two elections. But after pressure from President Donald Trump’s team, Abbott directed lawmakers to redraw the map during the special legislative session, which started July 21. Last week, the House proposed new congressional lines dividing up existing districts in Austin, Houston and Dallas with the aim of netting five more Republican seats.

Michael Wilner, Laura J. Nelson, Seema Mehta and Taryn Luna at LAT:

A last-ditch effort by California Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional map for the 2026 election, countering a similar push by Texas Republicans, is now up against the clock.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that Democrats are moving forward with a plan to put a rare mid-decade redistricting plan before voters on Nov. 4. But state lawmakers will craft a “trigger,” he said, meaning California voters would only vote on the measure if Texas moved forward with its own plans to redraw Congressional boundaries to add five more Republican seats.

“It’s cause and effect, triggered on the basis of what occurs or doesn’t occur in Texas,” Newsom said. “I hope they do the right thing, and if they do, then there’ll be no cause for us to have to move forward.”

 

Dueling Gerrymanders

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

NPR:

Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives have released a proposed new redistricting map that seeks to fulfill President Trump's desire to add up to five additional GOP congressional seats in the state.

New district lines in Texas and elsewhere could play a key role in determining which party controls the U.S. House after next year's midterms.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott added redistricting to the agenda for a special legislative session, citing concerns raised by Trump's Department of Justice that certain current districts are unconstitutional. But Republicans have also been explicit that they intend to undertake mid-decade redistricting for partisan aims.

According to Dave Wasserman, an analyst with the Cook Political Report, the proposed new map could help Republicans achieve a gerrymander of 30 Republican districts, to eight for Democrats. Currently, Republicans hold 25 of the state's seats.

 Taryn Luna at LAT:

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Tuesday that he believes there is a “legal pathway” for Democrats to present new congressional district maps directly to voters on a statewide ballot, without input from the state’s independent redistricting commission.

Such a move, he suggested, would allow the state to counter Republican efforts to tilt next year’s midterm election by pushing redistricting measures that favor the GOP in conservative states such as Texas. If successful, Republicans would have a better chance of holding their slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and protecting President Trump’s ability to enact his agenda.

“I think the governor could call a special election that the voters of the state of California would participate in, and present to them a pathway forward that’s different than the independent redistricting commission, that has maps presented to them ready [and] tangible and specific, and then the people vote,” Bonta said, adding that his staff had been discussing the matter with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s team.

NRSC Hardball Against Paxton

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Charlie Cook:

Thursday afternoon, the National Republican Senatorial Committee released a statement from communications director Joanna Rodriguez on Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton’s divorce filing against her husband, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. “What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting,” read the statement. Not your everyday Capitol Hill press release, to say the least.

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Paxton served 10 years in the Texas state House and two years in the state Senate before his election as attorney general in 2014. In 2015, a year after becoming the state’s chief legal officer, Paxton was indicted on securities-fraud charges. The case languished for nine years, during which he was reelected twice, impeached by the state House, and acquitted by the state Senate. In March of 2024, he reached a plea-bargain agreement that required restitution of almost $300,000 but did not require him to step down from his post.

That brings us back to the NRSC. To be very clear, I am not criticizing Rodriguez, the NRSC staff, or its chairman, Sen. Tim Scott. I understand why they did it, but—wow!

If Cornyn is the GOP nominee, he wins the general election easily—period. But virtually all polling shows Paxton ahead in a primary, be it by 9 points, 19 points, or even 22 points. The most reputable survey, conducted by the Tarrance Group for the Senate Leadership Fund (the chief super PAC for Senate Republicans, closely aligned with Majority Leader Thune), showed Paxton’s margin on the lower end of that range, at 10 points.

Given all of Paxton’s baggage, some of that same polling shows that Democrats would have a good shot against Paxton if he’s the nominee. So it’s easy to understand why national GOP leaders have a vested interest in Cornyn winning renomination, in the process saving them a pile of general-election money.

 

California Counter-Gerrymander?

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Trump is pressing Texas to do a mid-decade gerrymander.  Newsom is threatening to strike back.  Mark Z. Barabak:

As part of a recent Southern campaign swing, Gavin Newsom sat down with a progressive Tennessee podcaster to discuss the Republican power grab. (The picnic bench, rolled up shirt sleeves, beer and f-bomb showed the governor was being authentic, in case there was any doubt.)

“They’re not f— around now. They’re playing by a totally different set of rules,” Newsom said of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his fellow Republicans. Years ago, he noted, California created an independent commission to draw its political lines, which states normally do once a decade after new census figures come out.

But with a super-majority in Sacramento, Newsom said, Democrats could “gerrymander like no other state.”

“We’ve been playing fair,” he continued, but Abbott’s actions “made me question that entire program.” Later, elaborating on social media, the governor accused Republicans of cheating their way to extra House seats and warned, “California is watching — and you can bet we won’t stand idly by.”

There’s a Texas expression for that: All hat and no cattle.

The fact is, voters took the power of political line-drawing away from the governor and his fellow lawmakers, for good reason, and it’s not like Newsom can unilaterally take that power back — no matter how well his chesty swagger might play with Trump-loathing Democrats.

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[Democrats] could break the law and pass legislation drawing new lines, face an inevitable lawsuit and prevail with a sympathetic ruling from the California Supreme Court. Or they could ask voters to approve different lines through a new constitutional amendment, in a hurried-up special election ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Both scenarios seem as plausible as Newsom delivering universal healthcare and fulfilling his pledge to build 3.5 million new homes a year, to name two other extravagant promises.

Texas GOP: Beware the Dummymander

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Kayla Guo at Texas Tribune:

As Texas Republicans prepare to redraw the state's congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, cautionary tales loom from past redistricting efforts that saw the state’s rapid demographic change collide with far-reaching partisan gerrymandering.

The move to carve out more GOP seats in Texas was unveiled Wednesday by Gov. Greg Abbott, who included redistricting in a sweeping 18-item agenda for the Legislature's upcoming special session. The announcement ended weeks of speculation over whether Texas Republicans would follow through on demands from President Donald Trump's political advisers, who have been pushing for the rare mid-decade redistricting gambit to improve the GOP's chances of retaining its slim majority in Congress.

Some Republicans, including members of Texas' congressional delegation, oppose the idea over concerns about jeopardizing their own seats if they miscalculate with the new districts.

A recent test case unfolded after the 2010 U.S. Census, when Republicans who controlled the Texas Legislature looked to maximize their party’s seats across the map by drawing reliable GOP voters into nearby Democratic districts and turning them red.

But by 2018, a Trump midterm election year, that aggressive approach came back to bite them. With a favorable national climate and explosive population growth driven almost entirely by people of color, Texas Democrats picked up 12 seats in the state House, ousted two longtime GOP members of Congress and narrowed their losing margins in statewide races.

“What looked like a solid gerrymander by the end of the decade had become almost a dummymander,” Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said. “The lesson from 2010 is that you can stretch yourself too thin, that you can be too smart for your own good. And when the politics change, you get bitten in the you-know-where.”

Something similar happened in 2006. 

Divisive GOP House Primaries

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Bridget Bowman reports at NBC

Former President Donald Trump endorsed the primary challenger taking on House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., saying the congressman "turned his back on our incredible movement."

Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday morning that he is endorsing state Sen. John McGuire, who is challenging Good in a June 18 primary. Trump made a veiled reference to Good's being one of the few members of Congress who endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary, writing that Good "was constantly attacking and fighting me until recently."

Good endorsed Trump back in January, but the former president wrote that it was "too late."

"The damage had been done!" Trump added. "I just want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and the person that can most help me do that is Navy Seal and highly respected State Legislator, John McGuire, a true American Hero."

Josh Peck at Texas Public Radio:

Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales defeated a primary challenge from gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera in Tuesday’s runoff election.

The incumbent's March primary opponents forced him into a runoff with Herrera after Gonzales failed to earn support from a majority of voters.

By 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Gonzales had 51.06% of the vote to Herrera's 48.94% — a difference of just over 500 votes.

The Texas 23rd Congressional District, which Gonzales represents, stretches from just east of El Paso to western Bexar County. It includes large swaths of the border and the town of Uvalde, where the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting took place.

Gonzales’ primary challengers went after him for his vote in support of gun control measures in Congress in the aftermath of the school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

The runoff election occurred just days after the Uvalde community marked two years since the shooting.

Gonzales’ gun control vote, along with several other votes on issues like support for gay and interracial marriage, led the Texas GOP to censure Gonzales in 2023.

Herrera, who had never held political office before, has 3.4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he primarily uses and promotes firearms and is known as “The AK Guy.”

Many of his videos are controversial, including one from 2022 where he uses a gun associated with Nazi Germany, goose-steps to a popular Nazi marching song, and refers to the gun as “the original ghetto blaster” and “Hitler’s street sweeper.”

Later in the video, he says he’s “not really a big fan of fascism” and explains that his comments throughout the video are “really f— up jokes.”

Florida Republican congressman and fierce Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz campaigned to support Herrera’s primary challenge to Gonzales.

Gonzales outraised Herrera by four-to-one, receiving more than $4 million from supporters.

GOP Behavior Issues

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  

On a near party-line vote, the Texas Senate failed to convict the indicted Ken Paxton from his post as attorney general.Zach Despart at The Texas Tribune:

The dramatic votes capped a two-week trial where a parade of witnesses, including former senior officials under Paxton, testified that the attorney general had repeatedly abused his office by helping his friend, struggling Austin real estate investor Nate Paul, investigate and harass his enemies, delay foreclosure sales of his properties and obtain confidential records on the police investigating him. In return, House impeachment managers said Paul paid to renovate Paxton’s Austin home and helped him carry out ­and cover up an extramarital affair with a former Senate aide. 

Man Lauren Boebert was caught groping at ‘Beetlejuice’ owns gay-friendly bar that hosts drag shows https://t.co/YYmnk4NsiL pic.twitter.com/RDIC21bTdF

— New York Post (@nypost) September 16, 2023

This has been rumored for years, but “family values” governor @GovKristiNoem has been engaged in a multi year affair with @CLewandowski_ https://t.co/p3fzKb2Ttj

— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) September 15, 2023

The God Gap

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

 Ryan Burge at Politico:

The overall sense that arises from the Religion Census is that the Democrats will continue to gain ground in suburban counties that are predominantly white and where religion is fading in size and importance. In so-called Blue Wall states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, Republicans will have a harder time winning over voters in suburban Milwaukee, Detroit, or Philadelphia with messaging about six-week abortion bans. On the other hand, the shifts in the religious landscape make it more likely that the GOP can hold off Democratic advances in important states like Texas and Florida. As more Hispanic immigrants come to those areas who are deeply religious and culturally conservative, Democratic messaging on social issues will not appeal to these types of votes.

It’s hard to overstate this point. In 1990, just seven percent of Americans were non-religious — 30 years later, the “nones” had quadrupled. And new data indicates that nearly half of Generation Z has no religious affiliation. In 2020, 46 percent of the votes cast for Biden came from non-religious voters. That could easily be half of his base in a bid for reelection. Both parties have been slow to react to this changing religious landscape. Where the remaining religious Americans live and vote is a crucial question for the electoral map in 2024 and beyond. Both parties are ignoring these changing dynamics at their own peril.

Texas GOP Platform

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

The 2022 Texas GOP platform:

• All attempts by the judiciary to rule in areas not constitutionally granted to the judiciary, including abuses of the “commerce clause,” the “general welfare clause,” and the “supremacy clause,” should be nullified. 
• We oppose all executive orders, whether by a president, a governor, or a loca official, that go beyond administration of executive authority and have the effect of legislation. We call upon the Texas Legislature or local lawmakers to nullify such executive orders.
• Repeal and/or nullify the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968.
• Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified. Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto.
• The State Legislature shall cause to be enacted a State Constitutional Amendment creating an electoral college consisting of electors selected by the popular votes cast within each individual state senatorial district, who shall then elect all statewide office holders.
• We urge that the Voting Rights Act of 1965, codified and updated in 1973, be repealed and not reauthorized.

Yesterday's Results

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

On Tuesday, Republicans flipped a congressional seat in a heavily Hispanic district in south Texas, sent packing a pro-impeachment Republican congressman from South Carolina and nominated a passel of Trump loyalists in Nevada. It was a good night for the 45th president and an even better one for his party.

In Texas’s 34th congressional district, Mayra Flores, a Republican, garnered 51% of the vote in a special election in a district that voted for Joe Biden by double digits. Flores is the first Republican elected from the district, and the first Latina Republican in Texas’s congressional delegation.

The Democrats have plenty to worry about. Flores campaigned on being born in Mexico and arriving in the US with her migrant parents. From the looks of things, the Democrats’ hold on Latino voters appears to be rapidly eroding. The cracks that appeared in the 2020 elections continue to grow.

...

In South Carolina’s seventh congressional district, incumbent representative Tom Rice suffered defeat after voting to impeach Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection.

The congressman lost to Russell Fry, a state legislator endorsed by Trump. Rice remained unrepentant to the end. “I was livid,” he said. “I took an oath to protect the constitution and I did it then and I would do it again tomorrow.” His constituents were unimpressed.

Elsewhere in South Carolina, Representative Nancy Mace defeated Katie Arrington, a one-term former state legislator who had Trump’s backing. Mace offended Trump by voting to certify Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and criticizing the insurrection.

Unlike Rice, Mace opposed impeachment. Beyond that, on the campaign trail, she repeatedly stressed her personal support for Trump, and let his backers know that she still stood with them.

...

Trump loyalists also had a good night in Nevada. There, denial of Trump’s loss in the 2020 election emerged as the coin of the realm. Jim Marchant won the Republican nomination for secretary of state. His embrace of the big lie was a central tenet of his candidacy.

Elsewhere on the ballot, Trump’s pick for the US Senate, Adam Laxalt, prevailed in the Republican primary with a 55-36 win over Sam Brown, an Afghanistan war veteran. Laxalt is a former Nevada attorney general, and the grandson of the late Paul Laxalt, a US senator.

...
Likewise, Joe Lombardo, another Trump-backed candidate, won the Republican nod for governor. He is the sheriff of Clark county, and will take on Steve Sisolak, the Democratic incumbent.

Hearings held by the House special committee did not affect Tuesday’s primaries; they were irrelevant. Whether that is the case in November remains to be seen.

Census Miscounts

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  The 2020 campaign unfolded amid a decennial census.

Texas and Florida did not devote enough money to encouraging people to fill out their forms.

Big mistake.

Hansi Lo Wang at NPR:

For the 2020 census, all states were not counted equally well for population numbers used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the next decade, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday.

A follow-up survey the bureau conducted to measure the national tally's accuracy found significant net undercount rates in six states: Arkansas (5.04%), Florida (3.48%), Illinois (1.97%), Mississippi (4.11%), Tennessee (4.78%) and Texas (1.92%).

It also uncovered significant net overcount rates in eight states — Delaware (5.45%), Hawaii (6.79%), Massachusetts (2.24%), Minnesota (3.84%), New York (3.44%), Ohio (1.49%), Rhode Island (5.05%) and Utah (2.59%).

For the other 36 states, as well as Washington, D.C., the bureau did not find statistically significant net over- or undercount rates.

Mike Schneider at AP:

Florida's undercount translates into around 750,600 missed residents, and an analysis by Election Data Services shows the Sunshine State needed only around 171,500 more residents to gain an extra seat. The undercount in Texas translates into around 560,000 residents, while the Election Data Services analysis put Texas as needing only 189,000 more residents to gain another congressional seat. Hispanics make up more than a quarter of Florida's population and almost 40% of Texas residents, and critics say the Trump administration's failed efforts to add a citizenship question to the census form may have had a chilling effect on the participation of Hispanics, immigrants and others. It was a different story for states where residents were overcounted, like Minnesota and Rhode Island. Minnesota was allocated the 435th and final congressional seat in the House of Representatives; if Minnesota had counted 26 fewer people, that seat would have gone to New York. Minnesota's 3.8% overcount amounted to around 219,000 residents.

 

Redistricting Turnaround?

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.   

Paul Waldman at WP:

Just in the past few days, the conventional wisdom on redistricting has undergone a dramatic shift. The most informed redistricting experts now say it appears that this process will look more like a wash, or even that Democrats might gain a few seats.

How did this happen? Here are the key factors:

• Republicans had already gerrymandered so aggressively in the post-2010 redistricting that they had limited room to add to their advantage.
• In the relatively small number of states where they had the opportunity, Democrats are gerrymandering with equal vigor.
• In some places, Republicans opted to consolidate their current position rather than take a riskier path that might expand their seats.
• Independent redistricting commissions wound up not hurting Democrats in the way some feared they would.

Look at the two largest states. If all you knew was that the GOP legislature controls redistricting in red Texas while in blue California the process is run by an independent commission, you might expect a huge net gain for Republicans. But that’s not how it worked out.

In Texas, Republicans chose to lock in their current advantage rather than expand it, a decision driven by the way the state is trending in a more Democratic direction. Currently there are 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats in Texas’s U.S. House delegation. Above all, the legislature made sure there would be almost no competitive districts in the future. So the new map will have 24 safe Republican seats, 13 safe Democratic ones and one competitive district (which Republicans might win).

Russia and Texas Secession

 Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses foreign influence and Trump's attack on democracy.  Russia helped Trump through 2020.

Kristofer Harrison at The Bulwark:

A couple weeks ago Senator Ted Cruz was speaking at Texas A&M University when someone asked him his thoughts on the Texas secessionist movement. He replied that he wasn’t “there, yet.” It is important to understand that the modern secession movement is not a product of Lone Star pride. It’s an idea that has been force fed into the American conservative movement by Russia.

Secession is one of the Kremlin’s “active measures” campaigns: Promote fringe wackos abroad and hope that, eventually, they break something. This may not sound like much of a plan, but it sometimes works. Putin has been openly building his portfolio of wackos for a while. And the wackos have begun breaking things.

The shiny ball that caught Cruz’s attention was The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM). TNM is Texas’s most prominent secessionist organization. In 2015, TNM attended a St. Petersburg gathering of worldwide extremists organized by Rodina—that’s “Motherland” in Russian—the fascist-adjacent offshoot of Putin’s United Russia party.

That gathering was a safe space where the likes of German Neo-Nazis, the KKK, Greece’s Golden Dawn, and Roberto Fiore (the Italian terrorist responsible for a 1980 bombing in Bologna that killed 85), could gather and praise Putin’s defense of Western (read: “white”) culture. Here, featured on Rodina’s website, is Nate Smith, TNM’s executive director, in attendance. Howdy! Russia’s info warriors were very pleased with his comments at the event. This skulduggery got so bad and Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians who were working with the Texas secessionist movement in 2016 to—please put down your coffee—spread misinformation about Ted Cruz during the presidential primary in order to help Donald Trump.

"I have the support of the police"

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

 "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."  -- Donald Trump, Breitbart interview, 3/13/19

Kate McGee reports at The Texas Tribune:

As supporters of then-President Donald Trump surrounded and harassed a Joe Biden campaign bus on a Central Texas highway last year, San Marcos police officials and 911 dispatchers fielded multiple requests for assistance from Democratic campaigners and bus passengers who said they feared for their safety from a pack of motorists, known as a “Trump Train,” allegedly driving in dangerously aggressive ways.

“San Marcos refused to help,” an amended federal lawsuit over the 2020 freeway skirmish claims.

Transcribed 911 audio recordings and documents that reveal behind-the-scenes communications among law enforcement and dispatchers were included in the amended lawsuit, filed late Friday.

The transcribed recordings were filed in an attempt to show that San Marcos law enforcement leaders chose not to provide the bus with a police escort multiple times, even though police departments in other nearby cities did. In one transcribed recording, Matthew Daenzer, a San Marcos police corporal on duty the day of the incident, refused to provide an escort when recommended by another jurisdiction.

“No, we’re not going to do it,” Daenzer told a 911 dispatcher, according to the amended filing. “We will ‘close patrol’ that, but we’re not going to escort a bus.”

The amended filing also states that in those audio recordings, law enforcement officers “privately laughed” and “joked about the victims and their distress.”