Update: Republicans Now Hope for Slight Gain in Nationwide Redistricting Battle

The Republican’s aim of crushing Democrats in the national redistricting battle has been either reduced to a tie or a slight gain.

The redistricting battle will serve the states for the next ten years and shape national politics for decades to come.

“We’re down to two possible outcomes of 2022 redistricting: a partisan wash or a modest GOP gain, depending on the final ruling on Dems’ NY congressional map,” guru of redistricting and Senior Editor of the Cook Political Report Dave Wasserman estimated Wednesday. Wasserman had previously predicted Democrats would take a two- to three-seat advantage in the redistricting battle where Republicans were expected to dominate.

While Democrat-allied media have praised the left for over performing “weirdly well” in redistricting battles, Republicans could have faired worse. Republicans found a huge lift last month from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who took control of Florida’s map. Democrats would have gained about a four-seat advantage from the redistricting process without DeSatis’s intervention. DeSantis’s map creates 20 red and 8 blue seats. Early proposals by the Republican state legislature would have favored Democrats.

Many redistricting maps have been brought to court in competitive states, and Florida is no exception. On Wednesday, leading Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias, who played a key role in pushing for vote-by-mail across the nation during the 2020 election and has supported Democrats’ efforts to gerrymander congressional district maps, stated a preliminary injunction has been filed to block DeSantis’s map. Legal opposition to DeSantis was expected. The Democrats will likely take their objections to the Florida supreme court, where the map stands a chance of surviving.

🚨NEW: Plaintiffs in Florida redistricting case has filed for a preliminary injunction to block the use of the illegal DeSantis/GOP congressional map in 2022 elections. https://t.co/OdX4Sz7OGp

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) April 27, 2022

In New York, Democrats are also in a perilous legal position. State Democrats conducted a “last-ditch” effort to “overturn a pair of lower-court rulings and salvage newly drawn congressional districts that overwhelmingly favor their party,” the New York Times reported Tuesday. The court’s decision may come as soon as Wednesday.

The New York map, approved by establishment Republicans in the state legislature, aimed to terminate half of the Republicans’ delegation. The map creates 22 Democrat and 4 Republican districts. A lower court in conservative Steuben County ruled in March the map was gerrymandered. That ruling has been appealed to the state’s Court of Appeals.

The Florida and New York lawsuits will determine whether Republicans pick up a few Republican favored districts or if Democrats will have punched above their weight.

Democrats will not give up without strong opposition. Former President Barack Obama’s one-time attorney general, Eric Holder, has successfully thwarted Republican state lawmakers’ redistricting methods throughout the nation by aggressively gerrymandering House districts via the court system, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Holder’s success is a result of his “sue to blue” strategy, which he implemented after Obama was destroyed in the 2010 redistricting cycle. Developing the plan under the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) he created, Holder has been influential in causing Republican legislatures to be less aggressive. Holder has used the court system to create state maps that are “gerrymandered” — all the while accusing Republicans of gerrymandering their maps.

Republicans have struggled to combat the Democrat machine, who seem to be far more organized with better leadership. Republicans have blamed the losses on the GOP’s National Republican Redistricting Trust, which had been led by Karl Rove and Chris Christie.

“Karl Rove has been asleep at the wheel throughout the redistricting process,” a national Republican strategist told Breitbart News.

“If Christie was half as focused on redistricting as he’s been on his future failing presidential campaign or the box of Twinkies he jams in his face each morning, then maybe Republicans would be in better shape today,” Donald Trump Jr. said of Christie’s performance.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.