Thursday, February 11, 2021

Operation Redline, 2022 Edition

Republicans are exceedingly confident that they will have the House back in GOP hands two years from now, and frankly there's very little to make me think Nancy Pelosi will be able to keep her gavel with just five seats to spare against the triple threat of Republicans being the out-of-power party, 2022 being a midterm cycle, and Republicans having control in a majority of states over redistricting.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans, announced Wednesday morning the 47 districts it is targeting as pickup opportunities in the 2022 midterms.

The group, led by Chairman Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, is targeting many of the same districts it did in 2020, as well as the exurban New York City 18th Congressional District, home to new Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who won reelection by about 12 points in 2020.

Midterms are widely considered a prime opportunity for the party not in the White House, and Republicans are setting their sights on some of the nation’s most competitive districts. In light of the 2020 Census and redistricting, Republican prospects for regaining control of the House appear even brighter, as the GOP controls about two-thirds of the states’ redistricting processes, according to FiveThirtyEight.

In 2018, Democrats managed a 40-seat gain as a part of the referendum vote against the Trump administration.

The NRCC indicated it was going to stick to its 2020 playbook after the GOP made massive cuts into the Democratic majority, flipping 15 seats from blue to red and reducing the Democratic control to just a handful of votes.

“We are just a few weeks into the Biden Administration and Americans are already seeing the job-killing initiatives House Democrats support,” said NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer in a press release accompanying the target districts.

“House Republicans start the cycle just five seats short of a majority and are prepared to build on our 2020 successes to deliver a lasting Republican majority in the House. We will stay laser-focused on recruiting talented and diverse candidates, aggressively highlighting Democrats’ socialist agenda and raising enough resources to win,” Emmer added.

The NRCC is targeting Georgia’s 7th Congressional District in the Atlanta suburbs, which is now represented by Democrat Carolyn Bordeaux. The seat was the only competitive pickup Democrats had in 2020, notwithstanding two North Carolina districts that were redrawn heavily in Democratic favor following court-ordered redistricting.


Yeah you read that right, Democrats picked up a grand total of one competitive district, and lost 15 others from 2018, and that's with Trump being hung around the necks of the GOP. Hell, Republicans will probably be able to redistrict out a dozen Democrats without having to actually run in anything close to being competitive.

In other words, yes, there's the very real possibility that Dems to lose the House by dozens, if not scores, or House seats. If they couldn't gain seats against Trump, the headwinds may just be too strong come November 2022.

We'll see, but Sean Patrick Mahoney has the defense of a lifetime to coordinate, and I don't think anyone's up to the job, let alone Mahoney.

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