Liberals Seek a Head Start in 2020

Like it or not, the Democrats head into the 2020 Presidential Election with a head start in the Electoral College.  They can count on California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Oregon, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, and the District of Columbia to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate.  All of those states’ electoral votes add up to 182; more than half to the 270 needed to clinch the presidency.  On the other hand, Republicans can only count on Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Utah, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  The electoral votes of those states only add up to 126.  In other words, Democrats don’t have to work as hard to get to 270.  Now for a little analogy to help make this point.  Republicans have to take the stairs when trying to get to the top floor of a 50-story building while Democrats get to take the elevator.  The elevator should get the Democrats there faster or enable them to get to the top without having to do as much work or exert as much effort but maybe not if the elevator has to stop to let people off or pick people up on every floor.  Republicans can make it to the top first if they work very hard. The Democrats have and will continue to do everything in their power to turn that analogical elevator into a one-way nonstop express to the presidency.

Democrats also have a head start when it comes to the battle to maintain control of the House of Representatives.  The Democrats have 235 House seats and 218 constitutes a majority.  Republicans will probably have to pick up at least 20 House seats in order to dethrone Nancy Pelosi because even if Republicans pick up a lot of House seats, they will probably still lose one or two.  The Democrats can maintain control of the House simply by maintaining control of every seat that Crooked Hillary either won outright or that President Trump won with a mere plurality.  That number adds up to more than 18.  Historically, Presidents running for re-election since World War II have only seen their parties gain an average of seven House seats.  Winning seven House seats would not enable the Republicans to retake control of the House.  On the other hand, President Trump carried 31 districts in 2016 that Democrats won in 2018.  Republicans only have to flip two-thirds of them in order to win; although they should aim for more to make up for any potential losses and secure a larger majority.   

Democrats have successfully convinced courts to throw out Congressional districts in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania in the past two election cycles.  That has enabled Democrats to capture seats in those states that they might not have won otherwise.  Since the Democrats actually won control of the House, one would think they would abandon their efforts to turn judges into cartographers.  After all, after this upcoming election cycle, every state in the union will have to draw new Congressional maps to reflect the findings of the 2020 Census.

But no.  The Democrats have still targeted the Congressional maps of several purple and pink states.  In Michigan, Republicans lost two seats to Democrats in the 2018 midterms.  President Trump carried both districts; one with a small majority and the other with a plurality.  Following the 2018 midterms, Republicans and Democrats each ended up with seven of Michigan’s 14 seats in the House of Representatives.  That makes sense, as the Presidential race in Michigan in 2018 basically resulted in a tie. However, the Democrats appear to want even more seats; or at the very least to make the seats that their newly elected incumbents won more favorable to the Democrats.  A three-judge panel ruled that the legislature must draw new districts by August because the current map represents a gerrymander of “historical proportions.”  Republicans have vowed to appeal the ruling.  E-mail communications used as evidence by the left of partisan bias when drawing the districts included a request to “cram Dem garbage” into as few districts as possible.  In spite of the current map that they hate so much, Democrats could very well pick up Michigan’s 6^th Congressional District next year because of three reasons: 1) they have already recruited a top tier candidate, 2) the incumbent, Fred Upton, does not exactly excite the conservative base, and 3) President Trump only carried the district with 51 percent of the vote in 2016.

Democrats appear to have quite a few advantages going into the next round of redistricting.  For one thing, several states, including Michigan, have passed referendums establishing an independent redistricting commission; which would give the responsibility of drawing Congressional and state legislative maps to a commission with a combination of Democrats, Republicans, and independents, taking the responsibility out of the hands of the state legislatures.  So far, “independent redistricting commissions” have worked wonders for the Democrats.  California, a blue state, established an independent redistricting commission ahead of the 2012 election cycle; the first cycle to apportion districts based on the 2010 Census.  Following the 2010 elections, Republicans held 19 Congressional districts in California.  California Republicans would beg to have that number of seats today; Republicans have done nothing but hemorrhage Congressional seats in the Golden State since the 1990s.  Republicans ended up losing four seats in the 2012 election.  They lost an additional seat in 2014 when Republican Gary Miller decided not to run for re-election in his district; which became more Democrat-friendly after redistricting.  In 2016, Hillary Clinton won seven Congressional districts won by Republicans; all of them have Democratic representatives in Congress following the 2018 elections. As of right now, Republicans only control seven of California’s 53 seats in the House of Representatives. 

An “independent redistricting commission” has also worked wonders for Democrats in Arizona.  Prior to the 2012 redistricting, Republicans held five of the eight House seats in Arizona.  As a result of the 2010 Census, Arizona picked up a seat in the House of Representatives; meaning that the state would have nine representatives instead of eight.  The commission dramatically altered the state’s Congressional districts; resulting in Democrats ending up with five of the nine seats following the 2012 election.  The Democrats probably could not have asked for anything more; considering that Arizona still leans Republican at the Presidential level.  These so-called independents seem to have more in common with Bernie Sanders, who almost always votes with the Democrats, than a stereotypical independent who has cast votes for both parties in recent elections.

In addition to the fact that independent redistricting commissions will control the redistricting process in a number of states, the Democrats also picked up quite a few governorships in 2018.  In many states, the governor has veto power over maps drawn by legislature.  The veto power will definitely come in handy in the handful of states with Democratic governors where the GOP still controls the legislature. 

Going back to Michigan, the court decision currently requires the redrawing of nine of the state’s 14 districts as well as the redrawing of ten districts in the State Senate and 15 in the State House.  Because Michigan holds staggered Senate elections for half of its seats every other year, affected Senate seats that would not normally end up on the ballot in 2020 will have to hold special elections.  Currently, Republicans hold 22 of the 38 seats in the Michigan Senate and 58 of the 110 seats in the Michigan House.  The Democrats hope that this lawsuit will cause the Republican majorities in both chambers of the Michigan legislature to evaporate; enabling the state’s newly elected Democratic governor and legislature to collaborate on bills championed by leftists in other states; perhaps a version of the “Reprodcutive Health Care Act” that passed in New York or a bill that would give free college to illegal immigrants.

Once again, why not just wait one more cycle?  Then, the independent commission can draw the Congressional maps that the left has spent the past seven years fantasizing about. To those who have not figured it out yet, the left has much in common with Veruca Salt from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”  The song sung by Salt in the movie has made a comeback in commercials for the Venetian resort in Las Vegas.  The song goes like this: “I want the world, I want the whole world, and if I don’t get the things I am after, I’m going to SCREAM!  Give it to me…NOW!  I don’t care how, I want it NOW!”  Substitute the word “world” for government and that song describes 21^st century liberals to a T. 

The left’s war on Congressional maps will not stop in Michigan.  They likely have the last few remaining swing states in their crosshairs; specifically Ohio.  After all in 2018, they failed to make any net gains there in the 2018 election. When it comes to control of Congress, the Democrats have adopted basically the same slogan used by the LGBTQ movement prior to the legalization of gay marriage nationwide: “power can’t wait.”

When Democrats have the chance to draw Congressional districts, they never, ever take politics into account. Just kidding.  Take a look at the map of Maryland; frequently cited as one of the most gerrymandered in the country.  Prior to the 2012 redistricting, Republicans held two of the state’s eight House seats.  The Democratic legislature, along with Democratic governor Martin O’Malley, conspired to reduce that number to one.  Republicans held the 1^st District, based on the Eastern Shore, in addition to the 6^th District in the western part of the state taking in parts of Appalachia and the Republican-leaning parts of Northwestern Maryland.  The new map moved parts of heavily Democratic Montgomery County into the 6^th District; making that effectively unwinnable for Republicans, while moving Frederick and Carroll Counties into the already heavily Democratic 8^th District.  One might say that the Democrats did their best to deprive “GOP garbage” of representation in Maryland’s Congressional delegation. Democrats pulled similar shenanigans in the previous redistricting cycle, where each party held four of the state’s eight House seats.  The post-2002 map altered the districts in such a way that made two of the Republican-held districts unwinnable for Republicans; in addition to making the map look absolutely ridiculous.  One of the two affected Republicans decided to run for Governor instead of running for re-election; he succeeded.  The other went down in defeat on Election Day as liberals uttered the words “mission accomplished.” 

In the past, liberals have relied on the judicial branch to make social policy for the entire nation.  Now, they have stumbled onto a new frontier: using the courts to help give them head starts in elections.  They have modest success in their endeavor so far.  If they succeed in getting the courts to yield to their latest set of demands, then America might have to put up with Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the foreseeable future.