Dem
51
GOP
49
Since the midterms, we've taken a look at some of the possible "but for [X]" factors that might have kept the House in Democratic hands. Here is a list of the first three of those items:
Now, let's take a look at redistricting, which might be the most obvious "but for [X]" factor. When redistricting was finished after the 2020 census, Democrats were moaning that those mean people in Texas and Florida were going to steal the House from them by gerrymandering. Never mind that Illinois and Oregon did their best as well, and New York went overboard but a judge said: "Nope." So how did it work in the end? David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report has analyzed the results and come to a surprising conclusion.
First off, if the Republicans had not gerrymandered the maps in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas, Democrats wouldn't have lost the House and now-speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would not have had to suffer the indignity of 15 ballots to get a job he probably won't be able to hold for all that long. However, to a large extent, the Democratic gerrymanders in Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon, plus the temporary court-ordered map in North Carolina, more than canceled that out. In fact, Wasserman concluded that the Democrats actually did better with the 2022 maps than they would have with the old (2012) maps.
Part of the reason is that the parties took different strategies to the gerrymandering table. The Republicans focused on making their incumbents safe, so for the most part, they made red districts even redder so none of their incumbents would lose. Democrats tried a much riskier strategy and drew as many districts as they could that were D+5 or even less. They had the advantage in those districts, but with a bit of bad luck, a weakly Democratic district is loseable. The gambit worked. Democrats won 24 of the 25 districts they drew for themselves in Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon, some of them by fewer than 5 points. If there had been a red wave, they could have lost all 25 of them instead of winning 24 of them.
To start with, Wasserman looked at the seven seats that stagnant states lost and fast-growing states got. The seven that disappeared were CA-47, IL-16, MI-02, NY-22, OH-16, PA-12, and WV-02. The first one had a Democrat sitting in it, but the other six vanished with a Republican sitting it in. The newly created districts were CO-08, FL-15, MT-01, NC-14, OR-06, TX-37, and TX-38. Democrats won four of those and Republicans won three. So the Republicans lost six seats from the old map and won three in the new map for a net loss of three. The Democrats lost one from the old map and won four in the new map, for a net gain of three.
Then Wasserman counted the districts that the Democrats wouldn't have flipped or held without redistricting. This was done using each district's pre- and post PVI scores, comparing the districts 2020 and 2022 results. For example, Texas Republicans made TX-15 4.4 points redder than it was, which is more than the 2.9 points by which Vicente Gonzalez (D) won it in 2020. Indeed, the district flipped from blue to red, as expected.
The conclusion of the study is that the Democrats won 14 seats they would have lost without redistricting and Republicans won 13 seats they wouldn't have won without redistricting. This is a net +1 for the Democrats. Throw in the +3 for the Democrats on account of seats moving among states, and it looks like the Democrats picked up four seats as a result of the redistricting process. So, the failure to hold the House is not due to gerrymandering because the Democrats did it, too, where they could. (V)