Veteran political strategist Karl Rove suggested that Republican redistricting may not be the solution to all that ails the party and that recent moves to redraw congressional districts may not turn out as expected because politics are unpredictable.
On this week’s edition of “Sunday Night in America” on Fox News, the former George W. Bush administration official was asked by host Trey Gowdy about whether redistricting could actually boomerang on the GOP.
“Is there a chance these new maps win the battle but lose the war?” Gowdy asked. “I mean, if you get too cute by half, is there a chance that it could backfire?”
(Video Credit: Fox News)
“Oh sure,” Rove responded. “You could, in essence, take, you know, like here in Texas, take big cities which are typically Democrat, split them up among several sort of suburban and rural Republicans, and thereby reduce their margin and make them more vulnerable in an election year.”
“The same thing could happen in the south, where you take these large black-dominated cities like New Orleans or rural areas like in South Carolina that are dominated by blacks who are traditionally Democrat voters and split them up into several different Republican districts and make things more problematic in a swing year,” he continued.
“You know, nothing ever plays out exactly in politics as we think it does, and take a look at this, think about this for just a minute,” Rove said as he broke out his trusty whiteboard. “The Democrats think they are going to pick up between four and five seats in California and one in Utah, so they’re gonna have five to six seat pickups because of redistricting.”
“Republicans think in Texas three to five, one in Missouri, one or two in Ohio, one in Louisiana if they go through with the redistricting there and get rid of this abysmal district that runs from Shreveport to Baton Rouge and looks like two birds, drawing in every black area that they can in the state in order to created a district,” he added, breaking down the expected GOP gains. “Alabama, maybe one district if they get it done, Tennessee, as you talked about, maybe one. South Carolina, maybe, but I think it’s very difficult to do.”
“But that means even if the Republicans pull it off, that means between eight to twelve offset by five to six, so the Republicans may pick up a net of three or maybe of six,” Rove explained.
“Now maybe that’s enough to control the House but maybe not, because that’d be very small number of seats that would be lost otherwise and with the president’s approval rating where it is and with the normal malaise that we have, it’s hard to believe that the Republican losses are only going to be five or six seats,” he said, noting that President Donald J. Trump’s poll numbers have taken a nosedive as the Iran war drags on and Americans are paying a steep price at the pump.
Republicans have been celebrating two major recent court decisions that went in their favor over redistricting, but they may be prematurely popping the champagne corks.
The Supreme Court dropped the gavel on the Democrats’ bread and butter racial gerrymandering, followed by Virginia’s highest court blocking newly drawn congressional maps that would redistrict Republicans out of power in the state, a major monkey wrench in the left-wing party’s plans to retake the House and impeach President Donald J. Trump, something that they have been clamoring for since inauguration day.
But as Rove put it, politics are unpredictable, and it’s a long way until November if gas prices keep climbing.
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