Redistricting in Blue State Means Potential Uptick for Republicans

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Blue State
Blue State

California is about as much a blue state as they come, but there is going to be some house cleaning going on that you should be aware of…

Apparently, this blue state is going to lose a congressional seat next year, and it will probably be one held by a Los Angeles County Democrat. And that could definitely help the GOP capture the house in the 2022 election.

The GOP will take any gain that they can get, simply due to the fact that all they need is a net gain of five seats nationally to seize the House from the Dems.

Of course, it’s also conceivable that this disappearing California seat could be one that is already in GOP control. However, that is unlikely because there are not that many GOP House seats in California that are up for grabs.

The Democrats outnumber the GOP 42 to 11 in the California house chambers, and that is even counting when the GOP won back four of their seats in 2020.

Of course, the liberal news media is hush-hushing this as much as possible, simply due to the fact that this would be a historical first: California is actually going to lose a House seat for the first time ever due to several different factors. First of all, they are experiencing sluggish population growth over the last decade, and part of the reason for that is because the decennial headcount by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that the Golden State grew below the national average, at a rate of just 6.1% compared to 7.4% nationwide.

California added two million people and they are now sitting at 39.5 million people.

At the same time, red Texas is going to gain two House seats, and Florida and four other states are going to gain one extra seat each.

“L.A. County has to lose a seat. Its population growth was too low,” Former GOP redistricting consultant and editor of the California Target Book Tony Quinn said. The Target Book has become well-known for monitoring all of the Golden State political races.

“There is virtually no way to avoid that inevitability. It is demographically impossible.”

Currently there are 14 House districts that are up for grabs, and most of them are in L.A. County. When you take into account the combined population, they are short at least 615,000 people to justify as many House seats as they currently have.

All of these are Democratic seats except for that of GOP representative Mike Garcia, who oversees Santa Clarita, Palmdale, and Simi Valley. According to Target Book calculations, Garcia’s district needs at least 7,347 to justify keeping the seat, so it’s hard to say whether Garcia will continue to stay in that district or not.

Unfortunately, there are many other Democratic districts where the representatives are behind. This would include L.A. County, which is overseen by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard of Downey. She lacks as much as 70,80 people.

The commission is gearing up to redraw House and State legislative districts where they can fit the new population figures. This is a 14-member panel that consists of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents, and they are devoted to redrawing the districts according to a population under a tight time schedule.

That is because the commission has only recently received the final data from the Census Bureau due to the counting delays as a result of the pandemic. The commission was supposed to deliver their new maps by Dec. 27, and the state Supreme Court rejected their request for an extension.

There has been a considerable shift in demographics, and this might mean that there are a lot more districts where Asian American and Latino candidates have a better chance of winning.

“The biggest thing I’m expecting is more representation for Latinos and Asian Americans in this blue state,” says Eric McGhee, a population and redistricting expert for the Public Policy Institute of California.

“The Latino population has grown a little bit. The Asian American population has grown more. The white population has fallen in most places.”

In the bad old days, there wouldn’t have been any doubt that Democrats simply would have gerrymandered the districts to their benefit and they would have been backed by a Democratic governor to boot.

In fact, that’s what many Republican-controlled states are expected to do this time — carve out enough GOP congressional districts to oust Democrats from House control.

California’s reformed system is now not even remotely as beneficial to Democrats as it used to be, but there is no question that it has a much cleaner smell.