As the 2022 midterms near, many Republicans are optimistic that the party will score big at the polls, especially in light of President Joe Biden's continued failures on both domestic and foreign fronts. And the consensus seems to be that the GOP will pick up as many as 10 House seats just based on redistricting.
But Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families (CWF), warns that things may not pan out that way.
"In states like Illinois that are losing at least one congressional seat, that state is firmly in the hands of the Democrat Party," he points out. "They are going all out. We could lose three incumbent Republicans in the state of Illinois."
The same, he says, can be expected in New York, where the Democrats largely control the redistricting process.
"They are on the verge of wiping out upstate current Republican congressional seats by redistricting those seats to extend deep down into Democrat-controlled territory in the state of New York," Bauer explains.
He also does not expect some Republican-controlled states to be aggressive enough in their redistricting plans.
"One of the examples is in Texas, where it looks like they may have opted to [keep] Republican seats that might be in jeopardy because of population changes," the CWF chairman submits.
That is an example of where redistricting was done in a way that saved those seats but did not get Republicans any new seats.
