The Supreme Court is allowing California to use a new gerrymandered Congressional map that favors Democrats in this year's midterm elections, reports The Associated Press. This could spell doom to Republican chances of holding control of the House. The new map could flip up to five seats now held by the GOP.
Last year, Texas Republicans gerrymandered their districts in favor of gaining five new Republican seats. Democrats protested, and a lower court ruled that the new map discriminated on race. Republicans and the Trump administration accused California of racial discrimination in their own redistricting as well. However, a Supreme Court decision allowed Texas and California to use their new maps, stating both are for political advantage.
An NBC-affiliated station in Sacramento previously reported on the Republican targeted seats. Representatives Doug LaMalfa (District 1), Kevin Kiley (District 3), David Valadao (District 22), Ken Calvert (District 41), and Darrell Issa (District 48) are at risk of losing their respective districts to Democrat candidates come next election. Depending on the district, Democrats could gain 4 to 20 percentage points more than Republicans in those areas.
Craig DeLuz is a spokesman for the California Republican Assembly.
"First of all, they already had done a lot of gerrymandering in California. The districts that they had that were safe Republican seats are not necessarily for sure Democrat seats, but they're definitely less safe. They may be purple,” states DeLuz. “They may be Democrat leaning, but they're far from safe seats for either the Republicans or the Democrats."
He says that redrawing these new districts came with a price.
"In order to do that, they had to take Democrat voters out of other safe Democratic districts. So that potentially could be an opportunity for Republicans,” informs DeLuz.
It’s time, he says, for Republicans to stand up.
“Republicans need to start standing up on the issues that are important to people and helping people see and understand the failure that the Democratic Party has been for the people here in California," concludes DeLuz.
