Another Democratic Congress? It could be awhile

[BzaDem]

"Looking at Tuesday’s results from another angle, around two-thirds of the seats Democrats lost were held by members elected in the '06 and '08 elections. With a small handful of exceptions, nearly all of these districts are Republican-leaning, though most not overwhelmingly so. They represented the spoils of Democrats’ own wave elections. As currently drawn, many of them could theoretically be competitive in 2012, but Republican state legislative and gubernatorial gains could help the GOP use the forthcoming redistricting to fortify many of them.

New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, where approximately one-third of Democrats’ overall House losses occurred, are potentially prime targets for this. With Republicans winning back both the governorships and state legislative chambers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, they will have carte blanche to strengthen the lines of the seats Democrats just lost through 2020."

--snip--

"Furthermore, Republican state legislative gains in Colorado, Indiana and Texas could also strengthen newly-won GOP seats -- this is especially true for two new GOP prizes in South Texas. In California, the passage of Proposition 20, which removes redistricting power from the Legislature and awards it to a nonpartisan commission, couldn't have come at a worse time for Democrats, with Jerry Brown winning the governorship this week.

It's just hard to see how Democrats will be able to score the broad gains they'll need to win back their House majority any time soon. It might just be another 12-year wait."

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/11/06/democrats_house_gone/index.html

[kevinbgoode]

1. I am sometimes skeptical of the importance of redistricting

I know that it has an influence, but people move more frequently today - and they also change parties, so it seems to me to be a guessing game, unless they throw in age demographics, neighborhood stability. . .things like that. I always wonder what percentage of people in one district when it is redrawn has already moved somewhere else by the next election. Are there any examples of redrawn districts by one party that flip to the other one?

[budkin]

2. Redistricting is such a crock of shit

[glowing]

3. Florida voted in the fair districting.. Not sure what that will look like on

the electoral map.. since Republicans still control all the majority (the message of throw the bums out sure didn't resonate down here.. guess people like corupt crooks as their governors and elected representatives)...

The other thing we need is new party leaders in Florida. Karen Thurman stinks big time bombs.. IMO, she's a Republican operative. And she doesn't help anyone who is actually liberal... especially in the primaries.

[BzaDem]

4. The article takes that into account in the analysis (and California, which did the same thing). n/t

[DFW]

5. Or........

They could get their shit together, ask Howard Dean for some help, not be afraid to speak up
and do again what they did in 2006 and 2008.

Republican wilt when confronted with the truth. We just saw what happens when Democrats wilt when confronted with lies.

[BzaDem]

6. The point is, what happened in 2006 and 2008 was possible partly because Republicans didn't have the

kind of redistricting power in 2001 that they are now going to have in 2011.

We still might be able to overcome that and win in some of these districts. The article is just saying that it will be a lot harder to do EVEN than it was in 2006 or 2008. In other words, if you run the elections of 2006 and 2008 with the redistricting boundaries that will be created in 2011, we might not have won the House.