NATIONAL REVIEW: NC Redistricting Dampens GOP Hopes of Retaking House

RALEIGH – North Carolina Democrats’ ‘Sue til Blue’ campaign may end up having impacts even beyond the Old North State. In a bid to sufficiently appease courts and litigious Democrats, Republican state lawmakers redrew congressional maps to net Democrats an additional two seats on Capitol Hill. In so doing, they may have also thrown a wet blanket on the GOP chances of winning back the US House majority in 2020.

At least that’s what writers at the National Review are suggesting. Pointing out that Republicans need to flip 20 seats in 2020 elections in order to retake the House, the two new Democrat giveaways in North Carolina add to already tall order:

“Late last week, four-term representative George Holding became the 20th Republican House member to announce he was retiring from Congress this cycle. Holding said he would not seek reelection for several reasons, but a big one was that state lawmakers redrew his Republican-leaning district to become much more Democratic. A three-judge panel that had objected to the previous lines signed off on the new district lines a week ago.

Right now, Republicans hold a 10–3 edge in the North Carolina delegation; with Holding’s district and Mark Walker’s Greensboro-area district now significantly more Democratic, that split could easily shift to 8–5, further complicating GOP efforts to win back the House. […]”

While the odds of Republicans taking back the House get longer, at least on paper, Democrats on the state level are trying to retake a legislative majority for the first time in a decade. There are new maps for the General Assembly, which also throw some bones to Democrats in response to lawsuits, so here too the Republicans face damages from the ‘Sue til Blue’ mania in 2020.

If 2016 taught us anything though, we’ll have to wait until election day to get a real sense of where voters’ confidence really lies.