The Sweep: What to Look for in the Senate Midterms

Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada have moved from ‘lean Democrat’ to ‘toss-up.’

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Breaking: Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Monday that the Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Texas, alleging that the state’s redistricting maps violate the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against black and Latino voters. This will be an uphill battle for DOJ. In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld Texas’ post-2010 census maps against similar arguments. 

Quick Hits

Christie’s Got Jokes: This past weekend, the Gridiron Club held a dinner for its members and spouses. Former Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Jamie Raskin were part of the evening’s entertainment. “When [President Joe Biden] couldn’t make it, he did think about inviting Vice President [KAMALA] HARRIS to share the stage with you,” Christie quipped, ‘But he decided that it would be redundant, given that Jamie and I are here, to have three people who are never going to be president speak.”

The Senate Primary in Ohio Gets Trumped: The GOP Senate primary in Ohio has been nasty for months. Trump won the state by 8 points in 2020, and the GOP primary has been like watching a very unpleasant reality show based on the Monica and Brandy hit, “The Boy is Mine,” in which each candidate tries to tie himself more closely to Trump. 

The Club for Growth, which is supporting Josh Mandel in the primary, spent $1 million running ads attacking J.D. Vance, using footage of Vance describing himself as a “NeverTrump guy” and calling Trump an “reprehensible,” “noxious” and “offensive.” At one point, it shows a screenshot of a Vance tweet about Trump that says, “My God, what an idiot.” Vance has said that he regrets his past comments. “I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016,” he told Fox News, “because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.” Vance’s team has also responded by saying that the Club for Growth is “‘desperate to stop J.D.,’ because he doesn’t share the group’s ‘globalist pro-China trade agenda,’” while noting that the Club for Growth also worked against Trump in the 2016 presidential primaries. Burn. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “ Christie quipped, ‘But he decided that it would be redundant, given that Jamie and I are here, to have three people who are never going to be president speak.””

    At least you have the courage to admit it, Chris.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Christopher Clements

    #WhereIsMarkKelly...

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    BrettH

    Enjoyed the read, thanks Sarah. Me thinks Dems will pay for their cultural excesses and typical party-in-power overreach next year. But hey, the GOP can always blow it by nominating more cranks to add to their ranks.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Gerrymandering dates back to at least 1812, when the term was coined to describe a political practice already in common use. Link: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/where-did-term-gerrymander-come-180964118/

    Gerrymandering has always been a partisan political exercise, politics at its most raw and ugly. The Constitution commits the drawing of political boundaries to state legislatures in large part because the redistricting process necessarily has political effects, but needs constant continuing oversight by voters. And that goal is encouraged by allocating responsibility at the lowest grass-roots level: If you don't like your state's districting lines, or the federal districting lines your state legislature has drawn for your state, then you have to communicate that at the ballot box, in the election of your state legislators. It's a necessary and inevitable process, and the best that could be done about it in the federal Constitution was to ensure that it remained always a "bottom-up" political process.

    I therefore respectfully disagree that gerrymandering is the main cause — or anything more than one of many contributing and continuing (but still proximate) causes, to indulge in a little lawyer-speak — of our current political disfunction. Like Monsieur Jourdain of Molière's "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," who was surprised to find out that he'd been speaking prose all his life, I recall, long ago, being surprised to learn that I have lived all my life in gerrymandered political districts. And so have almost all of you. And If I were to start ranking the proximate causes of our current dysfunction, I'd frankly put Twitter higher on the list in terms of direct and palpable culpability.

    What HAS changed — just very recently indeed, so recently that its vast practical political impact is still almost entirely unknown (but much speculated about!) — is the federal courts' role in the redistricting process, which had grown to be a very granularly involved one since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But for all the redistrictings based on the 2020 Census and thereafter, that's going to change, because of the SCOTUS' 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause. My paraphrase of that holding is: "The federal courts have given up on trying to take the politics out of politics." But here's the full opinion: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6090361490276671133

    Right now the legal nerds are all saying, "Does Rucho really mean what we think it might mean?" And nobody knows, until the second case — that is, the next case in which the SCOTUS finds itself obliged to follow (or else overrule) Rucho — will we really have an answer to that question. And we'll surely get some sort of answer, as the legal challenges that are trying to either nibble around the edges of Rucho or rabbit-trick around it make their way up through the courts. (Some of those paths may include three-judge special courts, appeal from which goes directly to the SCOTUS, and which in theory the SCOTUS has no discretion to refuse to consider on the merits. So that complicates the handicapping about which challenge of which state's districts on which grounds get back to the SCOTUS first.)

    Anyway, stay tuned, friends and neighbors.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Concise, crisp, informative & characteristically astute: Thanks again, Ms. Isgur.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Faraday

    Generally speaking, statewide races in Nevada are usually decided by Washoe County (Reno). Clark County (Las Vegas) will go blue by a small but steady margin. The rest of the state fairly red, though Douglas County, south of Reno and includes South Lake Tahoe, rides the line (it’s just smaller population wise). If Washoe, which also rides the line, tips red the state will go red.

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  7. Vitaly

    Arizona looks to me as the likeliest pick-up opportunity for Republicans. Followed by Nevada; then Georgia. On the other side, I think Democrats have a good chance to pick up Pennsylvania. But that's still 3 possible pick-up seats to 1. I do not see Democrats picking up Wisconsin even if Ron Johnson runs for re-election... I don't see a good candidate there. There is a lot of noise about Ohio but I think Josh Mandel is headed for the Senate... the partisan tilt is too large especially in a good Republican year.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Philbnichols

    Harvard youth poll... top three issues are: strengthening the economy, bringing the country together, and health care. ... the most popular politician among Americans under 30 continues to be an 80-year-old white guy, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

    Does this mean a significant number of youngsters think the Bern is the best option to achieve these three goals? or maybe his devoted following gave him more votes than a myriad other choices who in aggregate scored better than him?

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  9. Avatar photo
    Silvertide

    Gerrymandering has been one of the main causes of our political system coming apart. It's led to races where certain parties have no chance to get elected and so the extreme views take over these areas (Republican or Democrat). To see states where it's a 50 50 state politically but because of gerrymandering it's a 70 or 80 representative split is disgusting and was a real failure of the court. This will never be solved politically and so it just is made to disenfranchise voters.

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  10. Avatar photo
    David M

    Thanks Sarah, good newsletter. Surprised to see poll results of younger voters.

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