Republicans were awash in recriminations Wednesday, following their latest setback in a redistricting battle that their party started ahead of the midterm elections but has struggled to win.
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The fallout came after a day after voters in Virginia approved a plan yesterday that could enable Democrats to gain as many as four new congressional seats in this fall.
The results there brought the overall mid-decade redistricting back-and-forth to a draw, if not a slight advantage for the Democrats.
“You have to be very careful when you start breaking tradition to try to create an advantage,” Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said. “I’ve been very public in my criticism long before Virginia that we got to be better chess players than that. We have to understand that for every action, there are second and third order effects that we could live to regret. I don’t think it was well thought out in the people pushing it.”
Congressional redistricting typically happens once every 10 years, following a census, but President Donald Trump last year initiated a scramble by urging GOP-led states to redraw their maps ahead of schedule — an effort to pad Republicans’ three-seat House majority.
The result has been a flurry of hyper-partisan gamesmanship that could end without a clear edge for either party. Republicans were successful in enacting new maps in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina. But other states proved trickier to Trump’s end game. GOP lawmakers in Ohio, for example, settled on a new map that many in the party felt was too generous to Democrats. And Republicans in Indiana resisted White House pressure to redraw their lines.
Meanwhile, voters in California signed off on a new map last year that could net Democrats four or five new seats.
The way the fight has shaken out could put additional pressure on Florida Republicans, who are expected to hold a special legislative session to take up a new a new congressional map next week.
Asked if the broader redistricting battle that’s been waged over the past several months was worth it, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chair of House Republicans’ campaign arm, demurred.
“It’s not for me to decide that,” Hudson said. “It wasn’t my decision.”
Despite his early aggressive redistricting posture, Trump did little to campaign against the Virginia map, with the exception of an election eve “tele-rally” with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. On Wednesday, both Trump and Johnson urged the courts to strike down the map.
“As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they!” Trump, referring to the Virginia measure, wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Johnson, noting the close vote Tuesday, argued that a 10-to-1 map favoring Democrats “is not justified in that state.”
Democrats, for their part, were jubilant.
“Last night was a big victory for the people of Virginia, a big victory for America and a big victory for democracy,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters. “Donald Trump and Republicans launched this gerrymandering war, and we’ve made clear, as Democrats, that we’re going to finish it on behalf of the American people. We will not let Donald Trump rig the midterm elections by gerrymandering maps all across the country without a forceful Democratic response.”
Jeffries also put Florida and its Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, on notice.
“Our message to Florida Republicans,” Jeffries said, “is f around and find out.”
Elsewhere in the GOP, reactions Wednesday ranged from regret to anger.
“I think both sides will live to regret it, because it establishes a new precedent that has no end and regardless of what happened in Virginia, California or Texas, we have a new standard,” said Womack, referring to the broader redistricting arms race.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., called gerrymandering “bad for our country,” adding that “nobody should ever go down this route.”
And Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who has introduced a bill to ban partisan gerrymandering, called Virginia’s new map “a f—ing joke.”
“I think everybody across both parties should recognize this is mutually assured destruction, and it is completely the antithesis of representative democracy,” Lawler said.
A GOP consultant who works with multiple House Republicans said there are nuances — and fears of unintended consequences — that have kept members from jumping on board with the robust mid-decade redistricting.
“A lot of incumbent Republican members of Congress are not in favor of new maps due to time constraints but, more importantly, because redistricting is a lot easier said than done,” this person said. “That uncertainty combined with the real possibility of making some red districts purple is making many members reluctant to show any real interest in it.”
But another Republican, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, suggested his party has been too restrained in the fight.
“We need to start playing hardball with this redistricting stuff,” Burchett said. “It’s ridiculous. We’re going to lose everything because we don’t have any guts to fight it. Oh, we don’t want to get our hands dirty.”
Asked by NBC News if party leaders should have done more in Virginia, Burchett replied: “Party leaders need to get off their butts and do something. They need to quit complaining and start motivating.”
Republicans lost their appetite for the fight after the White House and Ohio GOP leaders accepted a compromise map, rather than pushing for one that could have gained them at least two seats, said a Republican strategist with extensive Midwest experience.
“Ohio was absolutely the tipping point,” said this person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the White House’s approach. “Once they settled in Ohio, in all the other states, the state legislators caved.”
A high-ranking Republican operative downplayed the Virginia results, asserting that they should not be seen as detrimental to the GOP’s effort to maintain control of the House.
“On the net, we’re either tied or up one on pickups with Florida still to come,” this person said. “I don’t think anyone’s happy with the outcome [in Virginia], but we lost a battle. War still ongoing.”
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