Messing with Texas maps faces the test
More Democrats turned out for their party’s Senate primary between State Rep. James Talarico, left, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett than Republicans did for theirs. Credit: Pool via AP / Bob Daemmrich
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Off-cycle gerrymandering has stood out as the biggest and most controversial strategy so far for picking up House seats in this high-stakes midterm year. President Donald Trump got the ball rolling last year by having the expansive red state of Texas create a district map intended to snatch a handful of its 38 seats away from Democrats.
The GOP move in Texas and elsewhere brought efforts at retaliation from blue states. California, with 52 seats, also manipulated its map in a way that could yield Democrats five seats. New York was among those that got in the fray with an 11th-hour bid to chop up and flip the district of Staten Island Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis. But on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against letting New York do this for November.
Texas held its statewide primaries Tuesday. The results raise questions about whether the Lone Star gerrymander will help the GOP keep its House majority after all. In five districts designed to go from blue to red, the twist: More Democrats turned out for their party's primary than Republicans did for theirs.
This was most dramatic in Texas' 28th Congressional District. The initial tally had a total of 67,050 Democratic primary voters there and 16,760 Republicans, a difference of 50,000. In other districts the differences were 20,000, 7,000, 3,000 and 3,000.
Turnout in key areas showed a lot of energy and interest on the blue side that was lacking in previous contests. But optimistic Democrats hoping to see Texas and other red areas turn purple face several caveats. For one, primaries are intramural fights, which means the winning candidates may or may not inherit their rivals' supporters in the general election.
It's also possible that reliable Republican voters don't care as much which individual represents the district so long as the winner is a fellow party member. But this speculation cannot be measured eight months before the general election, before all of its campaigning and events that may occur.
Redistricting aimed at a single election does have the potential to backfire. Two decades ago, political scientists Bernard Grofman and Thomas L. Brunell used the term in a study they called "The Art of the Dummymander."
Gerrymandering, they said, "cannot produce miracles; it cannot turn water into wine or Republicans into Democrats." Packing too many of the party faithful into one district to achieve a majority can drain the party in other districts from which they were removed, the authors suggested. They have only so many partisan voters to distribute. Might Texas GOP mapmakers stretched their numbers too thin?
Just as the New York governor's race can sway down-ballot House contests, so can the Texas U.S. Senate race. Tuesday's results sent GOP Sen. John Cornyn into a runoff against the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton. But Trump doesn't want to wait for rank-and-file Republicans to decide. He warned on social media: "I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don't Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!" In contrast, Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Wednesday conceded and called on her primary voters to rally behind State Rep. James Tallarico, who bested her Tuesday.
Republicans hold a thin 218-214 House majority. That's why the tension is so thick, and efforts to manipulate the system and its outcome so fevered.
More than ever, each seat everywhere counts.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
