Texas Insider

By Bob Benenson, CQ-Roll Call Senior Elections Analyst 
 
Most of the 37 governors elected this November will have power over new congressional district boundaries, which will be crafted in state capitals after the census results are released this December.

Needless to say, the party that controls the line-drawing process can try to gerrymander its district map at will — raising the stakes for the Republican Governors Association (RGA) and Democratic Governors Association (DGA) as they decide how to target campaign cash in the winnable races.

“The RGA invests in states where we can make a game-changing impact,” said Mike Schrimpf, communications director for the GOP governors’ group. “And there’s no doubt that many states shaping up to have competitive races this year will undergo redistricting.”

“Redistricting increases the urgency,” said Nathan Daschle, the DGA’s executive director.

“Strategically, it doesn’t change a whole lot,” though “We talk about it a lot with donors,” he said.

In the first of three planned columns on the governors’ races and redistricting, here’s a look at how the contests are shaping up in states projected to gain seats in Congress — and where the maps are likely going to need dramatic overhauls.

The states most likely to gain seats, according to an analysis by Election Data Services (EDS), are Texas — projected to pick up three seats — and Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington, projected to gain one apiece.

Ohio could drop two seats.

Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania could each lose one.

A caveat: These are estimates, and the final list of gainers and losers that emerges from this year’s actual head count could be somewhat different. “We were actually surprised that the new numbers didn’t show even more change in apportionment, given the housing market downturn in the past two years and the onset of the recession this last year,” said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services.

Depending on which computer model EDS uses, Texas could bump up to a fourth new seat and Arizona could end up gaining two, while California and Minnesota could each lose a seat.

Projected Gainers
Texas: The only state projected to gain big this cycle, Texas features a competitive race between veteran Republican Gov. Rick Perry and Democrat Bill White, the recent former mayor of Houston — the state’s biggest city — and a prized candidate recruit for his party. Republicans, who used their takeover of the legislature to conduct an unusual and highly partisan revision of the decade’s original redistricting prior to the 2004 elections, still control both chambers, although by a very narrow margin in the state House.

Arizona: This state has a commission empowered to redraw the congressional district map that provides no official role for the governor or the GOP-controlled state legislature. Republican Jan Brewer, the interim governor, faces multiple serious primary challengers in her bid for a full term, while state Attorney General Terry Goddard is the presumed Democratic nominee.

Florida: Republicans have solid majorities in both legislative chambers. So Democrats need a win by their presumed gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer, in her race with Republican state Attorney General Bill McCollum to forestall a gerrymander like the one that the dominant GOP implemented in the last redistricting round.

Georgia: Republicans have an apparent lock on the legislature, which like Texas committed a mid-decade remap (before the 2006 elections) but one that resulted in no partisan turnover. So the GOP — which has a crowded field for its July 20 primary — will run redistricting if it wins the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue. The Democrats, who need a victory as a break on Republican redistricting ambitions, have a multi-candidate primary field that includes ex-Gov. Roy Barnes.

Nevada: The Democrats currently control both chambers of the legislature, though very narrowly in the Senate. If that holds, Republicans need to maintain their control of the governor’s office. That could be tricky, as incumbent Jim Gibbons has been very unpopular in his one term as governor and has drawn serious competition for the June 8 primary. The presumed Democratic nominee is Rory Reid, a commissioner from the county that includes Las Vegas and son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. That would have been a good thing politically in most election years, but the heated policy battles in which the elder Reid has been embroiled in Washington appear to be hurting both father — who is up for election this year — and son in their Nevada campaigns.

South Carolina: This state was in the vanguard of the South’s shift from its traditions as a conservative Democratic stronghold to Republican dominance. With Republicans already holding a strong edge in the legislature, the party is an early favorite to hold the governorship even though term-limited GOP incumbent Mark Sanford has been politically ravaged over the past year by a personal scandal. The five-candidate field for the June 8 Republican primary includes two statewide officeholders, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and Attorney General Henry McMaster, and a congressman, J. Greshman Barrett. The Democratic field includes Jim Rex, the state superintendent of education; state Sens. Robert Ford and Vincent Sheheen; and lawyer Dwight Drake.

Utah: This state’s status as one of the nation’s premier Republican strongholds is reflected in its redistricting outlook. Interim Gov. Gary R. Herbert — who moved up from lieutenant governor last year after predecessor Jon Huntsman Jr. crossed party lines and accepted President Obama’s nomination to be ambassador to China — is a solid favorite to win the November special election to fill out the final two years of Huntsman’s unexpired term. With a one-sidedly Republican legislature in place, the GOP will determine the fate of the state’s one Democratic-controlled House seat, held by four-term Rep. Jim Matheson.

Washington: This is one of a very few states that provides no role for the governor in congressional redistricting. A commission, appointed by the leaders of each party in the legislature, redraws the map, with the legislature (currently controlled by the Democrats) allowed to make only minimal changes; the governor has no veto power over the redistricting plan. For the record, Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire is not up for election this year, as she won a second four-year term in 2008.