Donald Trump’s party is growing increasingly concerned that their bid to secure an edge in the race for control of the House and Senate may actually wind up costing them the midterm elections.
Virginia voted Tuesday to greenlight changes to its constitution that would allow Democrats to redraw lines on the state’s congressional map. The move could potentially shift the number of delegates to as lopsided as 10-1 in Democrats’ favor at the November polls, adding to an already likely five-seat gain from a similar vote in California last year.
A judge temporarily blocked the Virginia amendment on Wednesday, saying it violated the state’s constitution. The commonwealth’s Attorney General Jay Jones, a Democrat, has vowed to fight that ruling in court.
Still, Tuesday’s result has spooked the GOP, which itself kicked off the nationwide redistricting fight with similar moves in Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina, as well as a failed effort in Indiana.
Party officials told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that at best, redistricting will hand them “only a small gain” in congressional seats. The newspaper adds that there’s now a growing sense among GOP ranks that Trump and his team “had miscalculated by pressing Texas last year” to make the first changes.
“I think it is a mistake in hindsight,” Nebraska GOP Rep. Don Bacon, who is not running for re-election and plans to retire next January, told Axios. “They thought they could just do Texas and nobody else is gonna respond? … We started a war.”
Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary under George W. Bush, was of a similar mind. “Unleashing Texas was bad for the nation and it turned out to be bad for the GOP,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
“This was avoidable, and if Texas hadn’t gone first, it is conceivable that Republicans actually would be better off than where they are now,” he went on. “So, Republicans picked the fight and lost the fight.”
Fleischer’s gloomy forecast aside, the battle is far from over. Florida voters head to the polls next week to decide on yet another redistricting plan that could prove a boon to the GOP, with Louisiana waiting on a Supreme Court ruling on racial considerations in congressional mapping that could yield another opening there come June.
