http://online.wsj.com/article/…
Now he has a point that 2010 is likely to be better for Republicans but even if they get the average 23 seat net gain in the House that barely gets them back above 200 seats, if that.
Also, on reapportionment. Same old conservative spin that Michael Barone parrots in the latest Almanac – red states will gain House seats thus more electoral votes after the 2010 census. Problem for the GOP is that Florida is now a blue state and Arizona should be ripe for going to Obama in 2012 without McCain on the ticket. I also believe North Carolina is due to pick up at least one more seat which supports the idea that as states increase in population they become more open to Democrats due to urban growth.
Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania will lose seats. Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Texas and Utah will all gain at least one.
But…
http://www.commongroundcommons…
“Sounds bad for Democrats, right? Not so fast. When it comes to deciphering the future electoral landscape, the shift in population is complicated by a second variable: the changing partisan inclinations of individual states. Several swing states are clearly becoming bluer, including Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Especially after the 2006 elections, outside of Louisiana, and perhaps West Virginia and Georgia, it is difficult to discern any clear rightward trends in individual states, much less among swing states.
For a while, it was conventional wisdom that long-term electoral trends looked bad for Democrats, because “red” areas of the country were experiencing much larger population growth than were “blue” areas of the country. However, Democrats can more than offset coming “red state” reapportionment increases by shifting the partisan status of individual states. If Virginia were to become a true swing state, Colorado were to become lean Democratic, and Pennsylvania were to become safe Democratic, then the Republican advantage gained from at least three decades worth of red state population gains would be entirely wiped out. Actually, the comparative advantage Democrats would gain from such a shift would be far greater.”
I can’t find a more detailed link on this but it would seem NC would be on the cusp.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Re…
The key factored left out by Rove in discussing redistricting is that gains in red states and losses in blue states does NOT necessarily translate into gains in Republicans and losses in Democrats. It’s complicated, but the key will be who’s doing the redistricting, to what extent the relevant states are already gerrymandered and in which party’s favor, and the location and composition of the population gain within states. Almost all of these factors favor Democrats, IMHO. We will either control redistricting or have a say in redistricting in almost all the relevant states. And, in a couple where we may not, (TX & FL), the map is already rigged against us, so it will be difficult for Republicans to draw only R-favored districts, especially since so much of the growth in these states is from Hispanics.
A compelte right-wing hack. I only buy his almanac for the stats and don’t read the garbage he writes. In his 2008 almanac he makes absurd predictions for how many seats the GOP will gain in 2012 redistricting, such as something like 3-4 seats each in FL and TX. Sorry, that’s really not possible if they want to keep all those marginally republican seats they have considering almost all the growth is minority.
We haven’t fought WWIII yet for a reason. Democrats made history for US Elections when they went two elections in a row without losing a single senate seat. Rove may be predicting his jargon already, but he has to wait for the Obama presidency to even start before he can give these numbers with a straight face.