Sean Trende analyzes how political violence may fail to galvanize the Republican base while predicting substantial House losses averaging 30 seats, though redistricting could limit Democratic gains to 15 or 20. He details Virginia's temporary map shift, Florida's legal uncertainties, and the looming Supreme Court ruling on race-based districts that might favor Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana. Trende refutes voter fraud conspiracy theories regarding non-citizens and highlights competitive Senate races in Texas, Ohio, and Alaska, concluding that a Democratic takeover remains plausible as President Trump's approval declines. [Automatically generated summary]
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Redistricting Rumors and Midterm Maps00:15:16
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Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Sean Trendi.
He's senior elections analyst for RealClear Politics.
Sean, welcome to the program.
Thanks for having me.
So just want to start with the events of Saturday night.
We were just talking about political violence on the program.
Do you think that this latest attack or attempted attack could have an impact on the midterm elections?
Boy, what a terrible moment for the country yet again.
You know, things that just seem like they're becoming day to day.
But for the midterm elections, there's a chance.
One of the things we've been seeing in special elections is that Republican turnout has been depressed and Democratic turnout's been through the roof.
So if there is an impact from this, it might do something like people think the Brett Kavanaugh hearings had in 2018, where it sort of wakes up and jars the Republican base.
But at the end of the day, this is an election where President Trump and the Republicans have some real fundamental problems walking into it.
I don't think it's going to be a game changer.
Well, let's talk about the vote in Virginia where voters narrowly approved that their congressional map would be changed in redistricting.
Can you talk about where that puts us and the court challenge to that?
Yeah, so that was kind of near and dear to my heart since I drew the, with Bernie Groffman at UC Irvine, drew the original Virginia map as a special master appointed by the state Supreme Court.
But I understand, you know, it went up to a vote of the people and the people had their say.
That's a map.
The map that was in place, Democrats had a very good shot at one of the existing districts, the second district in sort of the Hampton Roads area.
They also had an outside shot at the first district, which wrapped around into the Richmond suburbs.
So realistically, this new map probably delivers them, the Democrats, two to three new seats, depending how you thought the old map was going to perform.
I think one thing we haven't talked enough about, though, is that this is a map for the rest of the decade, and some of those districts are actually very close.
I'd be very surprised if it survives as a 10-1 map for the last two cycles of the decade.
So explain that.
So this is a temporary redistricting, of course, if the courts allow it to go through.
So how does that work?
Does that, at the end of the decade, does everything get redrawn again?
Yeah, every decade in America, you have to draw to conform with the decennial census.
And so this amendment says we'll go back to the old way of drawing our maps.
This is just a temporary response to Republican actions.
Now, as you notice, noted, the Supreme Court of Virginia is going to have their word on this.
Oral arguments are scheduled today for a challenge to it.
The Supreme Court of Virginia is a very strange court.
It's not really conservative or liberal the way we think of courts.
It tends to be very procedural, very nitpicky, but also tends to be deferential to the legislature.
So there's a real tension in their tendency to let the legislature have what it wants and its genuine attention to detail on rules and process.
I think it's anyone's game how this thing's going to turn out.
And just so viewers know that those opening arguments in the Virginia Supreme Court case are set to start today at 9 a.m. Eastern Time, and we have full coverage of that over on C-SPAN 2 if you're interested in following that.
So were you saying, Sean, that you think that this whole redistricting exercise nationally that kind of started in Texas, is that a wash?
So there's still some states we haven't heard from.
If the Supreme Court's decision in Calais comes down soon, you might see some additional states in the South redistrict.
But I think that's more or less right.
Depending on how some of these maps end up working out, Texas could be three Republican seats.
It could be five.
I think we're more or less back where we started from.
Maybe one party has an advantage, one seat or the other.
But for this election, at least, it looks like a wash.
And what do you think happens in Florida?
So Florida, it's hard to say.
And that they're talking about moving forward.
There's been rumors that there's some internal concern about redistricting the state that might temper what they attempt there.
There is a fair districts amendment that the Supreme Court of Florida is going to have to interpret and have the final word on.
So I think Florida is very much a question mark.
You could theoretically draw as many as five seats that are tougher for Democrats than today.
Maybe they'll only do one or two.
It just depends.
If you've got a question for our guest, Sean Trendy, about the midterm elections, now's your chance to start calling in.
Republicans are on 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
You can also text us at 202-748-8003 or post to social media.
Well, the Supreme Court is considering a case, Louisiana versus Calais.
I'm not sure how to pronounce that.
That's a redistricting case.
Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, so there have been challenges.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, in certain circumstances, requires states to draw their congressional districts in such a way that it would elect the minority candidate of choice.
The 14th Amendment, on the other hand, says you can't do racial classifications.
And so those kind of two requirements are in tension with each other.
And the Supreme Court's been asked to say that in this day and age, you can no longer require race-based redistricting in any circumstances.
If that opinion comes down soon enough, some of these states like Alabama or Louisiana or Tennessee that have previously had some Democratic-leaning districts that elect black Democrats might be able to redistrict in time for the midterms, certainly in terms of before 2028.
And most analysts would say those new districts are probably going to favor Republicans.
So for the House, overall, Sean, what is it looking like?
Because most analysts would say that the Democrats are going to take control, but what are your thoughts on the number of seats and where it looks right now?
Yeah, so if you go back in history, the president's party has gained seats in midterm elections in three years, 1934, 1998, and 2002.
All three of those were years where he had extraordinarily popular presidents.
So given that Republicans had a very narrow majority, it was always extremely unlikely that they were going to be able to control the House.
The average midterm loss for a president's party is around 30 seats.
So I think there's, especially with the president's job approval being in the 40s, there's probably going to be some substantial losses for Republicans.
The one big question, though, is does the redistricting that we just had, where a lot of states took kind of safe redistrictings, they minimize the number of swing districts.
Does that redistricting limit the gains that Democrats can make?
Obviously, there are enough seats for them to take control of the House of Representatives, but can they go beyond, say, 15 or 20 seats?
I think that's really tough for them, and I think it's unlikely you're going to see something on the order of the 40-seat gain that we saw for Democrats in 2018.
Surely not the 63 seats for Republicans in 2010.
Let's talk about the Senate because the New York Times had a headline that said, why a Democratic Senate once unthinkable is a real possibility.
Do you think it's a real possibility?
I do.
I agree with both phrases of that.
At the beginning of the cycle, I thought it was an extreme stretch for Democrats to take the Senate.
And now it's looking more and more plausible.
As the president's job approval falls, the playing field has expanded.
There's two seats, North Carolina and Maine, that we always thought were going to be tough holds for the GOP, but now we're talking about competitive races in Alaska, in Texas, in Ohio, probably in Iowa.
And then Democrats have been making noises with some independent candidates that most people think would actually caucus with the Democrats in places like Montana, Nebraska, and Kansas.
You didn't mention Texas.
Tell us about what's going on there.
So Texas, Texas is a tough state.
I think people get it wrong.
They think of Tumbleweeds and Cowboys, and there is a lot of that, but no one really lives in those places.
Most of Texas lives in the giant metro areas, DFW, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.
It's a giant suburb in a lot of ways.
And so Republicans have been having growing problems with suburbanites, which has caused that state to swing leftward pretty hard.
It's still a Republican state, but in an environment like this, Democrats start to have an opening.
They came three points away from unseating Ted Cruz in 2018.
This year, Republicans have a contested primary between Senator John Cornyn, sort of an old conservative establishment Republican, and Ken Paxton, the more populist MAGA Attorney General, who's got some ethical problems and some scandals in his past.
If he wins, he's going up against James Tallarico, who's very liberal, but very telegenic, very even-keeled.
The ingredients are there for an upset in Texas.
It's still a tough haul, especially for someone as liberal in Tallarico, but he knows how to sell it.
And I think, especially if Paxton's the nominee, it could be a really tough race.
Let's talk to callers, and we'll start on the independent line with Tom in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
Good morning.
Yes, thank you for the call.
I believe our founding fathers, all they wanted was to make sure that we had some coherent geographic divisions here, making sure that we had count the population and have it all done equally and have it done fairly.
Unfortunately, we have a situation now where we do have a census every 10 years, and it makes sense that we have redistricting every 10 years.
I think there should be a new congressional law saying that that's the only way you're going to do it.
You can't allow states to change their districts during midterms going forward.
We need to have a law saying you do it once every 10 years, and that is it.
And I think what we should also consider the possibility of drawing these lines is I think artificial intelligence might be the answer.
Let artificial intelligence be used to draw the lines and then make it equal.
And at the same time, if there needs to be some slight adjustments here and there, that's fine.
But I think have the album, I mean, just have AI just do the whole thing.
All right, Tom.
Go ahead, Sean.
So there's two good points there.
I agree, at least in theory, with the idea of banning mid-decade redistricting.
Now, if you talk to Republicans, what they'll say is that the problem with that is that a lot of states have elected judiciaries and they're partisan.
They run as Republicans or Democrats.
And so what you increasingly have are people using lawsuits to get a favorable judiciary to force redistrictings in the middle of the decade.
We've seen Republicans do it.
We've seen Democrats do it.
So that is kind of one little nuance to that.
And so I think to make that really work, you need some type of federal law also establishing standards for redistricting that would cabin the ability of judiciaries from either party to force these favorable or unfavorable mid-day decade redistrictings.
On the AI thing, it's a great idea, and we actually do have computer simulation programs that can draw districts from scratch.
They tend to look very good.
The problem with that, though, is that these districts ultimately are, or these AI tools, the computer simulations, ultimately reflect the inputs that you put into it.
If you crank up the compactness parameter in Utah, for example, and demand an extraordinarily compact district, you'll tend to get a very Democratic district in Salt Lake.
If you downplay the importance of compactness and allow the map to explore it, if you allow a wider range of options, you end up with swing districts, moderate districts, and some very democratic districts.
Non-Citizen Votes in California00:14:09
So at the end of the day, AI isn't a solution because, or it's only a partial solution, because AI reflects the decisions made by the person who writes the code for the AI.
George Ruther Glenn, Virginia, Independent Line, you're on with Sean Trendy.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Trendy.
My question is about the redistricting here in Virginia.
And it's whether or not if the Supreme Court here in Virginia does not void the election, if it could go on to the Supreme Court or to hire federal courts.
And the reason why I asked that is because I know what the Supreme Court had said about the redistricting in California and Texas, but that had to do with the legislatures.
Ours was done through a redistricting process where it was people in the Commonwealth who set up the districts.
And it was pretty fair.
It was six Democrats, five Republican districts.
We have 11 congressional districts.
And also, there's been a lot of concern about the wording on the ballot for the election.
And so I was just wondering if, because of that, could it go past our Supreme Court in Virginia and go on to say the federal courts?
Thank you.
Sean.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, thanks for the kind words.
You know, like I said, with Dr. Groffman out in California, I drew those congressional maps, and I think we did do a good job of them.
They were designed in such a way that they were 6'5 Democrat.
In a really good Democratic year, they'd be 7'4, and in a really good Republican year, they'd tend to be 6'5 Republican.
And I think that's how it should be in a state like Virginia.
But for the meat of the question, if the Supreme Court of Virginia passes, it probably doesn't go to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The reason the Supreme Court of the United States heard the cases in Texas and California was there were racial considerations, 14th Amendment federal considerations.
This lawsuit being brought against the ballot initiative is entirely about state law.
And the Supreme Court of the United States generally doesn't try to trump state Supreme Court interpretations of their own state laws.
So at the end of the day, the Supreme Court of Virginia is probably the end of the road for this lawsuit, unless there's some tweak or nuance, some federal hook I'm not aware of that could get it to the Supreme Court of the United States.
And you can watch those opening arguments at 9 a.m. Eastern.
We have coverage of that over on C-SPAN 2, or you can stay with us here on Washington Journal.
Here's Mary in Ohio, Republican.
Hi, Mary.
Yes, I've been reading a book about where there's about 10,000 members, and it's about how they're weaponizing mass immigration into our country because they said most Democrats are moderate.
So they want to bring people in through mass migration because they'll be the ones that will vote for these Democrats.
And like Tennessee has always been a really conservative state, and they're moving a lot of these illegal immigrants into Tennessee, North Carolina, these more conservative states to manipulate their base.
And, you know, why are we not talking about this mass migration of these people coming in?
And then you have these little old ladies that work at the polling things.
And on your ID, I guess it's just like a little star that says if you're legal or illegal.
And they say a lot of these women are not even able to read that.
But just address how the Democratic Party is using mass migration, which was started by the guy down there in Cuba back in 1993 to take over this country.
China has 141 consulates, 41 places in California where they're doing surrogacy via Chinese babies being born here.
And you got a lot of these older Democratic people in this country.
They just cannot see how corrupt the Democratic Party is because, you know, they said it's a very important part of the country.
All right, Mary.
We got your question.
Go ahead, Sean.
Yeah, so people who are in the country illegally or even in the country legally but aren't citizens can't vote.
And I understand there are people who think that's naive.
There's been pretty thorough work that suggests that people do slip through the cracks, but as far as a massive effort in voter fraud, you don't see what you'd expect to see.
Places with high concentrations of people in the country illegally or migrant workers have lower turnout, which is what you'd expect because the residents of those districts generally can't vote.
The other thing that I think a lot of people kind of gloss over is one of the big Republican achievements of 2024 was actually that Hispanic voters split their votes.
There's this assumption that if you bring in Hispanic workers or Hispanic citizens, that they're going to be an overwhelming vote for Democrats.
And that's just not what we've seen.
These are voters who are up for grabs increasingly for the GOP.
The Democrats only won them by six points in 2024, so it was more or less a wash.
And I think at the end of the day, that kind of rhetoric and theorizing actually hurts the Republicans' chances of winning over a voting bloc that's increasingly open to GOP arguments on a lot of issues.
Michael Democrat in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Good morning.
Morning.
I'm just trying to find out what's with this redistricting and their gerrymandering.
Why are they?
Is it just really doing it?
Is it the Republicans?
You know, is they trying not to get black people or people of color not to vote?
They're trying to take away their voting rights.
Sean Trendy.
Yeah, the question of gerrymandering, it's interesting.
It actually goes back to the founding.
Virginia originally tried to district James Madison out of his district so that James Monroe, our eventual fifth president, would beat him.
So we've been having these for a long time.
The original gerrymander was in Massachusetts in the early 1800s.
And it's just sort of escalated.
It's really become prominent and just sort of an accepted feature of our day-to-day lives.
It's something that both parties, no one wants to hear both sides isn't, but both parties really have engaged in it.
Republicans wanted to ban it in the 1990s, and Democrats who then controlled redistricting didn't want to hear about it.
In 2010, the late 2010s, Democrats wanted to ban it, and Republicans who controlled redistricting really didn't want to hear about it.
I hope that things are getting out of control enough that people are starting to tune into it, and maybe they'll demand some type of compromise between the parties on gerrymandering.
Democrats did have a bill in 2020 that would have put limits on redistricting, but there were also, it was a gigantic bill that there were a lot of things Republicans just weren't going to vote for.
So I'm hoping that this gets increasing attention.
Well, Sean, to that point, Stephen in Michigan sent a text and he said, you said that both parties have done mid-decade redistricting.
Please tell me which Democratic state has done a mid-decade redistricting.
He says, I am pretty sure the number is zero.
Well, we just had mid-decade redistrictings in California.
But I don't think I said that because there's no doubt that what Texas did was a novel move.
What I did say is that what the parties have increasingly done is used state Supreme Courts to force it.
So, for example, in New York, Democrats sued there to try to get what was a pretty fair map in 2022 thrown out.
The Supreme Court ordered a redistricting.
Democrats drew themselves two new districts.
Same thing happened in North Carolina.
Democrats had sued to try to get a 7-7 map out of North Carolina.
The Supreme Court changed composition.
It threw the old ruling out, and then Republicans got a fresh map there.
You have lawsuits being brought in places like Wisconsin to try to get a mid-decade redistricting order there right now.
So the idea that everyone just sort of sits on their hands and that there's good guys and bad guys in this, I think, is deeply misguided.
This is something that's been escalating for decades.
It really is getting out of control.
And it's something that I think the country has to do something about sooner rather than later.
But there aren't good guys and bad guys here.
On the Republican line in Rialto, California, John, you're on the air.
Thank you.
You said specifically that non-citizens cannot vote.
That's absolutely not true in California.
I don't know about other states, but you go into the DMV and check the box that says, I want to register to vote.
By law, no state official can ask about a person's immigration status.
17% of the illegals in California believe they are registered to vote.
They do vote.
And I want to point something else out.
If the Democrats want free elections or fair elections, why are they so adamantly opposed to voter ID and all these things that would make our votes more secure and more honest?
I want everybody that's eligible to vote to be able to vote.
However, in California, if it weren't for the non-citizens, not all of whom are illegal, some of them are here on student visas and like that.
If it weren't for the non-citizen vote in California, our politics would look a lot different than they do today.
So the idea that non-citizens are not voting is absolutely false.
All right, John.
Go ahead, Sean.
Well, again, we just don't see the type of evidence you would see if that's true.
Turnout is very low in Central Valley districts where you have large concentrations of non-citizens.
If non-citizens were voting the same as everyone else, you wouldn't get those types of turnout differentials.
And it's illegal to vote if you're not a citizen.
And no matter what exercise you run that we have to detect ballot fraud, it doesn't turn up these massive types of non-citizen voting.
And I return to, in 2024, Hispanic voters were a swing block.
They were 50-50.
It wouldn't have changed the politics at all.
What happened in California was actually in the 90s, white voters in places like Silicon Valley swung hard leftward because the Democrats ran to the center.
So the narrative of what happened in California and the narratives of massive non-citizen voting just don't hold up to scrutiny.
Finally, Sean, I want to ask you about the Senate race in Louisiana.
Senator Bill Cassidy is running for re-election.
He's facing a primary challenge from Republican Julia Lettloe, who has been endorsed by President Trump.
Can you tell us what's happening there?
Yeah, Senator Cassidy has generally been a pretty reliable conservative voice.
He is more moderate on the conservative spectrum, but he voted to remove Donald Trump in an impeachment proceeding.
And in a very conservative state like Louisiana, with a very conservative Republican Party, that's just a hard stance to take.
You know, he's taken some tough votes for Republicans to try to ingratiate himself, win back the graces of the Republican electorate there.
But in an electorate that's just very pro-Trump and very conservative, he's going to have a tough time because of how his votes have positioned him.
All right, that's Sean Trendi, senior election analyst for RealClearPolitics.
They're at realclearpolitics.com.
Sean, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you.
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So, our topic this morning is what needs to be done about political violence in the U.S.