The ‘permanent arms race’ for redistricting is here to stay

This year’s frantic mid-decade redistricting fight may be the new normal — and Republicans need to invest more into legislative races lest they fall behind on this new “permanent arms race,” argues a new memo from the party’s state-focused campaign arm shared first with POLITICO.

“The legislative level truly holds the key to the federal level,” Edith Jorge-Tuñón, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, said in an interview.

In the Friday memo — which is being shared with GOP donors — Jorge-Tuñón repeatedly hits Democrats for gerrymandering blue states, arguing that they will continue to stretch their margins as much as possible. Republicans, too, have drawn increasingly favorable maps — and fired the first shot in this year’s battle with Texas — shrinking the number of swing House seats that ultimately determine control of the chamber.

“Unless Republicans are prepared to match their focus and intensity, we risk allowing Democrats to gerrymander their way to a majority — not just once a decade, but year after year,” Jorge-Tuñón wrote.

Democrats were famously caught flatfooted in state legislative races ahead of the 2010 census. Republicans’ pioneering REDMAP program helped the party flip chambers across the country, all done with the explicit goal of getting a leg up in redistricting. And while Democrats weren’t caught as unprepared this decade, a strong legislative year for Republicans in 2020 also gave the GOP an edge for the post-2020 redistricting.

The new warning from the RSLC comes as their Democratic counterpart has similarly ramped up its messaging on redistricting as a reason to prioritize legislative races.

“To have a shot at winning and maintaining a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives moving forward, Democrats must reassess our failed federal-first strategy and get serious about winning state legislatures ahead of redistricting,” wrote Heather Williams, the head of Democrats legislative campaign arm, in a July memo obtained by POLITICO.

In the last legislative cycle, the RSLC spent $75 million across the country, a figure Jorge-Tuñón says the party will need to at least meet, if not exceed, in order to maintain control of state houses next year. Already, the GOP controls 29 legislatures nationwide.

Across the country, state lawmakers have taken up mid-cycle redistricting. Missouri and North Carolina followed Texas, which gave Republicans an advantage in two more seats on top of the five redder seats in the Lone Star state. In California, Democrats will likely pick up five seats of their own after voters approve a ballot initiative next week that Republicans admit they are unlikely to stop.

Other efforts are underway in both red and blue states, though their outcomes remain less certain. And generally, Republicans are believed to have the upper hand, with fewer impediments to redraw maps in their favor in more states ahead of the midterms.

“It’s important to recognize that the fight for 2027 redistricting — and the US House in 2028 — has already started,” Jorge-Tuñón wrote. “Failure for donors in our party to quickly grasp this reality could have major consequences for control of Washington in the years to come.”