The focus was on the House, the Senate and the gubernatorial races last night with an occasional nod to redistricting, but that last item really is the big thing coming out of yesterday.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Redistricting, State Legislative Elections and 2012
Justin Levitt, writing over at Election Law Blog, has the scoop this morning on the impact yesterday's state legislative races will impact the redistricting process over the course of the next year. The bottom line: Republicans are now in control of the redistricting apparatus states with 189 congressional districts to be drawn. And there are still 68 seats yet to be categorized because the results are not clear yet.
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I agree that the main story here was the change in state legislators. It seemed that Independents voted party rather than candidate across the board with a few notable exceptions. The youth vote did not show up, the elderly went predominantly for the Republicans. Gerrymandering can help in marginal elections, but does not affect wave elections. We have had three wave elections in a row. If the Tea Party is really serious about balancing the budget, watch for a major backlash in 2012 if balancing the budget starts to affect student loans, student insurance, Medicare and Social Security. If the Independents keep firing politicians every two years, we will see many more wave elections in the next decade.
I actually quite liked Nate Silver's take on the aftermath of last Tuesday today; calling it an aligning election. My first thought last week was that with such a huge swing in partisanship from the 111th to 112th Congresses, there will be some vulnerable Republican seats on the table for Democrats in 2012. After redistricting, I don't think the Dems will be in a position to take back the House unless the backlash is strong, but that could be the new era we have entered: volatility with 50-100 seats holding the balance of power from election cycle to election cycle.
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