California’s independent redistricting commission unanimously passed a new congressional map for the Golden State that shores up the state’s Democratic delegation and puts several Republicans on their heels.
That’s a boon for national Democrats looking to hold onto their razor-thin majority in the U.S. House. Despite California’s decidedly blue bent, it was far from a foregone conclusion how the 14-member commission would draw the new lines, especially because California lost a seat in reapportionment for the first time ever. Several earlier draft maps had put Democratic incumbents on notice.
Ultimately, the commission passed a map that includes 45 districts Joe Biden would have carried in the 2020 presidential election, and seven districts that President Donald Trump would have carried. Technically, that means the lost seat was a Democratic-leaning one, since the previous map had 46 districts Biden carried and seven Trump carried.
However, that doesn’t capture the full picture, for three reasons.
First, four of the eleven Republicans in the delegation already hold districts won by Biden, and three of those four now have even less favorable districts than they did before.
Second, of the new districts Trump would have carried in 2020, two of them would have been 1-point wins, while under the old map Trump’s narrowest win was 5 points. In a good national environment for Republicans, that may not matter, but later in the decade those seats could easily flip.
Third, no Democratic incumbent has a district Biden won by less than 10 points, meaning even in a poor national environment for Democrats they aren’t likely to be highly competitive.
The result is a map that should return all Democratic incumbents or replacements, and provides Democrats three good pickup opportunities and three more reach...