Failure, disappointment and embarrassment. Those three feelings should come to mind for Republicans if they don’t win the House majority in 2022.
Democrats have their narrowest majority in more than a generation, and Republicans have redistricting and history on their side in the midterm elections. There’s really no excuse for the GOP if it can’t pull this off.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is certainly optimistic.
“We’re going to get the majority back. … I would bet my house,” he proclaimed at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year.
More recently, David Brody of Real America’s Voice asked McCarthy how confident he was, on a scale of 1 to 10, that Republicans would be in the majority in the next Congress. “Majorities are not given, they’re earned,” he said. “But I believe in a 10. We’re going to do it.”
Simple math is fueling the GOP excitement.
Republicans need a net gain of five seats to get to the magic 218.
The president’s party has lost 30 seats, on average, over the past 25 midterm elections. And according to post-apportionment analysis from The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman, Republicans could gain up to eight seats through redistricting alone.
30-seat Cushion?
If that happens, simple back-of-the-napkin calculations point to a Republican majority with 30 or so seats to spare.
That’s a lot of wiggle room for potential candidate flameouts, message problems or tepid fundraising. Republicans have figured this out, and that’s what makes them so confident, and so unwilling to give ground on legislation this Congress. They can smell the majority.
Democrats know it too. Some party strategists are already admitting that by the time new district lines are finalized in...