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Along with Florida, Republicans are expected to draw themselves more favorable congressional districts in Georgia, where Democrats hold two competitive districts in Atlantas northern suburbs, and Texas, which will add two new seats for the 2022 elections.

Mr. Ryans Democratic district in northeast Ohio is likely to disappear when Ohio Republicans draw a map with one fewer House seat, and Representative Filemon Vela of Texas, whose Rio Grande Valley district became eight percentage points more Republican from 2016 to 2020, chose retirement rather than compete in what was likely to be his first competitive re-election bid.

This is where Democratic underperformance in 2020 really begins to hinder Democrats downballot, said Ken Spain, a veteran of the House Republicans campaign arm. Republicans fared well at the state level last cycle and now theyre going to reap the benefits of many of those red states drawing a disproportionate number of the seats.

Because Republicans hold majorities in more state legislatures, and Democrats and voters in key states such as California, Colorado and Virginia have delegated mapmaking authority to nonpartisan commissions, the redistricting process alone could shift up to five or six seats to Republicans, potentially enough to seize the majority if they don't flip any other Democratic-held seats.

Democrats are expected to press their advantages where they can, particularly in Illinois and New York, states that lost one House district each in last weeks reapportionment. New Yorks new map is certain to take a seat from Republicans in Upstate New York, and one Republican-held seat in Central Illinois may be redrawn to be Democratic while another is eliminated.

For the moment there are more House Republicans, six, not seeking re-election, than the five House Democrats retiring or running for aiming for a promotion to statewide office. But of the Republicans, only Representatives Lee Zeldin and Tom Reed of New York represent districts that are plausibly competitive in 2022.

With Democrats holding supermajority control of the New York State Legislature, Mr. Zeldin, who is running for governor, and Mr. Reed, who retired while apologizing for a past allegation of groping, could both see their districts drawn to become far more competitive for Democrats.

Reid J. Epstein reported from Washington and Patricia Mazzei reported from Miami.

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Why Democratic Departures From the House Have Republicans Salivating - The New York Times

Since Joe Biden became president, several surveys have found a sharp rise in Republican pessimism about the economy.

This might seem surprising considering the national economy which experienced one of its worst downturns thanks to the coronavirus pandemic is now objectively improving. The United States added 916,000 jobs in March, smashing Dow Jones expectations and the unemployment rate is now at its lowest level (6 percent) in over a year. And economic forecasters now predict annual GDP growth in 2021 will soar to levels the country hasnt witnessed in nearly 40 years.

Yet, despite these optimistic economic indicators, most Republicans say the economy is getting worse. On the one hand, this is to be expected, as political scientists have found that how we think about the economy is increasingly rooted in how we identify politically rather than in actual economic conditions.

Take this data from Civiqs daily tracking polls, which has asked Americans about the economy each day since June 2016. Americans perceptions of the national economy have changed wildly depending on whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House.

These shifts are particularly striking for Republicans when considering the actual state of the economy. Even after a prolonged period of growth in GDP, household income, employment and the stock market during Barack Obamas presidency, about 70 percent of Republicans consistently thought the economy was getting worse in 2016 nearly the same share who are now pessimistic about the economys trajectory under Biden. (By contrast, fewer than half of Republicans said the economy was getting worse at the height of the coronavirus recession, when the U.S. economy was in its worst shape since the Great Depression.)

And this disconnect underscores a key point that political scientists John Sides, Lynn Vavreck, and I have repeatedly made about the 2016 election: Despite a media narrative that attributed Trumps political rise to widespread economic dissatisfaction and anxiety, it was partisan and race-based opposition to Obamas presidency that drove public opinion about the economy.

Thats confirmed by several studies showing economic distress was a weak predictor of support for Trump in the 2016 general election and understanding who switched from supporting Obama in 2012 to voting for Trump in 2016. To the extent that economic anxiety mattered in Trumps rise, it tended to take the form of what we have called racialized economics or the belief that undeserving minority groups are getting ahead while hardworking white people are being left behind. This attitude more than economic discontent pushed voters toward Trump, too.

But this didnt stop the media from explaining away Trumps support with stories about his voters apparent economic grievances. As The Washington Post reported, use of the phrase economic anxiety in American news coverage peaked in November 2016 even prominent Democrats such as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Biden put forth economic reasons to explain Trumps victory. This focus on the ostensible economic underpinnings of Trumps election was so widespread, in fact, that cable news actually devoted far more coverage to economic anxiety during the 2016 presidential campaign than they did during the 2020 election, when there was actually a global downturn in the economy.

The economic anxiety explanation for Trumpism has been persistent, too. So much so that when political scientist Robert Pape began exploring the factors contributing to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, he expected to find that rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 recession. [I]nstead, The New York Times reported, he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault came from places that were awash in fears that the rights of minorities and immigrants were crowding out the rights of white people in American politics and culture.

While Papes statistical methods have been criticized, and his findings appear obvious to many, his expectation that Trumps strongest supporters were still somehow motivated by the 2008 recession in 2021 underscores just how difficult it has been to dislodge unsubstantiated economic explanations for Trumpism. And with Republicans renewed economic anxiety likely here to stay throughout Bidens time in the White House, it also raises an important question: Will we, as a nation, fall for the same trick once again?

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Republicans Pessimistic Views On The Economy Have Little To Do With The Economy - FiveThirtyEight

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Lawmakers punted a bill that stiffens penalties against protesters who block highways and streets.

The bill would also have given drivers who feared for their life immunity if they injure or kill someone.

Every protest where theres cars revving their engines threatening to run people over this bill is a license to hunt and a license to kill, said Justin Jones, a community organizer.

The impassioned debate extended on both sides the Senate bills sponsor said its about protection.

This in my opinion strengthens the ability for that person to be immune to protect their own life and the life of the person theyre in the vehicle with, said Republican Sen. Paul Rose said.

The amended bill calls for the first offense to be a class A misdemeanor and a fine.

Within a year if another violation happens the penalty for protesting in the street would increase to a class E felony and fine.

In your mind your intention is not to harm someone your intention is to protect your family of those occupants in your car or maybe even yourself, Rose said.

Democrats on the committee highlighted former Tennessee Senator Thelma Harpers previous protestwhen she stood in front of garbage trucks heading to dump in her district.

Had she been stopped back then and this law was in effect, look at all the good work we wouldve missed out on, Sen. Sara Kyle, a Memphis Democrat said.

Demonstrators at the hearing say lawmakers are encouraging violence against them.

What is violent is a bill that will encourage cars to run over protesters, what is violent is making it a felony and taking away somebodys voting right because theyre exercising their first amendment rights, Jones said.

The bill ultimately was sent to Summer Study. A way to kill the bill for the legislative session.

The bill would have also increased penalties against rioters.

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Republican-led bill giving immunity to some drivers who hit protesters shelved for now - WATE 6 On Your Side

BARONE

BY MICHAEL BARONE

The COVID-delayed results of the 2020 census are finally in, with totals for the 50 states and the District of Columbia at nearly one-third of a billion - 331,449,281 - and with surprises having to do with the short run and what French historians call the "longue duree."

The short-term news revolves around the function for which the framers of the Constitution mandated the world's first regularly scheduled census: the reapportionment of seats of the House of Representatives among the states. That's done according to a 1941 statutory formula that the Census Bureau conveniently applies.

The results were underwhelming. Only seven seats out of 435 were switched from one state to the other. Texas gained two, and Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon gained one each. Losing one each were California (for the first time in history), Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Readers who keep up with these things will recognize that population and representation continue to flow from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West and, generally, from Democratic states to Republican states. But they will also recognize the changes are small, nothing like the censuses in which one state gained eight seats (California in 1960) or another lost five (New York in 1980).

The partisan effects are likely to be small as well, expert forecasters agree. Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics predicts a Republican net gain of four seats. The Cook Political Report's David Wasserman pegs it at 3.5 and Kyle Kondik of Sabato's Crystal Ball at two. Not quite enough to overturn the 222-213 majority Democrats won in November 2020.

All three emphasize that the redistricting processes within the states could produce a wide range of results. According to Wasserman, Republicans control redistricting in states with 187 districts, Democrats in states with 75 districts and theoretically bipartisan commissions in states with 121 districts. Control is split between parties in states with 46 districts, and six states have just one district each.

That's less of an advantage than Republicans had in the 2010 cycle and about the same as they had in the 2000 cycle; it's less than the advantages Democrats had in the 1960, 1970 and 1980 cycles. Democrats' advantages then derived from their majorities in northern metro areas and near monopolies in the South. Republicans' more recent advantages are due mainly to the clustering of Democratic voters in central cities, sympathetic suburbs and university towns, while Republican voters are more evenly spread around the country.

As for the long-term effects, the 2020 census shows less population change and less internal migration than government and private estimators expected, based on models from previous decades. Arizona grew 3.3% less than the census estimate and didn't gain the seat widely forecast, and Texas and Florida each fell a seat short of expected gains.

On the other hand, population outflows were less than expected, especially in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. The latter two didn't lose seats as expected, and New York was only 89 people short of not losing a seat for the first time since 1940.

Speaking of which, the picture the census paints of the 2010-20 decade closely resembles that of the long-past decade of 1930-40. In those 10 years, dominated by the Great Depression of 1929-33 and its echo in the Roosevelt Recession of 1937-39, the nation's population increased by only 7.3%.

That's eerily similar to the 7.4% in the decade that just ended, dominated by the sluggish Obama recovery of 2009-16 and the downscale-driven, pre-COVID Trump upturn of 2017-19. These two stand out as the lowest growth intervals in American history; in every other 10-year period, the nation's population has grown by double-digit (rounded off) percentages.

In each case, the previous decade was a poor guide for the one that followed, because the earlier one featured an abrupt decline, almost to zero, in immigration from abroad. That was the intended result of the 1924 Immigration Act. It was the unintended (and largely unnoticed) result of the housing price collapse in 2007, which struck first in markets with heavy Hispanic immigration. New York started gaining House seats after the 1892-1924 Ellis Island immigration ended; California stopped gaining them after the 1982-2007 inflow from Mexico stopped.

The 1930s were a decade when, with the picturesque exception of the Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl in the Great Plains, Americans hunkered down and cultivated their gardens. The 2010s turn out to be a decade when Americans, to a greater extent than appreciated by demographers and forecasters, hunkered down and cultivated their grievances in what The New York Times' Ross Douthat describes as our "decadent society."

By 1940, Americans had settled into a period of partisan parity and gridlock: Democrats won the presidency in four of six elections, from 1940 to 1960, but a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats controlled Congress for almost all that time. Partisan parity and gridlock are certainly familiar now: Joe Biden's congressional majorities are almost identical to George W. Bush's 20 years ago.

But some things can change. The census conducted on April 1, 1940, came just weeks before the fall of France and the accession of Winston Churchill. Within months, Depression America became Wartime America, and then, a few years later, it became Postwar America: No more hunkering down. As America emerges from lockdown, are similar changes and challenges ahead?

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

2021 CREATORS.COM

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Opinion: The 2020 Census: Small Republican gains in a nation hunkered down - Sumter Item

Susan Wright, the widow of the Republican congressman whose death prompted a special election in Texas on Saturday, made the runoff after reporting to law enforcement a bizarre robocall in which she was accused of murdering her husband by contracting Covid-19.

The election in the sixth congressional district on Saturday drew 23 candidates and was seen as a key test of both a Republican party under Donald Trumps sway and of Democratic hopes of making inroads in Texas.

Endorsed by the former president, Wright led with 19% of the vote. The lone anti-Trump conservative in the field, former marine Michael Wood, was way off the pace.

A Republican, Jake Ellzey, edged out a Democrat, Jana Lynne Sanchez, for second place and a spot in the runoff.

Ellzey, a state representative and navy veteran, drew 13.8% of the vote. Just 354 ballots and less than half a percentage point separated him from Sanchez, a journalist and communications professional who ran for the seat in 2018, with 13.4%.

In a statement, the chairman of the Texas Democratic party, Gilbert Hinojosa, put a brave face on the outcome.

The new Democratic south is rising, he insisted, and we will continue to rally our movement to take back our state including as we look toward the 2022 governors race. Were ready to build Democratic power, ready to defeat Texas Republicans, and ready to elect leaders who defend our rights and put Texans first.

Nonetheless, the sixth district, close to Dallas and Fort Worth, will again send a Republican to Washington despite trending Democratic for years. Trump won it in 2020 but only by three points after winning by 12 in 2016, that lead down five points on Mitt Romney four years before.

In Utah on Saturday, Romney, the only Republican senator to vote to convict in both Trumps impeachment trials, was booed and called a traitor when he spoke at a state convention.

NBC News reported the split of the vote in Texas at roughly 60%-40% in Republicans favour. Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, told Reuters: Democrats didnt get their people out there, and then to the extent to which they did they split up a lot of the Democratic votes.

The contest was to fill a seat vacated when congressman Ron Wright died in February, after contracting Covid-19. Trump endorsed his wife this week.

The day before the election, Politico reported that Susan Wright sought help from local and federal law enforcement after voters received a robocall which said she murdered her husband and was running for Congress to cover it up.

The robocall claimed Wright obtained a $1m life insurance policy on the life of her husband six months before his death and tearfully confided in a nurse that she had purposely contracted the coronavirus.

The call, in a female voice, did not say who paid for it.

This is illegal, immoral, and wrong, Wright said. Theres not a sewer too deep that some politicians wont plumb.

Matt Langston, an aide, said: Susans opponents are desperate and resorting to disgusting gutter politics.

Other Republican candidates condemned the call.

Before polling day, Wood, the anti-Trump conservative, told CNN he ran because he was worried about Trumps influence and somebody needed to stand up and say this isnt what the Republican party should be.

He also said he was afraid for the future of the country, given the prevalence of belief in Trumps lie that the election was stolen 70% of Republicans in a CNN poll this week said they believed Joe Biden did not win enough legitimate votes to win the White House and conspiracy theories such as QAnon.

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Republicans into Texas runoff after robocall claims leader killed husband with Covid - The Guardian