Amy Walter: Republicans Will Net Somewhere Between 5 and 8 Seats Through Redistricting
Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter on Monday’s “PBS NewsHour” said she expects Republicans to pick up somewhere between 5 and 8 seats from the redistricting process.
GEOFF BENNETT, PBS NEWSHOUR: Well, if the shutdown continues to sort of play out as it is, and if Americans, more Americans, start to feel the pain – we already talked about this sort of wave of anti-Trump energy. When it comes to redistricting, can the GOP just redraw their way to victory, to change these maps and basically lock in victories? AMY WALTER, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: So, when we look at The Cook Political Report at all the different things that are coming together, and I’m talking specifically about redistricting that’s happening today in many of these states, there are simply more states where Republicans can redistrict than Democrats can. At the end of the day, right now, we’re saying somewhere between five and eight seats that we think that Republicans can net from this entire process. So that means, in order to win control of Congress, Democrats would need, instead of just winning three seats, they need to win eight to almost a dozen seats. That’s important. But I think about redistricting in this way. What Republicans are doing is each one of those districts is like a sandbag that they’re building. They’re kind of building a little wall here. And in a not-so-big storm, that may be enough to protect them. But if the political environment is really bad, like a Category 3 or 4 storm, even all of those sandbags may not be enough, because, remember, there are a lot of states that aren’t redistricting. And that’s where many of these competitive seats are that Republicans currently hold, New York, New Jersey, Arizona.
