The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● NC Redistricting: On Tuesday, Democrats and voting rights groups filed a lawsuit in North Carolina state court arguing that Republican gerrymanders of the state Senate and state House violate the state constitution's guarantee of "free" elections. This case has a strong chance at success, meaning it could yield much fairer maps for the 2020 elections. That could in turn allow Democrats to regain majorities in both chambers and even give the party full control over state government if Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper wins re-election.
Campaign Action
Critically, this lawsuit relies solely on the state constitution, following the lead of reformers in Pennsylvania. There, a case before the state Supreme Court struck down the state's Republican congressional gerrymander earlier this year, citing Pennsylvania's constitutional guarantee of "free and equal" elections (phrasing that's nearly identical to language in North Carolina's constitution). And because the ruling depended on the state constitution, that left little room for Republicans to seek redress in the federal courts: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the GOP's appeal, and Pennsylvania voters enjoyed a much fairer congressional map in 2018.
Consequently, if plaintiffs obtain a favorable decision in North Carolina's state courts, there's a good chance that the federal judiciary won't overturn it—much as John Roberts might want to. And Democrats have a solid shot at prevailing because civil rights attorney Anita Earls just won a critical Supreme Court race to expand Democrats' majority on the bench to 5-to-2. At the same time, voters also protected the state courts by rejecting a deceptive GOP-backed constitutional amendment that would have allowed Republicans to add two more justices to the Supreme Court.
Pennsylvania's congressional gerrymandering lawsuit took less than a year to resolve, so North Carolina could likewise see a speedy resolution that would allow the 2020 elections to take place under new maps. However, the courts could ask the GOP-dominated legislature to propose new maps, and lawmakers would do their best to maintain their gerrymanders if given the chance. (In North Carolina, the governor lacks the authority to veto nearly all redistricting measures, and Republicans still hold both chambers thanks to their gerrymandered majorities, even though Democrats won more votes statewide in 2018.)
But Republicans may not be afforded the presumption of good faith that legislators normally receive when courts strike down maps for constitutional violations.
That's because GOP lawmakers have gerrymandered Congress, the legislature, city councils, county commissions, school boards, and even judicial districts, only to have courts strike down nearly all of them at least once. Indeed, the GOP legislature just had to redraw its own districts in 2017 after a federal court struck down their original 2011 maps for racial gerrymandering, and even their replacement gerrymanders were curtailed in federal court earlier this year and again struck down in state court later this year, too.
Given this history, the North Carolina Supreme Court may be disinclined to defer to the legislature—and for good reason: The GOP unequivocally admitted they pursued their maximum partisan advantage when they redrew congressional districts in 2016 as a perverse defense against charges of racial discrimination. When Pennsylvania's Democratic governor promised to veto the GOP legislature's replacement gerrymander, that state's high court stepped in and drew a much fairer map itself. While Cooper can't veto a GOP map in North Carolina, its Supreme Court could simply refuse to let Republicans have yet another bite at the apple.
If the court does indeed strike down both maps and draws fairer ones, North Carolina voters would get their first chance since the 2010 census to vote under constitutional maps. That could finally allow the party that wins the most votes to consistently win the most seats. Those elections will also determine which party has control over redistricting for the coming decade. If Democrats can prevail, that might finally bring an end to a long era of misrule that has seen Republicans go to unparalleled extremes to eviscerate democracy itself and instead restore the rule of law in North Carolina.
Tuesday Calls
● CA-10: Late on Tuesday night—after the Digest was put to bed, but hey, we couldn’t keep this news from you—the AP called California’s 10th District for Democrat Josh Harder, who has defeated GOP Rep. Jeff Denham. Harder’s margin grew by 1,472 votes with the latest batch, taking his lead to 51.3-48.7. That brings Democrats to 35 confirmed flips (a net of 33), with seven races still uncalled.
Uncalled Races
● FL-Sen, FL-Gov: A state court judge has given officials in Democratic-leaning Palm Beach County five extra days to complete machine recounts in the races for Senate, governor, and agriculture commissioner, setting a deadline of Nov. 20. By law, counties must complete their recounts by 3 PM ET on Thursday, but Palm Beach said its equipment can't process ballots quickly enough to meet that deadline. Local media outlets say they expect the judge's ruling to be challenged.
● GA-Gov, GA-07: Late on Monday night, a federal judge ordered election officials in Georgia to more carefully review some 27,000 provisional ballots to determine whether they can be counted. That could boost Democrat Stacey Abrams in the race for governor, though she'd still need to pick up more than 20,000 votes to force a runoff with Republican Brian Kemp.
Despite the court's order, counties were still obligated to certify their results to the state by 5 PM ET on Tuesday. However, 19 of 159 had not done so as of that deadline, and they may not do so until a later date. That includes populous Gwinnett County in the Atlanta suburbs, which on Tuesday was ordered by a different federal judge to count absentee ballots where voters' birth dates were missing or incorrect. Officials there now say they expect to certify results at 5 PM on Thursday.
The Gwinnett ruling came at the request of Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, whose deficit against Republican Rep. Rob Woodall in the 7th District shrunk from 901 to 533 votes with the addition of provisional ballots late on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Abrams is waiting on a third court to rule on a similar request her campaign has made, only Abrams is asking for every county in the state to count absentee ballots that have birth date issues. The judge in that case has said he'll issue a decision at noon on Wednesday.
● CA-45: After watching her election night gap close day after day, Democrat Katie Porter took the lead over Republican Rep. Mimi Walters for the first time on Tuesday night. Porter now holds a slim 261-vote edge, a margin of just 50.06-49.94 percent; previously, she'd trailed 50.2-49.8, a difference of 1,011 votes. Unless the remaining ballots defy the consistent patern we've seen since Election Day, Walters is in a whole lot of trouble.
● ME-02: On Tuesday, Maine Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin filed a federal lawsuit to overturn what is expected to be a re-election defeat thanks to Maine's new instant-runoff voting law (IRV; sometimes called ranked-choice voting), prompting his Democratic opponent, Jared Golden, to file a motion to intervene in the lawsuit. However, Poliquin's argument is beyond weak, and if he ultimately succeeds, it would make a mockery of the rule of law in much the same way that Bush v. Gore did.
After 95 percent of the initial votes have been counted, Poliquin holds a slim 46.2-45.5 plurality over Golden, but because Maine voters passed a 2016 ballot initiative to enact IRV, it takes a majority to prevail. However, instead of holding a separate runoff, voters got to rank their preferences, and since nobody took a majority in the first round, the last-place finisher gets eliminated and sees their votes redistributed to each of their voters' subsequent preferences. That process repeats until one candidate wins a majority, and the Bangor Daily News conducted an exit poll that found voters who backed the two independent candidates overwhelmingly favored Golden in subsequent rounds.
Ever since voters passed this law, Maine Republicans and a small minority of Democratic legislators tried repeatedly to get rid of it, but voters vetoed the legislature's attempt to repeal the law in a 2018 referendum. While Maine's Supreme Court indicated last year in a non-binding opinion the law was invalidated for state-level general elections, they didn't say it was invalid for primaries or federal general elections, and the secretary of state implemented it for both of those elections.
Consequently, Poliquin is resorting to federal litigation by arguing that Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution requires only pluralities be sufficient for election to the House. However, that section literally says nothing related to whether candidates must obtain a plurality or majority—or even any election method at all—and the cases the congressman cited come nowhere close to supporting his argument that the Constitution requires only pluralities.
Furthermore, Poliquin had ample time to file this lawsuit well before anybody actually voted yet didn't, and filing it after votes were already all cast would violate other long-standing precedents. Election law experts have derided this lawsuit as "beyond frivolous," and there's a good chance the courts will resoundingly reject it.
● UT-04: On Tuesday, another 7,700 ballots were counted in conservative Utah County while 9,800 were tabulated in Salt Lake County and the remainder of small Sanpete County came in, causing Democrat Ben McAdams’ lead over GOP Rep. Mia Love to drop from 4,906 votes to 1,229, a margin of 50.3-49.7.
Love won the Utah County ballots 74-26, which is about where she'd been performing in the county prior to this latest batch. The bigger concern for McAdams is that, while he'd been carrying his Salt Lake County base 54.7-45.3 before Tuesday, he only won this latest group of ballots 51.8-48.2. That's better for McAdams than the batch released on Friday, which Love actually won, but it's still a lot narrower than what he was getting before. The big question is whether the remaining Salt Lake County ballots will continue to be more conservative than the county as a whole, or if these were just two good days for Love. We’ll have more information soon, since Salt Lake County will continue to report vote totals every weekday, though Utah County says their next update will be on Friday.
However, Love did get some unwelcome news late on Tuesday when the state reported that there are only 27,000 ballots left in all of Utah County, and perhaps as few as 20,000, rather than the 32,000 previously estimated by The Salt Lake Tribune's Robert Gehrke. Gehrke estimates that there are just about 4,600 Utah County ballots in the 4th District rather than the 5,400 he'd previously estimated, which could make all the difference in a tight race. Meanwhile, he estimates that there are 35,000 Salt Lake County ballots left to be counted in this seat. The state says there are no more ballots left in conservative Juab and Sanpete Counties.
Senate
● AL-Sen: On Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Doug Jones confirmed to the National Journal that he would seek a full term in 2020, declaring he was "[a]lready off and running."
● AZ-Sen: Arizona will hold a special election in November of 2020 for the final two years of the late Sen. John McCain's term, and the winner will be up for a regular six-year term in 2022. GOP Gov. Doug Ducey appointed Jon Kyl back to the Senate in September, and Kyl not only said that he wouldn't run in the special election, but that he was only committing to serve until the end of 2018.
Speculation immediately began that, if Rep. Martha McSally lost this year's Senate race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, Ducey could appoint her in Kyl's stead; McSally could then run in 2020 as an incumbent. Prominent Republicans, including McSally, didn't want to talk about this idea out loud while she was still competing with Sinema, but McSally conceded defeat on Monday. One potential complication, though: On Tuesday, Kyl seemed to suggest he might serve until the end of his abbreviated term.
Other Republicans may be interested in running regardless of who—if anyone—gets to sub in for Kyl. Former Gov. Fife Symington said in October that he was considering a bid. Symington was elected to two terms in the 1990s but resigned in 1997 after he was convicted of bank fraud. However, the charges were overturned two years later in a federal appeals court, and Symington was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton (whom Symington had saved from drowning back in 1964 when they were both 19). Symington, who went on to open the Arizona Culinary Institute, mulled running for his old office in 2006 and 2010 and for the Senate in 2012, but he passed on all three races.
A few Democrats also have made noises about getting in. Rep. Ruben Gallego, who represents a safely blue Phoenix seat, said in October that he was considering running. Gallego would be the state's first Latino senator, and the Latino Victory Fund says they're trying to recruit him.
Another prospective Democratic candidate is Grant Woods, who served as then-Rep. John McCain's first chief of staff in the 1980s and was elected attorney general twice in the 1990s as a Republican. But while Woods remained close to McCain (he delivered a eulogy at his funeral), he soured on his old party and endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and starred in an ad for Sinema this year. Woods expressed interest in September in running for McCain's old seat as either a Democrat or an independent, and he changed his party registration from Republican to Democratic just after Election Day and reiterated that he was still considering running for Team Blue.
● CO-Sen: GOP Sen. Cory Gardner will be one of Team Blue's top targets, if not the top target, in 2020. Colorado backed Clinton 48-43 and Democrats completed a very successful 2018 cycle that saw them win the governorship for the fourth cycle in a row, finally unseat GOP Rep. Mike Coffman, flip the state Senate, and sweep every statewide office on the ballot. Still Gardner, who led the NRSC for this cycle, is a strong fundraiser, and he's capable of putting up a serious fight.
Democrats have a large bench in Colorado especially after Tuesday, but at the moment, there's no obvious Democratic frontrunner to take on Gardner. Former Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett, who stepped down at the beginning of this year to take a post at a prominent Denver law firm, expressed interest in challenging Gardner in 2017. Garnett, whose son was just named state House majority leader, has been pretty quiet about a potential campaign since then. However, after the election, he told the Daily Camera after they asked him about a 2020 statewide bid that he's "enjoying practicing law and doing the work I'm doing right now," which is not a no.
Back in August, former state Sen. Mike Johnston told Westword that he was also considering challenging Gardner. Johnston, who represented part of Denver, ran for governor in 2018. He raised a serious amount of money and his allied PAC received another $2 million from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who like Johnston is a major supporter of gun safety measures and expanding charter schools. Johnston ended up taking third place in the primary, with Jared Polis beating him 44-24.
● GA-Sen: GOP Sen. David Perdue is up for re-election in 2020, and Democrats will want to target him in a red state that's slowly been moving in their direction. The Democrat who has made the most noise about running so far is Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, who said last year that she was considering. Tomlinson, who leaves office at the start of next year, took a job with a law firm this month but said it wouldn't impact her future political considerations.
● IL-Sen: Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin hasn't announced his 2020 plans yet, but he sounds likely to seek a fifth term. Durbin, who is the number two Democrat in the Senate, said in October that he has "a lot of unfinished business I want to keep working on and I'll make a decision next year." While there are plenty of Democrats who could run for an open seat in this very blue state, it's unlikely that Durbin would face a serious primary challenge if he runs again.
● KS-Sen: GOP Sen. Pat Roberts said in September that he was considering seeking a fifth term. Roberts, who is 82, didn't lay out a timeline for when he would decide other than after the farm bill is finished. The Kansas City Star writes that if Roberts wants to run again he'll need to get this legislation passed to demonstrate that he still has clout for a state where agriculture is so important, especially after his chaotic 2014 campaign.
And what a campaign that was. Roberts faced a tea party-fueled challenge from radiologist Milton Wolf, and the senator unexpectedly ran into problems after voters learned he had no full-time home in Kansas. Roberts was actually registered to vote at a house on a country club golf course owned by two supporters, and Roberts himself joked he had "full access to the recliner" at this address. The joke was almost on Roberts, and he only held off Wolf 48-41. Afterwards, his campaign manager announced that the senator had gone home to rest —that home, of course, being in Virginia.
Roberts then faced a competitive contest against well-funded independent Greg Orman, who became the de facto Democratic candidate after Team Blue's nominee dropped out of the race to give Orman a clear shot. National Republicans airlifted a new campaign staff in to save Roberts and outside groups spent on his behalf. Polls showed a tight race but the Republican ended up winning 53-43, which was still not a good performance for such a red state in such a red year.
Roberts did announce in 2016 that he had purchased a home in Topeka, which could be an attempt to inoculate himself against the residency attacks that did him so much damage last time. Still, national Republicans may just hope that he fades off into the sunset and allow them to nominate someone stronger. And Team Red would certainly have plenty of options. The state party chair suggested that Rep. Roger Marshall, who represents a rural western district, could run for an open seat. The Kansas City Star asked the congressman about his interest and all he would say is that Roberts was a friend and a mentor, which is far from a no.
Gov. Jeff Colyer, who lost an extremely tight primary in August to Secretary of State Kris Kobach, also sounds interested. The Star writes that the outgoing governor's team has indicated he could run depending on what Roberts does, and his spokesperson also declared that Colyer "has not ruled out the possibility." The paper also writes that Rep. Kevin Yoder is also a possibility despite his wide 53-44 defeat last week against Democrat Sharice Davids. They report that Yoder has been approached by donors and GOP operatives about a possible bid, but he thinks it's too early to decide.
Democrats haven't won a Senate seat in Kansas since 1932—their longest drought in any state—but at least one prominent figure has shown some interest. Back in March, former U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom told a local Democratic group that he was "very seriously looking at Sen. Roberts' seat," adding that whether or not Roberts runs again, "I think it's one of those rare moments in time where folks who agree with us 60 percent of the time would vote for us." Grissom said at the time that he'd likely "wait until after midterms, and then we'll look at the rules and form an exploratory committee."
● KY-Sen: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced back in August that he would seek a seventh term. McConnell hasn't been very popular at home for a long time, and Morning Consult gave him a 33-52 approval rating during the third quarter of 2018. However, Kentucky is a very red state and McConnell is a very tough campaigner, and it will be difficult for Democrats to unseat him. The incumbent will also have access to all the money he could possibly want, though his eventual Democratic opponent will probably be able to raise some serious cash from McConnell haters across the country.
So far, the Democrat who has shown the most interest in running is Matt Jones, the host of the popular Kentucky Sports Radio. Jones said in October that he would decide by next summer. The DCCC tried to recruit Jones to challenge GOP Rep. Andy Barr in 2016, but after flirting with the idea, he eventually decided to pass.
● MA-Sen: Democratic Sen. Ed Markey announced last month that he would seek another term in 2020, and he's unlikely to face any serious GOP opposition in this very blue state. The primary, however, could be another story. The New York Times reported in September that Rep. Seth Moulton, who represents several communities north of Boston, was "said to be considering" challenging Markey.
A month later McClatchy asked Moulton about his 2020 plans, and while the congressman insisted a primary campaign was "not something I'm interested in, I'm planning on," he didn't rule it out when he was asked. Instead, McClatchy asked if a bid against Markey was "something you're not interested in?" Moulton just said "I have no plans to challenge Markey." By contrast, when Moulton was asked earlier in the interview about a possible run for president, he gave a clear no when he declared, "I'm not running for president, period."
● ME-Sen: GOP Sen. Susan Collins has not yet announced if she'll seek a fifth term, but she should expect a well-funded opponent if she does. Collins infuriated progressives nationwide in October when she announced she would support Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, which gave him the votes he needed to be confirmed. Several organizations, including Daily Kos, quickly raised around $4 million that will go to whomever wins the 2020 primary to take on the senator. However, Collins has decisively won each of her re-election campaigns, and she won't be easy to beat in this competitive state.
A number of Democrats showed interest in challenging Collins right after she announced how she would vote in the Supreme Court fight. Rep. Chellie Pingree, who lost the 2002 contest to Collins 58-42 six years before she won one of Maine's two House seats, put out a statement at the time saying she was "extremely disappointed" with the senator's Kavanaugh vote. Pingree didn't rule anything out, saying only that she was focused on her re-election campaign.
Former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree, who is the congresswoman's daughter, also didn't say no. The younger Pingree said it was "too soon to say what I might do," adding she had taken time off to raise her young kids "and they're getting a little older. It's not impossible." Current state House Speaker Sara Gideon sounded a bit more interested, saying last month that she was focused on the midterm elections but afterwards would "be seriously considering how I can elevate the voices of people who deserve and demand to be heard and represented in D.C."
Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice also generated plenty of buzz when she expressed interest, and she said last month that she'd "give it due consideration, after the midterms." Rice, whose primary residence is in Washington, grew up in Maine and says her family "goes back generations" and that she has owned a home in the state for the last 20 years. That's not going to stop Republicans from painting her as a carpetbagger, though, and Collins went on CNN in October and declared that her would-be rival "doesn't live in the state."
EMILY's List Executive Director Emily Cain, a former state senator who lost competitive races for the 2nd Congressional District in 2014 and 2016, also said she was thinking about it. State Rep. Seth Berry and Betsy Sweet, a lobbyist and activist who ran in this year's instant-runoff primary for governor (she took 17 percent of the vote in the first round and was eliminated after the third round of tabulations), also said at the time that they were considering.
● MS-Sen-B: In an unexpected move, Politico's Alex Isenstadt reports that the NRSC is planning to spend at least $1 million over the next two weeks to help Mississippi GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in her Nov. 27 special election against Democrat Mike Espy, and Medium Buying says their first TV buy will start on Thursday. Additionally, a group called Mississippi Victory Fund is also deploying $300,000 to aide Hyde-Smith's cause. So far, we haven't seen any major spending to support Espy, and it's not clear if Team Red is just playing it safe after a cycle full of unpleasant special election surprises, or if they're actually worried about an upset in this conservative state.
Meanwhile, the GOP seems determined to defend Hyde-Smith's notorious "public hanging" remark past the bitter end. Gov. Phil Bryant, who named her to this seat earlier this year, appeared with Hyde-Smith on Monday and insisted that his appointee "meant no offense by that statement" and in fact was "sensitive to race relations in this state." From there, he engaged in some epic whataboutism, declaring, "In my heart, I am confused about where the outrage is at about 20 million African-American children that have been aborted," adding, "No one wants to say anything about that." Hyde-Smith stood in silence beside Bryant the whole time.
Hyde-Smith herself has not apologized and only put out a statement on Sunday saying she "used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous." When reporters asked her the next day if she was familiar with the state's history of lynchings, all she would say is variations of "I put out a statement yesterday," and "That's all I'm gonna say about it." Espy, who along with 40 percent of the state's residents is black, was not amused by any of this, and said Monday that Hyde-Smith was "reinforc[ing] stereotypes that we've been trying to get away from for decades, stereotypes that continue to harm our economy and cost us jobs."
● NE-Sen: GOP Sen. Ben Sasse has made a name for himself by criticizing #BothSides but never failing to vote Donald Trump's way. Sasse said in July that he was still considering whether to seek a second term in 2020 and would decide in the summer. There has been plenty of chatter that Sasse could face a primary challenge, but no one has stepped forward so far. While there were rumors that Gov. Pete Ricketts could run, one of his advisors said in July that he "will not run for U.S. Senate in 2020. He has been and continues to be a supporter of Sen. Sasse."
● NH-Sen: Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has not announced if she'll seek a third term yet, though WMUR's John DiStaso wrote just after Election Day that "the proverbial betting leans toward her running again."
Republicans would love for former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who lost a tight 2016 re-election campaign to Democrat Maggie Hassan, to run here, but it's not clear if Ayotte is interested. DiStaso wrote last month that Ayotte appeared at a local fundraiser where state Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley urged her to run, declaring, "We need you back in Washington." Ayotte reportedly "was non-committal on the encouragement" and "neither squelched talk of a candidacy nor indicated that she was interested in running." DiStaso wrote last week that it was "less likely that Ayotte will run" if Shaheen sought another term.
While some Republicans may still hope that Gov. Chris Sununu could run for the seat formerly held by his brother John Sununu (whom Shaheen unseated in 2008), the governor declared last year that he "will never run for the U.S. Senate."
● NM-Sen: Last week, local political writer Joe Monahan wrote that Democratic Sen. Tom Udall confirmed to him in an interview on KANW that he would seek a third term, though we don't have a direct quote from the senator. Udall is unlikely to face much opposition in either the primary or the general election in this blue state.
Governor
● LA-Gov: On Monday, GOP Rep. Steve Scalise once again said he was not interested in running for governor in 2019.
Legislative
● VA State House: In an expected move, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Republican legislators' appeal of a federal district court decision that struck down 11 GOP-drawn state House districts for racial discrimination earlier this year and had ordered them to be redrawn well ahead of the spring filing deadlines for the 2019 elections. The district court's October deadline for lawmakers to come up with a new map had already passed after Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam had promised to veto the replacement gerrymander the Republican-run legislature had been advancing along party lines, and the court has already appointed a nonpartisan legal expert to assist it in drawing constitutional districts.
While the Supreme Court is likely especially hostile to voting rights and efforts to fight Republican gerrymandering now that Justice Brett Kavanaugh has replaced conservative swing Justice Anthony Kennedy, it still isn't guaranteed that they will overturn the district court's ruling on the merits. That's because this case already went before the high court back in 2017, when Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the plaintiffs in reversing a prior lower court ruling that had upheld these 11 districts, ordering them to decide the case again under a different legal standard.
However, one risk the plaintiffs face is if the Supreme Court simply delays things so long that no map is ready in time for use next year, since the court's term runs through the end of June and the Roberts Court has shown a tendency to drag out similar court-ordered redraws that were favorable to Democrats in other states like North Carolina this decade. That would be particularly unfortunate for the plaintiffs because Virginia's legislative maps will already have to be redrawn before the 2021 post-census elections, meaning even prevailing on the merits that these districts were unconstitutional would do them practically no good if the GOP gets away with using them in 2019 due to court-imposed timing.
