With this morning's
unveiling of the court-approved
interim Congressional maps, one thing became clear immediately: Republican overreach on their attempt to remap the Lone Star State has cost them, at a minimum, two Congressional seats, and perhaps more.
Whereas Barack Obama only carried 10 of the 36 seats under the GOP map that was rejected earlier this year, the president won a majority of the vote in 13 of the seats in the new court-approved map, as you can see in this comparison spreadsheet.
What's more, the Republican attempt to gun for Lloyd Doggett's 25th district seat in Travis County was torn into bits. Under the GOP map, Doggett's 25th district would have become GOP-leaning (56-43), leaving Doggett with the ugly choice of trying to run against the wind in the 25th district, or turn instead to the Hispanic-dominated 35th district. The 35th would have left Doggett vulnerable to a primary, as the district, while more Democratic (63-36 Obama) would be liable to elect a Latino Democrat like state legislator Joaquin Castro.
Now, under the new map, Doggett and Castro are free to run for Congress without running into each other. Doggett's Travis County-based 25th becomes overwhelmingly Democratic (68-30 Obama), insulating him from another strong challenge like the one he faced in 2010. Meanwhile, Castro can run in the newly-created 35th district, which is a bit more competitive but still a majority-Hispanic district that is reliably Democratic (54-44 Obama).
The new map also creates a new district in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex (the 33rd district) that is virtually certain to go to the Democrats. The district favored Barack Obama by a 63-37 margin, and is the closest thing you're likely to get to a true multi-racial district (28 percent Anglo, 27 percent African-American, 40 percent Hispanic). It didn't take long for Democrats to leap into the fray, as State Rep. Marc Veasey announced he would run in the new 33rd within hours of the map being posted, as did Fort Worth Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks.
The other two new districts (the 34th and the 36th) are heavily Republican, and one of them is likely to draw an incumbent. The south Texas-based 34th is one of the most Republican in the state (66 percent McCain), and before lunchtime, it became clear that freshman Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold would rather run there than in his current 27th district. Farenthold won the old 27th in an enormous upset, fueled by low turnout. Presidential-level turnout, and a redrawn 27th that is five points more Democratic (Obama 58 percent), made it a near-certainty that Farenthold would head for greener pastures. Of course, Farenthold has some ... ahem ... eccentricities (remember, he's Mr. Ducky Pajamas) that might make him vulnerable to a Republican primary. Unlike in his old district, there is going to be a GOP bench in the newly-drawn 34th district.
Meanwhile, the new 36th district is a southeastern Texas-based district that is a pure GOP vote sink (68-31 McCain in 2008). So, without even factoring incumbents into the mix, the Democrats would pick up three of the four districts without incumbents (the 27th, 33rd and 35th), while ceding one district (the 36th). That's a net gain of two for Team Blue in the Lone Star State.
But ... it gets better. As previously mentioned, the new map shored up Lloyd Doggett (the only narrow 2010 Democratic winner) by giving him a safe seat. But it also gives Democrats at least a fighting shot at Rep. Quico Canseco's 23rd district. The GOP redistricting effort worked hard to shore up Canseco, moving his district from a 51-48 Obama district to a 52-48 McCain district. The court remap puts the 23rd back at a 51-48 Obama split. Canseco grabbed the seat for the GOP in 2010 by beating Ciro Rodriguez 49-44. Without the 2010 GOP tailwind present, Democrats should at least be within striking distance.
Also, a couple of districts became considerably less Republican than they were before, though they are probably still insulated from a Democratic challenge, at least for now. One has to wonder, though, if some enterprising Democrat doesn't gun for Smoky Joe Barton in TX-06. The longtime Republican incumbent has never really been challenged, and his current district was 60-40 McCain. His new district is just 54-45 McCain, however, and Barton has not had to run hard in a race in literally a quarter-century. Another Republican who cannot be super-pleased with his draw is Michael McCaul (TX-10), who watched his district nudged a little closer to parity. The district, which was 55-44 McCain before the remap (and was 56-43 in the GOP remap), is now a 52-47 McCain district. Only Canseco's 23rd is closer to 50/50 status in the state.
The bottom line is that, assuming the districts are not dramatically altered before the final map gets released, a state that looked like a net loss of two seats for the Democrats now looks no worse (absent a total national collapse for the blue team) than a net gain of two. Indeed, unless a huge alteration or a lawsuit changes the calculus here, the only remaining question would appear to be how many seats the Democrats will pick up in Texas, an outcome that seemed unthinkable at the start of the year.