Will Democrats maintain House control? Party faces retirements and redistricting challenges in 2022 midterms
The Democratic Party flipped the House in the 2018 midterm elections and managed to maintain its majority, although a reduced one, in the 2020 general election. They will be hoping to continue their dominance in the chamber in the 2022 midterms as well. However, the Republicans are aggressively working to take the House back after losing the presidency and Senate last year. However, a combination of factors -- like retirements and redrawing of districts -- is going to challenge the blue party’s prospects.
While a number of Democrats’ retirement plans could favor the GOP’s quest to regain control of the House, the redistricting issue has been no less significant. The 2020 Census has seen deep red states like Texas and Florida gain more seats while blue states like California, New York and Illinois have lost seats, adding to the GOP's comfort levels.
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The Hill published a report on Friday, May 14, which said: “House Democrats are beginning to confront the challenging reality awaiting them in the 2022 midterm elections amid a spate of retirements and dim redistricting prospects. Democrats had hoped that brightening economic and public health outlooks combined with ongoing discord within the GOP would save them from the kind of electoral thrashing that historically besets the president’s party in midterm elections.”
It added that some in the blue party have already acknowledged that the challenge will be more than difficult next year. The Dems’ lead over the Republicans has come down in the 117th Congress while the Senate is equally split between the two parties with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris having the tie-breaking vote to assure her party.
One Democratic consultant and former House staffer told The Hill that while the party was optimistic earlier this year after Joe Biden took over as the president and the GOP lost control of the Senate, things have started to set in a little bit now. “I just think we need to be realistic about things, that history isn’t really on our side,” the consultant said.
"Former DCCC Chairs Sound the Alarm on Democrats Losing House Majority"
— Gray Wolf (@graywolf442) May 7, 2021
They're right to be in a panic, with retirements and redistricting looming, not to mention lost seats from "blue" states, and added seats to "red" states. Let's make their worst nightmare come true!
Number of Democrats plan to retire
The news about retirements hasn’t helped the Democrats either. Cheri Butos, who is serving as a House member from Illinois since 2013 and narrowly won the 2020 election, has said that she will exit Congress once her current term ends. Her Democratic colleagues like Ann Kirkpatrick from Arizona and Filemon Vela from Texas also have similar plans.
With Bustos having planned to exit, six Democratic incumbents will face re-election in 2022 in districts that former president Donald Trump had carried last November. The Hill also reported about Charlie Crist, the representative from Florida who is likely to run for the state’s governor, giving hope to the GOP to make a big comeback next year.
Other Democratic representatives from Florida like Stephanie Murphy and Val Demings could also depart from the House while in Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan has planned to run for the Senate to replace GOP incumbent Rob Portman. The party also faced other problems. Over the weekend, it faced a challenge when Jana Lynne Sanchez narrowly failed to qualify for a runoff election to replace late GOP representative from Texas, Ron Wright.
The Democrats, who are led by 81-year-old Nancy Pelosi in the House, saw their majority lead shrinking in the chamber to one of the smallest margins in decades after a disappointing performance in the 2020 election. Twelve of their members were defeated by GOP contenders while every Republican incumbent won their respective seats.
The Dems have just a seven-seat advantage over the Republicans at the moment. The party's deep divisions between the centrist and progressive voices are also seen as a concern ahead of the next big electoral test since the moderate members believe the progressives' radical agenda like 'defunding the police' hurt them in 2020.
“We were all expecting to gain seats last year too, and that’s when we were playing offense,” a Democratic strategist who worked on key races in 2020, told The Hill. “We’re on the other side of things now, so yeah, there are some reasons to be wary about next year.”
History has evidence that it is the president’s party that generally bites the dust in midterm polls. The Democrats lost seats in both the midterm elections when Barack Obama was in office (2009-17) while the GOP lost the House in 2018, two years after Trump won the presidency.
Other upcoming special elections may alter that margin slightly, but Democrats will have little room for error if they hope to preserve their House majority in 2022, and history tends to side against the president’s party in midterm elections. Democrats lost seats in both midterm elections while former President Obama was in office. Republicans lost their majority in 2018, two years after Trump won the White House. However, the Democrats are also trying to motivate themselves from another piece of history.
Banking heavily on President Biden’s major economic initiatives to boost the nation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which The Hill report mentioned, they hope 2022 brings back their luck of 1934 when they succeeded in expanding their majority in the House after former president Franklin Roosevelt carried took some far-reaching economic measures to help America overcome the sufferings of the Great Depression.