Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on whether Democrats can overcome GOP redistricting advantages

Geoff Bennett:

For more on the politics of the redistricting fight, we're joined now by our Politics Monday duo. That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

It's great to see you both.

Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

Hello.

Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

Good to be here.

Geoff Bennett:

So the Texas House of Representatives reached a quorum today after Democrats returned, ending their two-week standoff, now paving the way for Republicans to pass these congressional maps that could net the GOP as many as five seats.

Democrats are claiming a moral victory because they elevated this issue to a national platform. Is that enough, a moral victory, versus an actual victory?

Tamara Keith:

Well, they don't have the numbers to be able to have an actual victory here. The only victory they can get is a moral victory. And certainly they have raised the profile of this as an issue. The state of California is now moving forward with trying to get a ballot measure that would change their maps, at least temporarily.

That is a direct reaction to what's happening in Texas. So certainly people are talking about this midcourse redistricting in a way that they weren't before. If it had sort of been slammed through, the likelihood is that it would have been maybe a news cycle or two, and now it's been a couple of weeks.

Geoff Bennett:

Tam mentioned California. What do those maps look like and what hoops need to be surmounted?

Amy Walter:

Yes, and there are many more hoops now.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes. Yes.

Amy Walter:

Obviously, Texas had the hoops. They had to have a quorum, but now that that's done, it's much easier to get those maps done.

In California, they do want to put this onto the ballot. So this would be a special election to vote specifically on changing the current law, which says that an independent redistricting commission draws the lines. Here, they would say, because, and literally — we haven't seen the language yet, but the language would look something like, we're only doing this because of what Republicans did in Texas.

This will be short term, only last through 2030, which is the next redistricting year. But they have to get all of that language and the legislature to sign off on the maps by Friday. So that's one hoop.

Democrats feel they're confident they're going to have the votes in the legislature. It is overwhelmingly Democratic, not surprisingly. Then the big hoop, and that's getting voters in the state to agree to overturn something that they do like, which is an independent commission. And this is the challenge for Governor Newsom and his allies.

Not only is he trying to convince voters to give up something they like, even just for the short term, but he has some pretty powerful adversaries in this. The person who held that seat of governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for years, who was the person who was governor and had pushed this during his term as governor, an independent redistricting commission, that is, is coming out against this.

So this is going to be a huge, expensive battle. The most important thing for Newsom to be able to do to succeed, for Democrats to succeed is to convince voters that this really isn't about redistricting, this isn't about lines, this is about Donald Trump, and hoping that making it about Donald Trump, in fact, they're not calling it the Trump bill, but they are calling it election rigging act, the anti-rigging act, essentially, to tell voters, don't think about it so much as all of this gerrymandering thing. Think about it as preventing Donald Trump from getting what he wants.

Geoff Bennett:

And if Newsom is successful after all of that, then voters have to actually vote for the individual candidates who run in those races.

Amy Walter:

Well, that's a whole other long story.

Tamara Keith:

Well, that's the same thing with Texas too.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

Tamara Keith:

These lines are potentially being drawn, but these races are not being decided.

Amy Walter:

Until next November.

Tamara Keith:

Yes, until next November.

Amy Walter:

Yes.

Tamara Keith:

And it depends on candidates, and it depends on voters, and it depends on the economy, and a whole bunch of other things that you can't control just by drawing lines on a map.

Amy Walter:

That's right. That's right.

Geoff Bennett:

And this certainly sets Newsom up to be the opposition leader looking ahead to 2028.

Amy Walter:

Yes. That's right.

As the Democratic Party's trying to figure out, who are we, what do we stand for, who's the stand-in right now as the leader of our party, this gives Newsom a pretty high-profile platform. Of course, if it fails, then that also is a platform that he will have to explain if he does decide to run in 2028.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, as we talk about maps and elections and voters, President Trump said he's going to sign an executive order to abolish mail-in voting, Tam, in many ways, parroting what Vladimir Putin told him on Friday.

Putin said: "U.S. elections were rigged because of postal ballots."

In fact, that's not true. Election officials say voting has never been as secure. What's this all about?

Tamara Keith:

This is something that President Trump has been raging about since he won the first time, really. He has been looking for some sort of explanation for why he didn't get as many votes as he thought he should going back to 2016, then again in 2020. Certainly that was a very big deal, and he has not gotten over it.

He has repeated, though there's nothing really to back this up, that mail-in balloting is why he lost in 2020, and we know that he has not really ever accepted that he really lost. So that's at the core of this, and it does set up something very interesting.

One, voting is pretty much decided by the states. It's not federal jurisdiction. Voting is a state and local thing. So that is a significant barrier to what he's trying to do here. Certainly, he could inspire Republican states, but they have already been inspired. But it also sets up the issue where in 2024, Republicans did a really good job of harvesting mail-in ballots and getting people to — quote — "bank their vote."

And they did a decent job of getting Trump not to talk about mail-in voting, because banking the vote is a key strategy for elections, for parties. So that will be a fascinating tension if he continues along this path.

Geoff Bennett:

And, of course, as you know, as a White House correspondent, this is true that if you ask Donald Trump what he's thinking, he will tell you.

Tamara Keith:

He will.

Geoff Bennett:

And so here's what he said, basically revealing his motivation for all of this.

Donald Trump, President of the United States: Mail-in ballots are corrupt. Mail-in ballots, you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots. And we as a Republican Party are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. It's time that the Republicans get tough and stop it, because the Democrats want it. It's the only way they can get elected.

Geoff Bennett:

So he's saying mail-in ballots benefits Democrats. Is that true?

Amy Walter:

Right.

There is still a partisan difference, it wasn't always this way, between who uses mail-in ballots and who doesn't largely driven by Donald Trump during the 2020 election when he first was saying that these cannot be trusted. It's changed a little bit. And Tam's right. In the 2024 election, Republicans worked very hard to try to undo all of that.

But where Republicans really do well now is when the electorate is as big as possible. It wasn't always the case. Part of the reason that Republicans really liked mail-in voting, they were very good at mail-in voting was because it could be very targeted. Now they really want to get the pool of voters as big as possible. And one way to get the pool as big as possible is to make it as easy as possible to vote.

If you're denying mail-in voting, then especially in states out West, where that is de rigueur, that can be problematic.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

Amy Walter, Tamara Keith. Great conversation. Thank you both.

Amy Walter:

Thank you.

Tamara Keith:

You're welcome.