me and i just started eating to cure it from delta through omicron well now in omicron i'm trying to get back okay all right start building better habits for healthier long-term results sign up for your trial at URL_TOKEN cricket that's URL_TOKEN crooked joining us on the pod to talk all things redistricting is mr redistrict himself dave watson in the cook report dave welcome back to pots of america it's great to be back thanks so you recently released a analysis of their distribution process to date which had some surprising news i think for democrats who have been dreading this ridiculing process where you say that despite democratic fears this process is currently producing a congressional map that is slightly less biased in the gop's favor than last decades and that redistricting is turning out to be a wash how did that happen and how do you come to that analysis well those of us who have been reading the political report closely in the past year uh know that we never thought this was going to be a wipeout for democrats there are a variety of reasons why this cycle is actually modestly better for democrats than NUMBER_TOKEN and keep in mind that many of the states republicans control in redistricting they already got to gerrymander NUMBER_TOKEN years ago but it part of it was the census the fact that the urban and suburban areas had more people than initial estimates suggested in that rural areas lost more population part of it's been the process the fact is democrats got to draw the maps they wanted in illinois new mexico oregon they got the maps that they wanted out of commissions especially in california but also in new jersey and michigan whereas republicans they've been mostly defensive in the gerrymanders that they've passed texas is exhibit a where they shored up nine of their own incumbents didn't really go after any democratic seats except one in the rio grande valley but the net result is a more secure republican map because they purged a lot of democrats and minorities from their own districts rather than trying to seize a lot of of new democratic seats the same thing is is true in in a number of smaller states including indiana and iowa and uh it's looking like missouri and and kentucky as well so the end result is a house map that is less biased in favor of republicans and more equitable for the parties i would strongly caveat that by saying this is also a less competitive map than the current one we're seeing a decline in the number of swing seats which means that the house throughout the decade is likely to come down to a pretty small set of of districts and most voters aren't really going to have a say by the time november comes around yeah that's a i think an under discussed point because we've been talking about this redistricting process about democrats republicans who it benefits but there is a question about what it means for democracy and that there will be can you sort of quantify how how many fewer swing seats there will be this time around than there have been in the past yeah so seats that were decided by less than NUMBER_TOKEN points in the NUMBER_TOKEN election for either biden or trump uh there are in the states that have completed new maps that number has declined
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN me and i just started eating to cure it from delta through omicron well now in omicron i'm trying to get back okay all right start building better habits for healthier long-term results sign up for your trial at URL_TOKEN cricket that's URL_TOKEN END_SPONSOR_TOKEN