An image illustrating political infighting. (Image: Lightspring)California’s impending loss of a congressional seat may set off vicious intraparty fights not seen in California for nearly a decade. The conflict may happen because the state’s congressional districts will be redrawn on the basis of population figures from the 2020 census.
An illustration of California cities that will become part of redrawn political districts for the 2022 elections. (Image: jmrainbow, via Shutterstock)California’s voter-approved redistricting commission, which will draw the political maps for the 2022 elections, is poised to meet amid heightened scrutiny over its personnel changes and severe deadline pressures.
An illustration of California cities that will become part of redrawn political districts for the 2022 elections. (Image: jmrainbow, via Shutterstock)California’s decennial battle to redraw the state’s political boundaries has moved into uncharted territory, a casualty of the pandemic and unprecedented delays in the release of census data. The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced its data – the foundation of political map-making — will be released to all states this year by Sept. 30, a full six months later than the original release date.
Ballot boxes in Foster City for the November 2020 general election. (Photo: MariaX, via Shutterstock)The state’s House delegation – now at 53, but likely to drop by one seat after the new redistricting – stood at 46 Democrats and only seven Republicans after the 2018 elections. But last year, Republicans captured four seats from Democrats — which caught political observers by surprise.
An illustration of the 2020 census. (Image: Maria Dryfout, via Shutterstock)California launched an aggressive push through Thursday night to bolster its tally, immediately following a U.S. Supreme Court decision blocking the count. “We’re pulling out all the stops,” said Ditas Katague, director of California Complete Count, the state’s census office.
Some of the district boundaries of Los Angeles City Council seats. (Image: City of Los Angeles)California has become a model for non-partisan, transparent, open and fair redistricting. The state commission’s focus on legitimate redistricting practices — like enforcing the Voting Rights Act, preserving communities of interest, reducing any splitting of cities and counties, even drawing lines without regard to partisanship or incumbency — have earned praise among policymakers and researchers around the country.
Voters at a political rally in Santa Monica during the 2016 election campaign. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)A Capitol Weekly survey of California’s early vote-by-mail balloting shows Democrats Gavin Newsom and Dianne Feinstein ahead by double-digit margins in their races for governor and U.S. Senate, respectively. Regarding three of California’s most controversial ballot propositions, the most closely divided was Proposition 6, which would repeal the state’s newly imposed fuel tax: 42 percent opposed the repeal, 38 percent favored it.
The House membership in the 114th Congress. (Photo: Wikipedia)Nine races in November could determine which party controls the House for the next decade—and the map looks good for Democrats. This fall, Democrats face a bad map in the Senate and are in a tough battle to take back the House. But the party is on offense in nine crucial contests around the country that could determine control of Congress for the next decade.
Image: California Secretary of StateThere’s a lot going on here: A fifth of the electorate has already voted by mail, and more mailed ballots are coming in all the time. A lot of millennials got signed up through the registration program at the DMV, but what impact will that have on the contests? It looks like the SF Bay Area will outperform — again — L.A., and it’s still not clear whether a gaggle of GOP congressional incumbents are really vulnerable.
Outside the House office of California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, who plans to retire, following an apparent uptick in Democratic strength in his district. (Photo: Katherine Welles)>The national narrative on the 2018 election goes something like this: The first midterm election of a new president always goes strongly against the party in power. President Trump has been more unpopular in his first term than any in the modern age of polling, so this could get very bad for Republicans.