Florida's governor is trying to bank more GOP House seats, but the Wall Street Journal's editorial board thinks he may be overplaying his hand. In its latest opinion piece about the "gerrymander gamble" in the Sunshine State, the board argues that Ron DeSantis' newly proposed congressional map, pitched as adding four Republican-leaning districts and pushing the state to a 24-4 GOP advantage, could also expose Republicans to more risk than they expect. The map aims to erase four Democratic-held seats around Tampa, Orlando, and South Florida, but it does so by thinning out some deep-red districts. One Miami-area seat that Donald Trump carried by 35 points in 2024 would drop to an 18-point edge under the new lines, and it would've been nearly a toss-up in 2020.
"How confident are Republicans that November won't bring a blue wave that swamps their House levee? Not so long ago, President Obama won Florida twice," the board notes. Analysts at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics already rate at least one of the supposed new GOP pickups as a toss-up and two more as only leaning Republican. The Journal frames the Florida fight as part of a broader, bipartisan gerrymandering arms race, with DeSantis making his move to combat Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger's recent redistricting moves in her own state. "Maybe one of the parties should try to win by simply being more appealing to voters," the board writes. More here.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
