State Republicans take different paths to ‘cracking’ Democratic House members from power
January 15, 2022 | Kentucky, Tennessee
Their target is the Nashville-based 5th Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper is a longtime incumbent. Under the congressional redistricting plan moving through the legislature and to be signed by GOP Gov. Bill Lee, the Volunteer State’s nine-member House delegation would move from seven Republicans and two Democrats to eight Republicans and just one Democrat (in a black-majority district Memphis seat).
To the north, state Republicans drawing congressional lines in Kentucky opted not to carve up Louisville, which like Nashville, Tennessee, is a Democratic stronghold. Instead, Kentucky’s redistricting plan effectively leaves in place the status quo, with five House seats held by Republicans and one likely to be held by a Democrat. Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth is retiring after 2022 from the 3rd Congressional District seat he first won in 2006.
The redistricting strategies may seem picayune and area-specific. But each seat can play an important role in which party wins the majority in 2022, for the second two years of President Joe Biden’s term. Republicans need to net five seats in the 435-member chamber and are presently favored to recapture the majority they lost in 2018…. (Excerpts from the Washington Examiner)
