Democrats have started the year on a political rollercoaster.
We coasted through serious lows, including the January 6 anniversary and the mid-month failure of voting rights legislation. Then, the political mood started climbing late in the month when Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement.
And now there’s some changing political calculus that—while Democrats still face a hard midterm—redistricting hasn’t hurt us as much as we feared.
More on all of this below, plus developments in key 2022 races, and a special section on Texas 28 from our researcher, Grace Haley.
US Senate
This month, Senate Democrats in some of the most competitive races released their fourth-quarter fundraising numbers. Vulnerable incumbents Sen. Maggie Hassan and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto had their best quarters of the cycle, as did Judge Cheri Beasley in North Carolina.
Republican candidates also joined two critical races. In Wisconsin, incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson announced he’s running, putting to rest rumors of his retirement. Winning against an incumbent is always more difficult than capturing an open seat, but as one of the most right-wing members of the Senate Johnson might not play well in moderate Wisconsin. And in New Hampshire, Hassan now has a serious challenger in state Sen. President Chuck Morse, though he’s low on name recognition with nearly three-quarters of the Granite State.
The January 6 insurrection and voting rights were both hot topics on the campaign trail this month, with Democrats taking the chance to criticize their opponents for skirting around the Big Lie and continuing to sanction voter suppression laws.
In The News
Vulnerable Senate Democrats see massive fundraising hauls in last quarter of 2021
A look at the big money in some of the hottest Senate races of 2022
NEW: Senate candidate Beasley raised $2.1 million in fourth quarter
Cortez Masto raises $3.3 million for U.S. Senate campaign last quarter
The 10 races that will decide the Senate majority
Cheri Beasley, Who Could Be North Carolina’s First Black Senator, Endorsed By Governor
Wisconsin treasurer forges middle path in Senate bid
On the trail: Hassan challengers not well known by NH voters
Arizona Democratic Party censures Sinema over voting rights stance
Florida Democrats ask DOJ to investigate voter suppression (Val Demings)
Democratic Senate campaigns keep spotlight on Jan. 6 as Chuck Grassley pushes to move on
Montgomery County Commissioners react to Jan. 6 anniversary (Val Arkoosh)
US House
Redistricting and retirements are dominating the political talk surrounding this year’s House elections.
According to the House Press Gallery’s ‘Casualty List,’ 29 Democrats have announced their retirement this cycle, more than twice the number of Republicans. Given the doom and gloom around the prospect of Democrats retaining the House, you might expect that number to be higher. Note: the list includes nine women House Democrats, some of whom are running for other office. And some women have been redistricted into seats where they are competing against other incumbents. As redistricting continues, we will monitor overall trends related to the eventual outcome for the total number of women in Congress.
Still, as pundits have recently noted, redistricting has not gone as badly for Democrats as we thought it would a few months ago, for two reasons: 1) Democrat-controlled legislatures have been aggressively gerrymandering to retain power; and 2) Republicans gerrymandered so badly in 2010, there’s not much room for them to keep doing it.
One high-profile retirement we’re not getting? Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has already said she won’t be House leader going forward, which led to speculation she would retire. Pelosi recently announced she will run for re-election although it is not clear what this means for her future in leadership.
As of the writing of this newsletter, two-thirds of states have finished redistricting, including several battleground states that will affect the balance in this year’s House elections. (More on that below.)
In The News
Democrats Are Doing Weirdly Well in Redistricting
2022 House Overview: Still a GOP Advantage, but Redistricting Looks Like a Wash
Democrats expected the worst in redistricting. State courts are blunting their losses.
Black and Latino voters have been shortchanged in redistricting, advocates and some judges say
Did Redistricting Commissions Live Up To Their Promise?
What redistricting looks like in every state
Some Early Clues About How The Midterms Will Go
What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State (FiveThirtyEight)
Nancy Pelosi says she’s running for reelection
Wave of retirements rocks Democrats’ hopes of holding the House
House Democrats begin preparing for the post-Pelosi era
Democratic retirements spark worry over holding House majority
State & Local
Of course, the nuts and bolts of redistricting happen at the state level. A few states that have completed their maps, including Michigan, North Carolina, and Texas, are in litigation—with others sure to follow—so we won’t know the exact environment Democrats are heading into for some time yet.
Two major unknowns are Florida and New York, which are expected to finalize their maps in the coming weeks. Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis is going to war with the legislature to ensure Florida’s maps eliminate as many Democrats as possible, while New York’s legislature has gone scorched-earth to eliminate as many Republican-leaning seats as possible.
Two major knowns are California and Virginia. California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission has maintained a strong Democratic advantage in the state, despite having to cut one Democratic seat. The competitiveness of Virginia’s maps have not changed much, with all three Democratic women still sitting in seats that are highly vulnerable, especially this cycle.
We’ve also seen two big gubernatorial announcements this month: Former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Attorney General Maura Healey in Massachusetts. Both would be firsts: The US’s first Black female governor and Massachusetts’ first elected female governor, respectively.
In the News
Ohio Supreme Court Strikes Down Republican Gerrymander of Map
Republican Gerrymander of North Carolina Maps Is Upheld in Court
Texas Supreme Court to hear state’s bid to toss political map challenge, but not until after primary
Michigan redistricting commission defends maps, denies they’re unfair to Black voters
Lawsuit challenges Georgia redistricting of seat held by Rep. McBath
Will Democrats in the state Legislature draw New York’s congressional district lines?
DeSantis shakes up Florida redistricting as veto concerns grow
Seven most vulnerable governors facing reelection in 2022
Name recognition and liberal track record could help Maura Healey’s run, analysts say
Stacey Abrams lands key union endorsements for 2022 bid
Hochul’s Speech Is a Road Map to the Campaign That Lies Ahead
Hobbs, Lake each spent more than $1M on Arizona governor race in 2021
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly Courts Moderates By Backing Some GOP Policies As Re-Election Looms
Whitmer releases plan to make Michigan carbon neutral by 2050
Democratic secretaries of state group posts record fundraising
Democratic rising star Bee Nguyen is vying to be Georgia’s next elections chief
Women Are Taking Over City Councils—From New York to New Mexico
Special Section: Focus on Texas 28
Fundraising signals a candidate’s electability and viability, especially in primaries. The gender fundraising gap means that women, especially women of color, often do not have the same opportunities to become competitive contenders or to have their preferred candidates viewed as particularly viable. In more than 90 percent of House elections, the candidates who spent the most campaign cash were elected to office.
Women running for office often require more resources to reach the levels of success as candidates who are white and candidates who are male. And it may require women donors to kick in more money to garner the same amount of buzz and “bang for their buck” for the women they support to be competitive candidates.
In competitive Democratic primary elections, especially in races where women run as challengers or open seat candidates, women of color receive significantly less money from large individual donors than any other group of candidates.
Small donor fundraising is a place where racial differences in fundraising begin to equalize, and as a whole, small donors are more representative of the gender, class, and race demographics of diverse voting constituencies.
Women candidates often rely more heavily on women donors; however, women on average gave half as much to Black women, Latina women, Indigenous women, Middle Eastern/North African women, and Asian and Pacific Islander women candidates as they gave to white women in 2020 competitive primaries.
Case study: TX-28
Primary Date: March 1
Totals Raised as of Sept. 30:
Rep. Henry Cuellar $1,100,100 (incumbent)
Tannya Benavides $22,200
Jessica Cisneros $420,900
Cash on Hand as of Sept. 30:
Rep. Henry Cuellar $2,215,800
Tannya Benavides $13,500
Jessica Cisneros $311,700
*The Q4 numbers will be released tonight, so we will know more about where this gap stands and how we can help before March 3.
Jessica Cisnero is mounting a second primary run against incumbent Rep. Henry Cueller in Texas’ 28th House district. A human rights attorney from South Texas, she has received endorsements from the Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement, NARAL, and EMILY’s List.
In 2020, Cisneros came within four percentage points of unseating Cuellar, a conservative Democrat who most recently voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA) following Texas’ SB-8 abortion ban. Cuellar’s home and office were recently raided by the FBI, raising additional questions about his re-election prospects.
But Cisneros has only raised less than half of what Cuellar has amassed, part of a larger pattern where women, especially women of color, face unique fundraising barriers while running for Congress. The primary is March 1 and we will be watching closely.
National
In the News
Trump Soft-Launches His 2024 Campaign
‘The Big Lie’ Lives On, And May Lead Some To Oversee The Next Election
Here’s where election-denying candidates are running to control voting
The Coming Coup: How Republicans Are Laying the Groundwork to Steal Future Elections
Jan. 6 panel is investigating a Trump administration plan to seize voting machines
Jan. 6 Investigators Zeroing In On Apparent Plot To Hijack Election With Fake Electors
Trump loyalists form alliance in bid to take over election process in key states
Flashback: How a filibuster almost derailed MLK Day
Protecting voting rights isn’t enough to save democracy
Martin Luther King’s family, Vice President Harris urge action for voting rights
The Filibuster Is a Plot Against Kamala Harris
Opinion: A new plan to ‘Trump-proof’ the 2024 election quietly comes together
What Congress’s new election reform idea leaves out
Retiring Justice Stephen Breyer’s 28 years on the Supreme Court, explained
Biden Expected to Nominate a Black Woman to the Supreme Court
Women
Continuing in the theme of voting rights, we saw a lot of profiles published this month on women who have been the backbone of the civil rights movement. And with Justice Breyer retiring, the media also refocused on the issue of abortion rights and how it could affect voters’ choices going forward. Both are issues that will carry serious momentum on the campaign trail this year.
We also saw some positive coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris, both on the issue of voting rights and her status as a relative political outsider in DC.
In the News
Martha Jones’ “Vanguard”: Black women and the fight for the vote
‘Unbought And Unbossed’ At 50: Shirley Chisholm Continues To Inspire Black Women In Politics
Maya Angelou becomes first Black woman to appear on US quarter as Treasury begins distribution
Black women look to make historic gains in 2022 midterm elections
How the Women’s March Might Have Played Out Differently
Anti-abortion groups are raking in fundraising as Supreme Court decision looms
The One Regret From My Time Leading Planned Parenthood
Existing Federal Laws Could Protect Abortion Rights Even if Roe Is Overturned
What’s the right—and wrong—way for the media to cover what female politicians wear?