SATURDAY, MAY 16, 2026
Not so fast, Cook says: A funny thing happened to Black representation in the House on our way back to the summer of the year 1965.
Full disclosure! Based on current estimates, we actually aren't on our way back to that distant time. But before we revisit that fact, let's review a disastrous new prognostication from the Cook Political Report.
The prognostication concerns the likely outcome of the great civil war in which we're now engaged. We refer to the current mid-census redistricting war—the current embarrassing, dumb but ongoing war of the all against all.
Amy Walter delivered Cook's prognostication in an interview for the New York Times. The news she delivered was very bad, as the headline itself suggested:
The Midterms Ground Has Shifted
What are we to make of the midterms? Republicans are in a jam; inflation has jumped; the war in Iran is not going well. President Trump’s approval numbers are abysmal.
This year is different. Decisions from the Supreme Court have set off a wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering in G.O.P.-controlled Southern states — in some cases, like Alabama, while primary voting was already underway.
Amy Walter, the publisher and editor of The Cook Political Report, assessed the normal and unusual aspects of the 2026 midterms in a written conversation with John Guida, an editor in Times Opinion. It has been edited for length and clarity.
John Guida: What have the redistricting struggle and the past two weeks done to change your sense of what we might expect from the midterms?
[...]
Amy Walter: Before the court rulings, our Political Report rated 217 House districts as solidly Democratic or leaning toward Democrats and 16 seats that were tossups. In these tossup districts, each side had a 50-50 chance to win. They are seats that are the most vulnerable. Under that scenario, Democrats would need to win just one of those 16 tossups to reach a majority in the House.
Today we rate 207 districts as solidly Democratic or leaning toward Democrats and 18 as tossups. To win a majority, Democrats need to win at least 11 of the 50-50 contests (and hold all those leaning their way) in order to get a majority.
Good God! According to Walter, Democrats will have to win 11 of the 18 toss-up seats, without losing a single "solid or leaning Democratic" seat!
That strikes us as a disastrous prognostication, especially since no one knows what sorts of election-tilting schemes the White House may put in effect.
In a nod to lingering sanity, let us quickly add this:
No one knows what else the sitting president may do to make himself even less popular. He may create a political environment in which it will be impossible for the Dems to fail to win.
That said, the sitting president won't be on the ballot this year. Hundreds of Democrats will be, and the Democratic Party is almost as unpopular as the sitting president is.
"We still see Democrats as the favorites for House control next year," Walter went on to say. "But they are no longer overwhelmingly favored," she felt she had to add,
That strikes us as horrible news. And those predictions, however fallible, are coming from the Cook Report, the mother of all down-the-line, not crazy political think tanks.
In the wake of recent court decisions, the Democrats may not retake the House! And of course, even if they retake the House and the Senate, the sitting president will remain in the Oval Office until early 2029, with all the uncertainty and all the danger that state of affairs suggests.
But so it now seems, according to Cook, as the current war of the all against all continues to unfold. Dems are still favored to win, but
Does President Xi see the United States as a nation in decline? Please! We've suggested to you, for quite a few years, that we may already have attained the status of "failed state."
Others see that as inanely alarmist—as a silly idea. It could always turn out that those people are right—or it could be that they're unable to see the situation which has slowly crept upon us, just as the fictional denizens of Camus' Oran were unable to see the signs of the plague which had invaded their seaside town as normal life sputtered along.
“We're going to look back in ten years and call this about the dumbest time in American history," Adam Kinzinger has recently said. You can see the video of his statement here.
He quickly added these words: "I hope, at least." We're going to call him a dreamer.
That returns us to the funny thing that happened on our way back to the summer of 65. We refer to an overstatement by a high-profile Democrat, but also to a bit of news about a quartet of Republican members of the House.
As we noted yesterday, NBC News filed the report:
Democrats warn a third of the Congressional Black Caucus could be wiped out by redistricting wars
The Congressional Black Caucus, a power center in the Democratic Party for decades, saw its membership rise this Congress to an all-time high of 58 House members.
Now, thanks to a Supreme Court redistricting ruling that’s expected to dramatically diminish Black representation on Capitol Hill, the CBC is fighting a five-alarm fire that could devastate its membership.
CBC Chair Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said as many as 19 of the caucus’ members could be affected by the redistricting wars in a worst-case scenario, though she noted it’s still fluid given that states are still drawing new maps in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
[...]
“It’s Jim Crow 2.0,” said longtime Rep. Bennie Thompson, who as the only Democrat in the Mississippi delegation is being targeted by Republicans. The court decision “potentially takes us back 60 years.”
[...]
Black representation isn’t dwindling on just the Democratic side of the aisle. All four Black GOP House members are either retiring or running for higher office, possibly leaving the Republican Conference with zero Black members next year.
Rep. Byron Donalds, a close Trump ally, is running for governor of Florida, while Rep. John James is running for governor of Michigan. Rep. Wesley Hunt lost his primary race for the Senate in Texas. And Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah is retiring.
Rep. Thompson is a good, decent person—but he's also a person person, just like everyone else. Meanwhile, for the record:
Whatever you may think of the current warfare, there's no sign that we're on our way back to 1965, when there were only six Black members in the 435-member House of Representatives.
"Jim Crow 2.0" or not, we won't be going back to that. That said:
Several of the original 58 Black Democrats will, in fact, be losing their seats when their majority Black districts get dismantled in the coming weeks. For ourselves, we'll admit that we were struck by that additional passage about the career profiles of the four (4) Black Republicans currently in the House.
It's hard to miss those numbers. There are way more Black Democrats serving in the House. In the House, Black Democrats outnumbered Black Republicans by 58-4 at the start of the current Congress.
That shouldn't be hugely surprising. Dating back into the 1960s, African Americans have much more commonly been Democrats, as everyone already knows. Still and all, this:
As is true of quite a few of the 58 Black Democrats, all four of the Black Republicans were elected to the House in majority white districts. For starters, here's the Cook Report's profile of Florida's 19th congressional district, the district which elected Rep. Donalds:
Florida's 19th congressional district
69.7% White
19.1% Hispanic
5.9% Black
R+14
It's a solidly Republican district. But it's also heavily white, and it elected Donalds.
By the same token, here's Cook's profile of the Michigan district which elected Rep. James:
Michigan's 10th congressional district
72.8% White
13.3% Black
6.1% Asian
3.0% Hispanic
R+3
That's closer to a toss-up district. But like Donalds, James got elected in a district which is heavily white—and each man is now the likely GOP nominee for governor in his state.
(Rep. Hunt was elected from the Texas 38th congressional district; it's 9.6% Black. This year, he sought the GOP nomination for the Texas Senate seat; he gave it a shot and he lost. Rep. Owens, who is retiring, was elected from Utah's 4th district. According to Cook, the district is 74.2% white, 1.2% Black.)
We ourselves wouldn't have voted for any of those candidates. But Rep. Donalds will likely be the next governor of the Sunshine State—and given the uncertainty of the time, we'd give Rep. James a chance in Michigan. Through whatever acts of legerdemain, they seem to be movin' on up!
Is a lesson possibly lurking there for us, the frequently hapless Blues? For the political tribe which may not be able to retake the House this year, even in the face of the madness surrounding the GOP?
Xi thinks our nation is "in decline?" We'd float the term "failed state."
At any rate, the dumbness is general over the nation, much as Kinzinger says. But does some of that lack of insight come from us, the infallible Blues?
There's much more to be said about this war of the all against all—about this current redistricting war, a war we Dems may end up losing. Different aspects of this situation seem to pile up as the days move along.
For that reason, we'll continue with this topic next week. We assume that the discussions, or in some cases the pseudo-discussions, will continue through the week.
Down in Memphis, Justin Pearson is staying in the race. Could he be the first since Gary Hart to come up with a new idea?
Next week: Among quite a few other things, what the professors said.
Also, what Carl Hulse wrote about the way we got here. Also, have you seen a single discussion of the Callais ruling itself? Or have you seen nothing but agitprop—scripted cries all the way down?
We may even review the fuzzy judicial and journalistic language of the last quite a few years!
