Dear MoveOn member,
Republicans need to gain just five seats to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
And a new analysis from the data firm TargetSmart finds that Republicans could flip the five seats they need through partisan gerrymandering in just in one state: Florida.1
But that's just the beginning. Republicans could pick up another eight seats through gerrymandering in Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia—states with sizable populations of voters of color whose voices the GOP wants to silence.
That means Republicans could lose the popular vote for Congress by millions and STILL gain a majority of the seats, making Kevin McCarthy—the man who went to Mar-a-Lago just days after the January 6 white supremacist insurrection to pledge loyalty to Donald Trump—speaker of the House.2
It doesn't have to be this way. H.R.1, the For the People Act, would ban partisan gerrymandering. But the clock is ticking. The redistricting process is already starting. In order to prevent Republicans from stealing Congress through gerrymandering in 2022, Democrats in the Senate need to act right now to pass legislation protecting the freedom to vote.
We're launching a major digital ad campaign featuring the Texas Democratic state legislators who left the state to block GOP voter suppression legislation, and if we can raise $200,000, we'll be able to launch a major ad buy in Arizona, West Virginia, and all the key states where we need to pressure Senate Democrats.
Will you rush a $3 donation right now?
As state legislatures update congressional lines following the 2020 census, Republicans will be able to draw 187 congressional districts compared to just 75 for Democrats.3
That's an enormous advantage. It means that Democrats will need the equivalent of a huge Blue Wave just to keep their slim majority.
That's not democracy. But Democrats have the power to prevent all of this from happening by passing H.R.1, the For the People Act.
A revised version of H.R.1 that would ban partisan gerrymandering is set to be introduced this week by none other than Senator Joe Manchin, one of the key Senate holdouts who has stood in the way of federal voting rights legislation so far.4
This could be our last best chance to not just keep the House blue but to ensure a free and fair presidential election in 2024—because we've already seen that a majority of House Republicans will not vote to certify an election that Democrats win.
As the CEO of TargetSmart said, "Absent the passage of H.R.1, the GOP is poised to gerrymander their way to a House majority."5
That's why Democrats in the Texas state legislature left the state and went to Washington, D.C., to push for federal voting rights legislation. But with time running out, we need to lift up their voices and turn up the heat.
MoveOn has collected videos from the Texas Democrats, and if we can raise $200,000, we will launch digital ads in West Virginia and Arizona to pressure Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to end the filibuster and stop Republicans from using voter suppression and gerrymandering to take control of Congress.
Thanks for all you do.
–Emma, Amy, Allison, Mana, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "GOP Could Retake the House in 2022 Just by Gerrymandering Four Southern States," Mother Jones, July 29, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/154996?t=4&akid=303435%2E40999114%2EN5SUZN
2. "GOP House leader McCarthy meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to discuss 2022 strategy," ABC 7, January 29, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/154997?t=6&akid=303435%2E40999114%2EN5SUZN
3. "GOP Could Retake the House in 2022 Just by Gerrymandering Four Southern States," Mother Jones, July 29, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/154996?t=8&akid=303435%2E40999114%2EN5SUZN
4. "Democrats craft revised voting rights bill, seeking to keep hopes alive in the Senate," The Washington Post, July 28, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/154999?t=10&akid=303435%2E40999114%2EN5SUZN
5. "GOP Could Retake the House in 2022 Just by Gerrymandering Four Southern States," Mother Jones, July 29, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/154996?t=12&akid=303435%2E40999114%2EN5SUZN
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