2021 redistricting long was on mind of GOP expert
RALEIGH, N.C. — Republican victories in state legislative and gubernatorial elections in 2010 put them in a commanding position the next year to draw new voting districts for the U.S. House and state legislatures that helped fortify Republican power for much of the following decade.
But the celebration was short-lived for at least one of the Republicans’ top redistricting strategists.
Behind the scenes, GOP consultant Thomas Hofeller was worried that Democrats were far ahead of Republicans in collecting data that could help them draw districts in their favor after the next round of redistricting that will occur after the 2020 census.
Hofeller died in August 2018 after a battle with cancer. But troves of his previously confidential digital documents, data tables and emails were publicly posted online this month by his estranged daughter, Stephanie Hofeller. She also supplied them to plaintiffs during a legal challenge brought by Democrats and Common Cause against the North Carolina state legislative districts that her father helped draw.
Stephanie Hofeller did not respond to a request for comment sent through her lawyer.
The records reviewed by the Associated Press reveal Hofeller’s extensive involvement in drafting or defending Republican redistricting efforts against claims of racial or political gerrymandering. He worked not only for statewide efforts, such as in Missouri and Virginia, but even for local ones, such as in Texas’ Galveston County and New York’s Nassau County. Hofeller also aided GOP legal challenges to Democratic-friendly maps in Arizona and Maryland.
Amid ongoing legal battles stemming from the 2011 redistricting, records show Hofeller already was turning his attention to the redistricting that will occur in 2021.
Specifically, he wanted Republicans to establish a permanent redistricting entity. Its task would be to compile a decade’s worth of precinct-level election results from around the country that could be matched with 2020 census data to give mapmakers a granular history of which neighborhoods were most likely to vote for Republicans or Democrats.
He noted that Democrats already had such a database in the hands of the National Committee for an Effective
Congress, an entity founded by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her friends in 1948.
In November 2013, Hofeller emailed a couple dozen key GOP officials and consultants with a memo outlining a proposal for a permanent Republican data office focused on redistricting. He also emailed spreadsheets detailing its potential cost. Hofeller suggested an annual budget of more than $1.4 million and a 16-person staff .
But his plan wasn’t implemented. Two years later, Hofeller still was circulating a similar proposal among some Republicans.
In 2017, Republicans finally established a permanent redistricting operation. The National Republican Redistricting Trust has a broader role and a budget about 10 times larger than what Hofeller proposed, said the trust’s executive director, Adam Kincaid, who was one of the recipients of Hofeller’s 2013 proposal.
“The Democrats’ data on redistricting has always been ahead of where the Republicans’ data has been on redistricting,” said Kincaid, who was the redistricting coordinator for the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2011 and 2012.
Part of the task of the National Republican Redistricting Trust “is helping the Republican Party catch up and eventually surpass what the Democrats have been doing for over a generation now.”
The National Committee for an Effective Congress ramped up its use of precinct-level data for Democratic redistricting efforts after the 2000 and 2010 censuses, said Mark Gersh, a Democratic strategist who has worked with the committee since 1976.
“(Data) probably helped us marginally, but let’s face it: Winning elections for the state legislature or having fair commissions do this is the best way of guaranteeing your success,” Gersh said.