Off-year election losses spark Republican concerns about redistricting

President Donald Trump is confident that he drew the right battle lines when he launched a nationwide redistricting fight to try to preserve the Republican House majority, GOP strategists familiar with the White House’s thinking say — even after last Tuesday’s election results gave Democrats openings to counterstrike in California and Virginia.“The president understands intuitively, in a way that other Republicans don’t … that Democrats are always assaulting us, always, and mostly much of the Republican Party never fights back,” said one of the strategists familiar with the White House approach.

President Donald Trump is confident that he drew the right battle lines when he launched a nationwide redistricting fight to try to preserve the Republican House majority, GOP strategists familiar with the White House’s thinking say — even after last Tuesday’s election results gave Democrats openings to counterstrike in California and Virginia.

“The president understands intuitively, in a way that other Republicans don’t … that Democrats are always assaulting us, always, and mostly much of the Republican Party never fights back,” said one of the strategists familiar with the White House approach. “The redistricting fight is proof that they are not that way. So this is in his DNA in a way that is not in other Republicans’ DNA.”

The strategist, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about private conversations.

But two other Republicans close to the White House told NBC News that there are growing concerns in the party that the political war is not going as planned — that the juice may not have been worth the squeeze and could, in a nightmare scenario, result in a net gain for Democrats. And within broader GOP circles, misgivings about the strategy heightened last week after California voters overwhelmingly approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a manner that Democrats hope will flip five House seats in their direction.

Still, White House officials say that the president remains in fight mode when it comes to redistricting.