One thing the 2026 midterms could bring is the GOP refocusing on the Deep South. Yes, I know it sounds funny, but we’re losing serious ground, and it’s been a growing concern for years. We now have two Democrat senators from Georgia. Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) looks like she’ll lose in Mississippi, and that state has seen a steady Democratic showing over the past 10 years.
These are no longer blowout wins for us — Mississippi has seen the Democratic candidate get a solid 45 percent of the vote or more in recent years. The point is that it’s becoming winnable down there. I supported the gerrymandering push in Louisiana, but messing with the VRA might have stirred a hornet’s nest among the region’s black voter base. We’ll revisit that later.
In Georgia, Democrats seem poised to retake the State House for the first time in 20 years. Republicans held the State Senate. Yet one state House race could flip to the GOP, thanks to a missing memory card (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):
A missing memory card discovered in southwest Georgia could cost Democrats a seat in the state House and narrow their newly won majority before they even take power.
State election officials said Friday they uncovered a discrepancy in Seminole County’s vote totals that led them to an uncounted memory card.
Once the votes were uploaded, Republican state Rep. Gerald Greene went from trailing Democrat Harry James by 58 votes to leading by 262.
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he’s investigating how the error occurred.
If it stands, the reversal could rescue one of the Legislature’s most vulnerable GOP incumbents and leave Democrats with 92 seats in the 180-member chamber. That’s just one more than the 91 needed for a majority.
Well, that’s somewhat good news, though it carries a ‘we scored a touchdown, but we’re still down 65 points’ feeling.