Trump demanded gerrymandered districts ahead of the midterms. His plan could backfire badly

For over a year, President Donald Trump has been pressuring Republican-led states to redraw their congressional districts with the hope of gaining more seats in November’s midterm elections.

But, according to a new analysis, not only does the multi-state gerrymander look unlikely to work — it may even put more Democrats in power.

Democrats have a 69 percent probability of winning the House, compared to Republicans’ 31 percent, according to a forecast on Thursday from Decision Desk Headquarters.

Last year, numerous Republican-led states under pressure from Trump began pursuing congressional redistricting. While Democrats feared the effort would lead to Republicans maintaining the majority, current data suggests otherwise.

“Redistricting doesn’t look likely to save Republicans in the House. Not only are Democrats favored to capture the House, but they may even gain seats in the redistricted states,” said Geoffrey Skelley, the chief elections analyst for Decision Desk HQ.

The forecast predicts Democrats will win an average of 13 seats in the states with unchanged boundaries, and an average of two seats gained from the nine states that were redistricted.

Across the forecast’s 1 million simulations, Democrats won an average seat majority of 229-206. This would mean a 14-seat gain for Democrats from the current 220-215 GOP majority.

“In our forecast for the unchanged states, Democrats win an average of nearly 150 seats, up from the 137 they currently control,” Skelley wrote.

“Meanwhile, the redistricted states do not come close to offsetting that shift. In those nine states, Democrats win a small gain, on average, going from 78 to 80 seats.”

In Texas, which kicked off the redistricting race by Republican-led states at Trump’s urging last summer, “Republicans are averaging a bit under a two-seat gain, roughly three seats short of their ideal,” Skelley wrote.

Some of these redrawn districts are home to heavily Latino communities, where Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vincente Gonzalez, both Democrats, are expected to hold on to their seats on the November 3 election.

Democrats are forecast to have a 1 in 3 shot of holding onto the newly-drawn 35th district, as well as a 1 in 3 chance of defeating incumbent GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in the 15th District. They also have a 1 in 5 chance of flipping the 23rd District, held by the controversy-stricken Brandon Herrera. Herrera has drawn scrutiny after a CNN review of his videos, podcast appearances and social media posts found years of derogatory and explicit comments about women. He has said his online content includes “dark humor.”

It comes after Trump argued Republicans were “entitled” to pick up five more House seats in Texas.

“We should have many more seats in California. It’s all gerrymandered,” Trump told CNBC’s Squawk Box . “And we have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.”