🐘 GOP bets diversity will save House

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Republicans are hoping to keep Speaker Kevin McCarthy's majority in 2024 by recruiting more women, minorities and veterans to run in flippable blue districts, Axios' Stef Kight reports.

• Why it matters: Republicans — touting an anti-"woke" agenda and praising the end of affirmative action — see a winning strategy in pulling together a slate of diverse candidates for the most competitive seats.

Prasanth Reddy, an Indian American immigrant and military officer, this morning launches his campaign for the seat of Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.).

• Mayra Flores, who is Latina, yesterday announced her comeback bid in South Texas.
• Veteran and former state senator Tom Barrett will run again in Lansing, Mich., he announced Monday. The same day, Orlando Sonza, an Asian American veteran, announced he's running in a district centered in Cincinnati. Both districts are considered tossups by Cook Political Report
• Former Rep. Yvette Herrell, a Cherokee Nation citizen, is running again in New Mexico. Maria Montero, a Latina, has filed paperwork to run in a highly competitive district in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.

Context: Over the past several years, Republicans have tried to target more minority voters amid sweeping demographic changes in the U.S.

• "When candidates' backgrounds and experiences reflect the same challenges and life stories of their voters, Republicans can win in any district," NRCC Chair Richard Hudson (N.C.) told Axios.

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House majority runs through the courts

Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios

The outcome of unusual off-cycle redistricting efforts in at least five states — Alabama, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina and Ohio — will play an outsized role in determining which party holds the House majority next year. Why it matters: Typically, the battle for House control takes place on the campaign trail. In 2024, decisions in state courtrooms will also help determine which party wins control of the lower chamber. Zoom in: Congressional maps are drawn every 10 years following the census and are intended to last a decade. But with courts becoming more politicized and partisans seeking every advantage they can get, there's been a flurry of activity seeking to overturn the maps that were implemented for last year's elections. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month in Allen v. Milligan that Alabama needs to redraw its congressional districts to ensure fairer racial representation. The court's decision is also expected to overturn Louisiana's map and could reverberate in several other Southern states. Driving the news: A New York appellate court’s decision Thursday to order a redraw of the state’s congressional map — a decision that will be appealed — threatens to complicate House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) tenuous grip on his leadership role. Republicans can’t afford to lose more than four House seats in next year’s election. If Democrats can claw back several additional pickups in the Empire State, with an assist from a new map, it could determine the majority. New York's Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, will ultimately decide whether a new map will be drawn. The court overturned a gerrymandered map drawn by state Democratic lawmakers last year, but the composition of the court is now more favorable to liberals. Republicans in 2022 won six congressional districts in New York State that President Biden carried, and even small tweaks to the map could make competitive districts unwinnable for Republicans. Go deeper: A favorable ruling for Democrats in New York would offset an anticipated Republican gerrymander of the North Carolina map, after the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned its recent ruling concluding that partisan gerrymandering is illegal. Republicans are well-positioned to net at least three House seats under a partisan redraw of the battleground state's congressional map. North Carolina's House delegation is currently split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, 7-7. North Carolina GOP legislators have said they plan to redraw the map later this year. Between the lines: The big wild card in the redistricting wars is in Ohio, where the state Supreme Court will soon be determining the future of the state's newly drawn map. Ohio's current map was declared illegal by the state Supreme Court in 2022 but was used last year because there wasn't enough time to draw an alternative. Democrats performed well under the new map, winning all three of the state's contested battleground districts. But Republicans still hold 10 of the 15 House seats in the GOP-leaning state. Ohio Republicans may prefer to keep the political status quo to avoid a more aggressively gerrymandered map from being overturned. The bottom line: Gerrymandering has always been part of the political process. But the fact that both parties are aggressively trying to gain every possible advantage to dominate in states they control ensures there will be fewer competitive races for control of the House. Share this story.