Arizona’s new congressional map, which was adopted in a unanimous vote on Wednesday, poses a threat to Democrat Rep. Tom O’Halleran’s (D-AZ) reelection chances after his district was altered to favor a Republican candidate.
States go through the redistricting process every ten years, after the census data is released. The bipartisan Arizona panel of commissioners — two Democrats, two Republicans, and an independent chair – voted unanimously to implement the new maps, which favor Republicans.
Politico reported that the newly drawn maps could potentially allow six of the nine districts to be won by Republicans in 2022, whereas the Democrats currently control five of the nine seats.
An analysis of the new first district, based on the 2020 presidential election results from Bloomberg Government, showed that the new map brings O’Halleran’s chances of winning reelection in the district down significantly. The analysis showed that the district, which President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. won with a slim margin of 50 to 48 percent, would now have former President Donald Trump winning with a 53 to 45 percent margin in the district.
O’Halleran, a former Republican turned Democrat, won reelection in 202o with 52 percent of the votes, which was only slightly better than Biden’s margin.
This could be detrimental for the congressman since he has reportedly supported Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) partisan agenda the majority of the time. He has supported Biden’s positions 100 percent and voted with Pelosi 98 percent of the time.
Some of those partisan agenda items include the $1.2 trillion, 2,702-page so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier this year — which Biden already signed into law — and the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act (BBB) — also known as the Democrats’ reconciliation infrastructure bill.
The BBB was considered to be the “marquee legislation” of Biden’s legislative agenda and would have ultimately increased taxes on the middle class, expanded and prolonged the effects of inflation — which recently hit a nearly four-decade high — and added hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. deficit. But it was effectively killed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) this past weekend when he told Fox News Sunday, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation … I can’t get there.”
O’Halleran will have to choose between running for reelection in a now solidly red district or retiring. National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Torunn Sinclair said, “If O’Halleran’s smart, he’ll retire now instead of losing in 2022.”
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.