Joe Scar­bor­ough Claims GOP Only Won House Because They ‘Rigged’ Dis­tricts

On Mon­day’s Morn­ing Joe, MSNBC co-host Joe Scar­bor­ough pro­claimed that “the only rea­son” that Repub­li­cans will have a major­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is because North Car­oli­na Repub­li­cans “rigged” the state’s con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts to take three seats from Democ­rats. The MSNBC host did not men­tion that there are plen­ty of states (Cal­i­for­nia, for exam­ple) where Repub­li­cans are sub­stan­tial­ly short-changed in the num­ber of dis­tricts they can win com­pared to the par­ty’s over­all per­for­mance in the state.

As Scar­bor­ough was mak­ing an argu­ment that, because the over­all pop­u­lar vote in the elec­tions was close, pun­dits should not go over­board in pre­dict­ing how much trou­ble Democ­rats are in, the MSNBC host brought up Repub­li­cans pick­ing up three House seats in North Car­oli­na after the dis­tricts were redrawn by the Repub­li­can leg­is­la­ture this year, twice claim­ing that they had “rigged” the dis­tricts:

And the only rea­son Democ­rats are not in charge of the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Hakeem Jef­fries is not Speak­er of the House is because North Car­oli­na leg­is­la­tors rigged the process so bad­ly that they took away three Demo­c­ra­t­ic seats there in a rigged redis­trict­ing attempt that actu­al­ly held up.

After court-drawn plans were used in the 2022 elec­tions, the North Car­oli­na State Supreme Court allowed the leg­is­la­ture to change the dis­tricts again to be used begin­ning in 2024. MSNBC reg­u­lar Willie Geist then elab­o­rat­ed that, although Repub­li­cans won 220 seats, three of the Repub­li­can seats are like­ly to be vacant for sev­er­al months, with two accept­ing appoint­ments by Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump, mak­ing the mar­gin very close. 

Geist even­tu­al­ly read a Tweet by The Cook Polit­i­cal Report’s Dave Wasser­man who observed that North Car­oli­na redis­trict­ing prob­a­bly put Repub­li­cans over the top for a House major­i­ty:

That small major­i­ty may also be due in part because of the North Car­oli­na Supreme Court. As Dave Wasser­man of The Cook Polit­i­cal Report notes, “When Repub­li­cans won a major­i­ty on the court in 2022, they had the pow­er to redraw three Demo­c­ra­t­ic seats into the GOP’s hands, which may have effec­tive­ly killed Democ­rats’ chances at win­ning the House this cycle.”

In spite of Scar­bor­ough’s sug­ges­tion that Repub­li­cans did some­thing under­hand­ed by draw­ing dis­tricts to gain three seats in North Car­oli­na, it was not men­tioned that there are plen­ty of exam­ples of Repub­li­cans being short-changed in oth­er states such that it all bal­ances out. In Cal­i­for­nia, for exam­ple, even though the state’s 52 dis­tricts were drawn by a non­par­ti­san com­mis­sion to pre­vent ger­ry­man­der­ing, Repub­li­cans are being short-changed by a whop­ping 11 seats.

Even though Trump won 38.3 per­cent of the vote in the state this year, which would work out pro­por­tion­ate­ly to 20 out of 52 dis­tricts, there will like­ly only be nine dis­tricts that Repub­li­cans will hold. (And only sev­en Cal­i­for­nia dis­tricts were Repub­li­can-lean­ing enough to vote for Trump in 2020.)

There’s also New York, where Repub­li­cans will hold sev­en out of 26 seats when 11 would be pro­por­tion­ate; Illi­nois where the GOP will hold three out of 17 when sev­en would be pro­por­tion­ate; New Jer­sey where there will be three Repub­li­can seats out of 12 when five or six would be more appro­pri­ate; and Mass­a­chu­setts, where Democ­rats have held all the state’s con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts (cur­rent­ly nine) since the 1990s.

Tran­script fol­lows:

MSNBC’s Morn­ing Joe

Decem­ber 3, 2024

6:16 a.m. East­ern

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Like we said repeat­ed­ly going up to the elec­tion, this race is tight. Now, I can see, if this was like an LBJ-style blowout in ’64 or a Nixon blowout in ’72 or a Rea­gan blowout in ’84, but this was one of the clos­est elec­tions ever, espe­cial­ly if you look at the out­come in the House and the out­come of the Sen­ate.

And the only rea­son Democ­rats are not in charge of the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Hakeem Jef­fries is not Speak­er of the House is because North Car­oli­na leg­is­la­tors rigged the process so bad­ly that they took away three Demo­c­ra­t­ic seats there in a rigged redis­trict­ing attempt that actu­al­ly held up. So, again, here we are one month since the 2024 elec­tion, Willie, and only one House seat that remains uncalled this morn­ing but is Demo­c­ra­t­ic — makes it look like they’re in a dead tie. You know what they call this in Europe? A uni­ty gov­ern­ment because they’re basi­cal­ly tied. So all these peo­ple say­ing that this is the end of the world for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty? I think they may be over-ana­lyz­ing this just a bit.

WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, a three-vote major­i­ty in the Sen­ate for Repub­li­cans and an even nar­row­er major­i­ty at this moment in the House. And, as you said, Joe, those swing state — all sev­en of which went to Don­ald Trump, and there are some very trou­bling signs inside the vote for Democ­rats that they’re already look­ing at and need to adjust to to change, but let’s remem­ber he won by a point and a half with­in the mar­gin of error of all of the polling, as we said all along. He won by a cou­ple mil­lion votes. He’s under a major­i­ty — he’s at 49.9 per­cent this morn­ing — does­n’t even have 50 per­cent.

So you can throw out terms like “land­slide” — which his cam­paign and tran­si­tion team likes to use. He does have a man­date in the sense of Repub­li­cans are ful­ly behind him. But the idea that he’s going to steam­roll through any­thing he wants — he is push­ing those bound­aries right now. Let’s be clear to see how far Repub­li­cans will go. But he just does­n’t have the votes to do it all on his own terms.

So let’s explain what Joe was say­ing. One House seat remains uncalled still this morn­ing four weeks after elec­tion day. In Cal­i­for­ni­a’s 13th con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, Repub­li­can Con­gress­man John Duarte is trail­ing his Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger by more than 200 votes with 99 per­cent of the vote in. Should his Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger oust him, House Speak­er Mike John­son will like­ly be deal­ing with a one-seat major­i­ty for those first 100 days of Con­gress. That’s because two House mem­bers are like­ly to serve in the incom­ing Trump admin­is­tra­tion, and for­mer Flori­da Con­gress­man Matt Gaetz resigned from office last month, which will leave those seats emp­ty until spe­cial elec­tions are held. That small major­i­ty may also be due in part because of the North Car­oli­na Supreme Court. As Dave Wasser­man of the The Cook Polit­i­cal Report notes, “When Repub­li­cans won a major­i­ty on the court in 2022, they had the pow­er to redraw three Demo­c­ra­t­ic seats into the GOP’s hands, which may have effec­tive­ly killed Democ­rats’ chances at win­ning the House this cycle.”