Guess who’s worried about his home district

Tom DeLay has always strutted with the confidence of a man who believes he’ll have his House seat as long as he wants it. As DeLay sees it, when he retires, it’ll be voluntary, not mandated by voters.

Throughout his career, DeLay’s arrogance has been backed up by election results. Before 2004, he’d never faced a tough campaign. Consider his winning percentage of the vote totals in his 10 elections to the House preceding last year: 63%, 60%, 65%, 68%, 74%, 69%, 71%, 67%, 72%, 65%. His closest race ever was one in which he won by 24 points.

But last year was a little different. Despite rising to the highest levels of congressional leadership, and facing a Dem opponent who was virtually unknown, DeLay had to work in 2004, harder than he’s ever worked before. A 20-year incumbent, DeLay intended to hit the campaign trail elsewhere, helping vulnerable Republican incumbents. Suddenly, after multiple violations of congressional ethics, and a series of corruption investigations, DeLay started wondering if he might be a vulnerable incumbent.

DeLay won comfortably, with 55% support. Still, it was the weakest support and the narrowest margin of his political career.

The irony is, DeLay may have unintentionally made things harder on himself while trying to make things easier on himself.

…DeLay now has to worry about “Texas 22,” the congressional district he has represented for the past 21 years in the U.S. House. Ironically, the Texas redistricting plan he engineered over strong Democratic objections drained some vital Republican support and could make it tougher for him to win reelection. In his old district, DeLay took 60 percent of the vote in 2000 and 63 percent in 2002.

In 2003, at DeLay’s behest, the Texas legislature redrew the state’s congressional lines without waiting for the next census (in 2010), the customary occasion for redistricting. With the new districts, which still face court challenges, Texas elected five additional Republicans to the U.S. House last November, accounting for all of the party’s net gain.

DeLay’s new district wound up several percentage points less Republican than his previous one, and it has a substantial and growing Asian American population.

Oops.

The point behind DeLay’s re-redistricting scheme was to help keep a GOP majority in the House by adding seats. It was a protection plan for himself: as long as Republicans were the majority, DeLay would the majority leader running the show.

DeLay’s district is a GOP stronghold, so he gave up parts of it to help other Republican candidates improve their chances. It was predicated on arrogance, not altruism — DeLay assumed voters in his area would continue to vote for him, no matter how corrupt he got.

He’s still winning, but suddenly he has to watch his back.

Some Republican officials and DeLay supporters worry that with President Bush absent from the top of the ticket next year, liberal interest groups might target the conservative majority leader and spend millions of dollars on campaign ads to try to defeat him.

If DeLay’s re-redistricting scheme ultimately drives him from Congress, it might be the most ironic election outcome ever. Even if it doesn’t happen, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun watching DeLay sweat over his troubles at home.