[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – Democrats are more and more in the mood to return to the House after the mid-term elections. But if politicians and experts are wrong, there may be a simple reason for this: gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is not new. Drawing politically-advantageous district lines has been an essential part of American politics for over 200 years, even before Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approves a new district for the state Senate in 1812 that looks like a salamander . (We got the word gerrymander by squashing Gerry's last name and "salamander".)
However, the use of gerrymandering is becoming more sophisticated, as mapmakers become more ambitious with the number of seats they target, than the districts they draw have a more ridiculous appearance and that the technology they use is improved.
On the new Mid Wave podcast The Wave, I spoke to David Daley, author of Ratf ** ked: Why your vote does not countand Dave Wasserman, political editor of The Cook Political Report, in the House, about gerrymandering and how it might prevent Democrats from returning to Parliament.
In Ratf ** ked, Daley explains how Republicans targeted state legislatures in 2010 with the goal of redesigning congressional seats and creating a "red firewall" that could withstand demographic shifts and make it much more difficult for Democrats to own the House of Representatives. Remarkably, for a price of about $ 30 million, Republicans were able to move from 20 state rooms from Democrats to Republicans in 2010, thus giving the GOP control room control. high and low of 25 states.
It was in these states that the Republicans then drew more cards in gerrymandered.
Daley looks in particular at five relatively moderate states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin – where Republicans drew cards that would eventually lead to 48 Republicans and 21 Democrats in Congress.
"They've been the red firewall that has held back the blue waves for the entire decade," said Daley. "In 2012, when Democrats got 1.4 million additional votes for the US House, Republicans still retain a 234-201 advantage in the House."
But not everyone is convinced that gerrymandering has such a profound impact on the makeup of the House.
Wasserman estimates that Republicans hold only half a dozen to a dozen additional seats compared to non-partisan cards. Democrats must beat Republicans by a significant margin in the combined national popular vote to take back the House, but for Wasserman, this is largely due to geography. Democrats live more and more in cities, while Republicans take up more space in the country.
These geographic changes mean that it is much easier to draw a card that is good for Republicans than for Democrats.
Wasserman recounted the challenge he had pitched to his followers on Twitter to create districts that would give Democrats a major advantage in Wisconsin, which has an equal vote rating for cook supporters. (This means that it looks a lot like the partisan composition of the nation as a whole). Wasserman offered $ 7,000 to anyone who could produce a card where six of the eight congressional districts obtained 8 more points of democracy.
Wasserman himself easily drew a map where six of the eight districts scored 7 points more than Republican, but no one was able to claim that money – probably because the task is impossible.
According to Wasserman, yes, the number of vulnerable disadvantaged districts is decreasing. The Cook political report has calculated that the number of electoral districts has decreased from 164 in 1997 to 72 in 2018. But, again, Wasserman sees this as a consequence of natural political dynamics and geography. According to this study, the reduction in the number of alternative districts was only 17% during the years of cutting, ie 83% of natural changes in previous years.
Nevertheless, even Wasserman recognizes that Republicans have seats because of gerrymandering and that, thanks to these safer seats, Republicans have more money to be paid to other more vulnerable races.
Thus, with the Democrats expected to win at least about 15 seats, a Republican majority hanging in the House would only be in single-digit numbers, which means that even in the most bearish accounts for Democrats, a majority of the GOP would have to thank these cartographers.
"The Republicans' advantage in gerrymandering will likely be their margin of victory if they hold the House," Wasserman said.
You can listen to the entire podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Castbox.
[ad_2]
Source link
