Voting for Dummies

I first wrote about "dummymandering" over a year ago here, in July, 2025. This is where a state gerrymanders, but it backfires and they actually lose seats. This tends to come about because, in order to gerrymander, you have to take away voters from what you believe are "safe" districts so that you can build an advantage in districts you'd otherwise lose. But it turns out that either tose "safe" districts weren't as safe as you thought, or you didn't move enough voters into the weaker districts.

At the time, I thought that some of the gerrymandering in Texas risked the possibility of dummymandering (and subsequently, as did other Red states that later gerrymander). My sense -- rightly or wrongly, we'll find out -- is that Democrats were winning every Special Election by an average of 16 points. So, if you take a safe "plus 20 points" district and moved five points to a "minus 2" district -- making them "plus 15" and "plus 3" -- that sounds good on paper, but not only risks losing one, but both.

I continue to hold to this from my totally non-professional sense of observation, because of what I've been writing for a while -- the enthusiasm factor, where polls are showing that Democrats are far more enthusiastic about voting than MAGOPs. And those are the people you can guarantee will crawl over glass to vote (especially in a Mid-Term), while unenthusiastic supporter risk not voting at all. Happily, just yesterday morning, the excellent New York Times political reporter Susan Glasser said on MS NOW", “I think that ‘enthusiasm” is the big story this election.”  So, huzzah!!!!

Add to all this a factor in every Red state that gerrymandered districts, but most especially Texas. "Most especially Texas" because not only do they have a particularly large Latino population... but they specifically did their gerrymandering based on the 2024 election when the MAGOP had strong Latino support.

I believe the official term that political scientists use is "Oooops!!"

Latino support has cratered in Texas, thanks to Trump and MAGOP-enabled support for policies pushing ICE to go after Latinos -- and anyone who looks or sounds Latino -- arrest them, hold them in detention centers, and deport them. Whether or not they turn out to be U.S. citizens or have impeccable records in the United States, going through the proper process applying for citizenship or just staying out of trouble with no arrests, the direct opposite of "the worst of the worst," building good lives in the country, raising children born here. And ending up being terrorized by immigration officials. And some even being killed.

So, yes, the bottom has fallen out of Latino support for Trump and the MAGOP. I've seen this in polls and first-hand report from friends who live in Texas. "You can't believe how much Latinos hate Trump here, especially the young kids, especially those registered to vote for the first time who can't wait to voted" is what I hear from them all.

A bigger problem for MAGOPs is that many older Latinos may be scared to go vote, not knowing if they'll be harassed by ICE at the polls, even though they're legal citizens, and are the people most likely to stay at home. And this is likely what Trump and MAGOPs are hoping for. But the problem for them is that those are the very Latinos who most-voted for Trump in 2024. And any who are willing to brave the risks and vote their outrage...are Democrats. Or anxious this time to vote Democratic.

An article in Raw Story about Texas reinforced all this. "'Buyer's remorse': Trump voters apologize for electing him as GOP gerrymander backfires".

This very first sentence spoke volumes -- "GOP gerrymandering in Texas is predicted to backfire as Democrats seize the opportunity to claim a regretful bloc of key President Donald Trump voters, according to a new report."

A few salient quotes leap out:

"I don't think Latino voters that voted in 2024 will stick around," Massey Villarreal, a Houston-based businessman who used to chair the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, told Politico. "[Trump] is targeting the Latino community. He's separating families. He's breaking businesses."

Ronnie Cavazos, president of the South Texas Builders Association, apologized for supporting Trump after the immigration crackdown. "Let's be real. We voted for this. I'll take the blame."

And this, very importantly, from Monica De La Cruz,, who admitted for the record that Latinos are turning against Trump's immigration crackdown. Why "very importantly"? Because Ms. De La Cruz is a MAGOP member of Congress running for re-election! "Whether I'm at church, at the grocery store," she said, "while I'm in activities with my children, I'm hearing those same concerns — that people are feeling frightened in the community."

That's sure not the community of voters you were really counting on big-time when you gerrymandered your state.

There are 12.6 Latinos and Hispanics who live in Texas, with a population of 31.7 million. For those without an abacus, that's 40% of the state. As political scientists put it, "Oooops!"