When Bad Ideas Go Worse

Back in July of last year, I wrote an article here, “Gerrymandering for Dummies.”  The short version was that I thought that Trump's insistence that Texas gerrymander was a huge mistake for MAGOPs and would backfire on several levels.  Among those reasons were that Democrats were picking up an average of 16 points in every Special Election since Trump took office, so I thought it very possible – if not likely – that Texas MAGOP could lose some of those gerrymandered seats, a process that requires taking away seats from safe seats and moves them to toss-ups, which when it goes wrong actually has a name, “dummymandering.”  I also said that Democrats were likely, if not probable to win control of the House even with Texas gerrymandering.  In fact, in an article a few months later, I suggested that Democrats would pick up 30-40 seats in the Mid-Term election...regardless of gerrymandering.

But those were my secondary reasons.  Because before getting to them, what I initially wrote was --

“First, if Republicans re-gerrymander Texas (and let's say Ohio, and even perhaps some other states, as yet unmentioned), he ignores that Democrats could do exactly the same in half a dozen Blue states.”

Well, that one aged okay.  Which brings us to Virginia on Tuesday. 

In Virginia’s redistricting vote, the measure passed by 3 points, 51.5-48%.  The result was close, but there are two important things to keep in mind.  The first is that Virginia is not a Blue state.  It’s Purple and historically has leaned slightly right (although Democrats made gains in 2024).  So, the voters affirming the measure by any amount is notable.  And second, as small as a 3-point margin is, especially compared to the 15-point margin for Abigail Spanberger when she recently won the governor Special Election, it’s twice the margin that Trump won by nationally in 2024.

As it stands right now, with residents in California, Utah and Virginia voting to add Blue seats, compared to legislatures in Texas, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina passing laws to increase their Red seats – with Florida still trying to decide what to do -- another factor kicked in which has made the Trump push to gerrymander even more poorly thought out:

David Williamson of Cook Political Report noted that Texas and Florida both already gerrymandered their state’s districts in 2022, so they would be greatly limited into how many new Red districts could be gerrymandered again.  On the other hand, no Democratic legislatures looking into gerrymandering had redistricted, so they had more potential seats to gain.  (California did redistrict, but it wasn't done by a partisan legislature, rather an independent commission.)

The result of all this is that for all the Trump and MAGOP push to tilt the Mid-Term election through gerrymandering, right now Democrats have picked more seats than MAGOPs!  And that’s if MAGOPs don’t lose any redistricted seats through dummymandering.  Given how Democrats have flipped 32 MAGOP seats in Special Elections, to zero by MAGOPs, that's not remotely a guarantee.

If the Florida legislature does decide to gerrymander, then it’s possible that MAGOPs will ultimately gain a couple seats overall – at most.  And yet the party might still end up losing more seats.  But such a shift of so few seats is a small matter, and hardly worth the effort when Democrats appear poised to gain 30-40 seats.

There is one wrinkle in the Virginia picture.  A conversative district judge blocked the results of the state vote.  However, the state’s Attorney General said that would be appealed.  It seems likely that blocking a vote by the public will be overturned, though who knows what the Supreme Court will do.  But they have a history of not wanting to get involved with state politics and election results, so it seems likely that the Justices won’t want to wipe out a popular vote.  And I hope that’s what happens -- but I’m not terribly concerned if it doesn’t.  For two reasons –

One, as I said, I think that Democrats will pick up 30-40 seats, so these results aren’t likely a make or break issue.  And second, whatever the courts do, even if the results get blocked by SCOTUS, this vote showed how even people in a Purple state -- with a history against gerrymandering -- voted to gerrymander for Democratic seats in order to offset Trump gains in Red states.  And that’s critical for all 50 states when the Mid-Term election arrives.  And it must be terrifying to MAGOPs.

There is one other thing that can’t go without mentioning.  As much as MAGOPs try to paint Democrats as hypocritical in their criticism of gerrymandering, it’s just not the case.  Democrats are against gerrymandering for unfairly warping the "small d" democratic process – but when the other party gerrymanders to tilt elections, you have no choice but to even the playing field and balance things out so that our government does not become "warped."  More to the point, in every case in a Democratic state, the party has put the question openly to a vote of the public.  In every case in a MAGOP state, the controlling state legislature passed the law on its own, behind closed doors.

And it’s all pretty much working against them.