Gerrymandering wars, Democrats still ahead by 4 with the gerrymandering of Oregon, Nevada and Illinois. The GOP gerrymandered North Carolina which has two lawsuits pending. The DOJ sued Texas. Maryland has become the latest state to complete the redistricting process. 25 states have now completed their redistricting. 165 districts have been redrawn, out of those 165, 17 are competitive or switchable. The democrats hold 13 of these seats vs. 4 for the GOP. 270 districts have yet to be redrawn which includes the big states of California, New York and Florida.
A word on Texas, Texas didn’t gerrymander for the Republicans to gain seats. They did gerrymander to place incumbents of both parties in safer districts. Hence the Democrats voted for Texas’s redrawn map. If the DOJ suit is successful, based on not having enough majority minority districts, this would give the Republicans a chance to gerrymander to gain Republican seats via placing more democratic voting blacks and Hispanics into their own majority minority districts. Leaving more Republican voting whites for all the other districts.
Illinois is facing the same kind of lawsuit. Blacks in the East St. Louis area didn’t like their old hugely majority black district carved up. The new map took portions of their old district and placed them into 2 competitive districts which made those 2 competitive districts into safe democratic districts. Leaving the old East St. Louis district much less black, but still black enough to maintain it voting Democratic. What happens with the lawsuits, time will tell?
