In the gerrymandering war, it’s the Democrats ahead by 5 now that New Mexico has joined Illinois. Oregon and Nevada in gerrymandering districts that favor the Democrats.
Curious about the details of NM's gerrymandering. Not being a scholar on the subject, my impression was that NM01 and NM03 were pretty solidly blue (not in need of gerrymandering), while NM02 generally goes red. Does the redistricting affect NM02?
Yes, NM 2 tremendously. I don’t know if you understand PVI. But the new districts are NM 1 PVI D +11, NM 2 D +4, NM 3 D+5. Old map was NM 1 D +18, NM 2 R +14, NM 3 D +14. Under the old map, there were 2 safe Democratic districts, 1 safe Republican district. What they did was extend NM 1st Albuquerque district way south into the 2nd district. Reducing NM 1 down 7 in the PVI from D +18 to a D +11. They also moved NM 3 which was at the top of NM further south along the Texas Border, almost to Mexico reducing NM 3 to a D+5 from a D+14. The movement of lines changed NM 2 from an R +14 to a D +5. In short, the new map looks nothing like the old map.
By doing so NM was able to remove a safe Republican district, change it into a likely Democratic one. These movements of boundaries also made NM 3 much more competitive than what it was. But still in a lean to likely Democratic. Democrats in NM hope these changes of boundary lines will result in a 3-0 Democratic congressional delegation instead of the present 2-1 Democratic. The people still must vote, it may backfire, or it may go as planned. We’ll have to wait until the midterms are over.
Hence, NM gerrymandered or turned a Republican safe district into a likely Democratic one. NM isn’t anything close to what the Democrats did in Illinois and in Oregon or what the GOP did in North Carolina. NM has only 3 representatives. Even so, the Democrats made the most of their 3.
NM eliminating the safe Republican district, NM 2 is why in the gerrymandering war, Democrats went from a +4 to a +5. So far, the democrats are winning the gerrymandering battle, but we still have 24 states to go which includes California, New York, Florida. The biggest surprise was Texas which didn’t eliminate any incumbent seats. If one wants to call drawing a map which placed incumbents of both parties into safer districts, gerrymandering, one is free to do so. But Texas didn’t try to get more Republican seats, just protect incumbents of both parties. That wasn’t expected and it was kind of a shock for those of us who follow these things.
