Capitol Hill Blue Forums Thread Like Summary - Gerrymandering

Omaha is a blue dot in a sea of (Husker) red. And Nebraska is one of (I think) only two states that can split their electoral vote. When Obama was elected, we went 2 to 1, with Omaha being that one blue vote.

Now the Republican state senators are proposing a change to District 2 (Omaha.) They intend to enlarge the district by cutting it in half, and add the Air Force base and the next county over, where many of the base employees live. This is expected to increase the Republican presence in District 2 and reassign the district’s voters of color.

And thereby return Nebraska to its purified red status, silencing the liberals and minorities.
(Expletive deleted)

Oh dear god. Don't get me started.
Athens, Ga is a bright blue spot in a sea (NE Ga) of red also. We vote 70% democratic and about 5% other (Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, Elizabeth Warren, etc.)
We're so chopped up it's downright immoral. We are by far the largest town in NE Ga (regional hosipitals, large state chartered university) but are tangled up with the very red counties around us. Some of the craziest of crazies represent us.
(ok I guess I won't do an expletive either....s***)

Doncha just love these census years?

Let’s put it this way: every once in a while I forget that Ben Sasse is a Republican from Nebraska. He usually reminds me pretty quickly, but once in awhile…

I think you are projecting your own studied independence on The Independents. I bet most of them have little awareness of politics, and just vote for celebrities or the snappiest dresser. Those who think a lot about political positions and lament partisanship are a very small minority. Lots more sports fans who would rather watch ESPN than PBS. They are easily manipulated by demagogues like Trump with "simple-but-wrong" catch-phrases. Trump had to practically destroy our democracy to lose their support. If he had been just a bit less blatant, he would have won in 2020.

Hey that's ME! Except that even I can see that Dems are actually trying to help Americans.

But they're going about it completely wrong and are doomed to fail.

What's going on across the aisle is pretty much sheer madness at this point. You're either a part of it or you aren't. What we've seen over the last five decades or so is that republicans have stopped governing. They are the anti-government party who wants an authoritarian strong man to lead them. I've totally washed my hands of all that nonsense.

The ummm...madness on the Dem side is to raise wages, make college affordable, provide healthcare where it's needed...that sort of thing. You know...actually taking care of Americans rather than the American corporate class.

I think you're right. Independents, the non-affiliate don't pay much attention to politics until an election nears. They also tend to vote, presidential wise for the more charismatic candidate. although the last two elections, none were charismatic. Independents went twice for Obama, he had charisma up the ying yang. They also went twice for G.W. Bush, very close on both counts. Not that G.W. was charismatic, he was more of a down home boy vs. two statues in Gore and Kerry. Now Bill Clinton was one charismatic candidate, independents voted for him twice over G.H.W. and a dour Dole.

Reagan, another very charismatic candidate who swamped both Carter and Mondale among independents. But independent have a habit of voting one way in presidential elections, then voting for the opposite party's congressional candidates in the next which I outlined before as for the percentages.

Elections to them are what I call beauty contests or popularity contests. Yet, they decide elections, at least on the national level. Neither party's base is large enough to do it on their own.

Actually, I find Democrats and Republican dull and boring. I know how'll they will vote. Independents, now there's a challenge. Little awareness is absolutely correct. Watchers of ESPN, their favorite TV shows, etc. yep. Most may not even watch the news, maybe a minute here or there. They don't know what C-Span is, Yet they do decide elections.

I totally agree on how you portrayed them. Yet it seems the Democrats are trying to get more and more of these non-attentive people to vote. Interesting.

So what's the point of a political party which invariably fails at governing?

Most political parties operate under a platform that is roughly a list of what they and their members support and hope to accomplish while in office.

Republicans abandoned that notion in favor of just doing whatever Trump wanted. They have laid out no plans for the future. No plans to mitigate the pandemic. No plans to mitigate climate change. No plans to improve the economy. No plans to improve immigration, no plans to improve healthcare. No plans. No ideas. No proposals. No legislation. No governance and no candidates who appear poised to govern if elected.

What exactly is the point beyond obstruction and owning the libs? Functioning government appears to be just one big joke to them and they will stop at nothing to prevent it.

Republcans have to do that to Omaha - else, they'd never get those electoral votes. It's not as if the Republican platform or Republican ideas are anything for a decent rational person to vote for...

I'm nominating that for entry in the Nicely Turned Phrase of the Year competition!

Here's a good site to follow redistricting from Nate Silver's 538. The man is good and so is his site.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/?cid=rrpromo

Nate also includes many interesting articles from a non-partisan position.

I don't think past performance will be a useful predictor of the 2022 election. Republicans have an economy their guy screwed getting fixed by Biden and Democrats in Congress, states passing voter restriction laws to preserve minority rule, a disgraced ex President who sided with Russia over US intelligence, the attempted coup of January 6th, and an unprecedented devotion to maximizing the death toll of the pandemic.

By November 2022, all of these things are just going to be more obvious as more insurrectionists go to prison, more anti-vaxxers die, the House investigation goes public with Republican collusion, more indictments occur, etc.

Not business as usual.

More democrats than not probably think gerrymandering should be abolished.
It's easy enough to divide a region into fair and equitable districts.

Those Democrats who feel it's an appropriate tactic probably feel that it's only fair to fight back against Republican cheating.

Both parties are corrupt. To me, one appears to be (much)more corrupt than the other.

One appears to be trying to fix some broken things.

One appears to be trying to break more things.

Maybe a switch hitter like Pero could explain to me why this isn't true...? I try to view both parties through the same lens, but it's difficult with the Donald Trumps, Loie Gohmerts and Marjorie Greenes in the mix. Does "the squad" balance out these crazies somehow...or do they only appear crazy because of my ideological lean, even though I don't share that same lean with most Democrats...

A conundrum.

Back to gerrymandering. Here's something I know you all don't want to hear. Democrats attempting to gerrymander Oregon. Also Larry Sabato covers the Virginia governors race.

The VA-GOV Polls: 2013, 2017, and now

Oregon redistricting: Tense times as Democrats attempt a gerrymander

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/notes-on-the-state-of-politics-sept-22-2021/

This goes back to what I've always said, whenever a political party can gerrymander, they will. The Republicans hold more state trifectas, the governor and both chambers of the state legislature than the Democrats do. So they'll probably gerrymander a couple of more states than the Democrats. Just because one can gerrymander doesn't make it right, but neither party will pass up the opportunity. I don't like gerrymandering, I think it's totally wrong. But I don't blame the Oregon Democrats for doing it. As long as one party is doing it, one can't expect the other to stop or cede whatever political advantage gerrymandering gives them.

Yes, yes, If we could just Make America Great Again! Good lard, man...there have been fisticuffs and even duels to the death, Americans have always been hyper partisans. My grandfather was named after a four-time Democratic presidential candidate(who never won)
That's partisanship. The civil war, prohibition, civil rights...
What issue has this nation ever faced that had no partisan divide? That's normal politics.

Whatever it is that Republicans have become is not politics as usual. And they've been going this direction for several decades. Trump is just the culmination of it.

The two parties have to agree to exist in the same realities before negotiations can begin.

Oddly it is Democrats hammering the last nails into this president's agenda right now while republicans sit back and watch.

The Gerrymandering war is now even. Here's the latest on redistricting. 107 districts redrawn, 328 more to go.

NOV. 12, 2021

Thirteen states have now finalized their redrawn congressional maps for the 2020s — that's 19 total counting the 6 states with one representative. Most recently Montana, Idaho and Utah. And several other states are already deep into the process. Of particular note, California and Florida, home to 80 congressional districts between them, both released their first-draft maps this week.

At this point, Democrats have gained five seats nationally from the redistricting process, Republicans have gained five, and the number of competitive seats has dropped by five. But while it appears as though Democrats have gained seats in redistricting so far, a lot of that advantage is thanks to Texas Republicans giving Democratic incumbents safer districts in exchange for shoring up their own seats. Republicans also control the redrawing of many more districts than Democrats, so the GOP may pull ahead of Democrats soon. We’ve already seen, for instance, Republicans in North Carolina, Ohio and Utah pass or propose maps in recent days that are highly biased toward the GOP, according to various fairness metrics.

That said, some of those maps are so extreme they may be overturned in court. For instance, there are already two lawsuits alleging that the new North Carolina map is either a partisan or racial gerrymander. And there are still some states left for Democrats to potentially redistrict to their advantage, such as Illinois. The legislature there has already passed a proposed congressional map that is heavily biased toward Democrats, creating 13 blue seats, three red seats and just one competitive seat; all that’s left for it to become law is the governor’s signature.

Michigan and Virginia became the 30th and 31st states to complete their redistricting counting the 6 states with a single, lone representative. In the gerrymandering wars, the democrats have a 7-seat advantage. 265 districts have been redrawn. 170 districts are remaining to be redrawn. There’re still are two big states left, New York and Florida. Several medium states which include Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri and Washington. The remaining are the smaller states which have less than 10 electoral votes. Georgia’s new map has already been drawn and is awaiting the governor’s signature.

Out of the 265 newly drawn districts, there are 22 competitive, switchable districts. Currently held by 14 Democrats and 8 Republicans.

Note: while it’s a total surprise that the democrats are ahead in the gerrymandering wars by 7 seats at this point in the redistricting process. The republicans have many more states left where they hold a trifecta. Trifecta is when one party has the Governorship and controls both state legislative branches. Republican states left where the GOP holds a trifecta are Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Tennessee vs. the Democratic trifectas of Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, Rhode Island and Washington state. It is my opinion that the 7-seat democratic advantage will be reduced significantly if not done away with completely once all the redistricting is completed.

Rick is right. They are not attracting new voters. Racists and rightwingers will naturally gravitate to the modern authoritarian version of the party but moderates aren't real pleased with what has happened over the last few years. They don't like being the chosen party of the Nazis and racists and haters of all stripes.

And it's my opinion that the party can't survive as an immoderate, racist, authoritarian entity.

And that it will evolve over time into something more moderate and less racist, just as the Democrats did.

'Bout ten years I'd guess before common sense returns to a wayward party. Because they have no platform or scruples or actual plans for the future, every election they win is a net loss for the party.

Yes, it was. From the very get-go...

NY Times

Fast forward to the civil war, which we seem to be still fighting, To The cold war and McCarthyism which we seem to still be fighting...the only difference between those earlier times is that one party has gone totally off the deep end.

If Reagan and Tip O’Neal, if Mitchell and Dole, Lott and Daschle could do this, why can’t today’s party leaders do the same?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it's because they aren't leaders at all. They are followers. Followers of polls, followers of the whims of the electorate, followers of partisan media.

It seems our leaders are following unruly mobs with unreasonable demands.

Regarding the lawsuit, the plaintiffs used the word "traditional" at least a dozen times, which hardly carries much legal weight in a fight over "fairness". To bolster the meaning of "traditional", the suit states that CD2 (the district I'm in) has only seen one term not won by a Republican since 2012. That as a legal argument strikes me as ridiculous.

They did not mention that it is also "traditional" for the Republican winners to also be involved in the oil and gas business. It is so traditional that the another Dem Representative (2010-2012; conveniently left out of the tradition argument) was also an oilman.

Stubbornly predictable.

It's almost as if the 2022 results were written in stone.

Like Joe Biden's numbers, nothing seems to budge them.

Big news on the Gerrymandering/Redistricting front. New York's supreme court has thrown our that states new map. Which shrinks the Democrats gerrymandering advantage from a plus 10 democratic leaning districts and a minus 6 republican leaning districts to a plus 7 Democratic leaning districts along with minus 3 Republican districts.

REDISTRICTING/GERRYMANDERING as of 23 April 2022

New York’s supreme court struck down New York’s new congressional map due to gross partisan gerrymandering in violation of that’s states constitution. We’re back down to 46 states having completed the redistricting process. There are now 4 states left, New York, Florida, Missouri and New Hampshire. 371 districts are now completed, leaving 64 districts to be redrawn. There are 38 competitive, switchable, at risk districts. Currently held by 28 Democrats and 10 Republicans. Safe seats as of 23 Apr 2022, 157 Democratic, 176 Republican.

The importance of safe seats is that they let you know how many seats from the competitive/at risk column and those districts yet to be redrawn a party must win to gain control of the House. As of today, the democrats need 61 more seats to reach the magic number of 218. The Republicans need 42. It remains to be seen how many safe seats each of the 4 remaining states add to each party’s safe seat column along with how many will go into the competitive/at risk column. The 4 remaining states are New York, New Hampshire, Florida and Missouri.

I can't do that thing you're doing....sorry.
You know, that kind of IDGAF + It Can't Happen Here thing.

It's certainly your prerogative but I just can't do it.
History shows how fast things begin to move suddenly when a political party decides to declare total war and completely upend a set of values that a nation is founded on.

This nation was founded as a republic based on the values of its constitution, one of which is democracy which, while not mentioned by word, is enshrined in the power of the vote and the Bill of Rights.

And the Republican Party is using every bit of the Putin playbook to dismantle all of it. They are literally out for blood...this isn't politics as usual anymore, Greger.

Think about it, the CPAC was held in Hungary, Viktor Orban's Hungary, the Hungary that now wants to see democracy turned into a shell, a 180 degree polar reversal of the Hungary of 1956.

What more does one need to realize that the target is liberal democracy in America by force and by bloodshed if they deem it necessary.

I get it, you're sure a full coup d'etat will never happen, or if it does, that life will go on and business as usual, or maybe I'm wrong and you have a different view altogether.

I see mass political insanity and a functional idiocracy of a nation that can't comprehend the true nature of the political comet coming to wipe out "business as usual".
I see a political Chixilub.

I see a political Pompeii.

I’ve been saying all along that the projected losses for this year’s midterms for the democrats make no historical sense when looking at Biden’s low approval numbers at around 40%. Hence, I put the history in writing. Here’s a list of presidents whose approval rating was around 40% for a midterm election. President, year, approval percentage, house seats lost, senate seats lost. Historical average for 4 presidents excluding Biden since his midterm hasn’t happened yet. Approval average, 39.25% house seats lost 48.5, senate seats lost 6.

Biden 2022 41% ?????? projected loss of 12-15 house seats, gain of 1 senate seat as of 1 May
Trump 2018 40% lost 44 house seats, 3 senate seats
Obama 2010 42% lost 63 house seats, 6 senate seats
G.W. Bush 2006 33% lost 33 house seats, 6 senate seats
Bill Clinton 1994 42% lost 54 house seats, 9 senate seats

I keep coming back to this as it has me frustrated, flabbergasted, astonished at the projected numbers for Biden and company. There’s no historical reference to place or compare this year’s numbers to. Fact is, they make no sense to me. A red wave should be in the offering. So far, it isn’t. Is it today’s modern political era of polarization, the great divide and the super, mega, ultra-high partisanship? Is it Trump or something else I can’t get my head around? Or a combination of many things?

Or possibility more time is needed for the projections to catch up with Biden and company’s low approval numbers? Time seems to be a good answer. No candidates have been chosen yet; the primaries haven’t begun. Redistricting isn’t completed. Time could be an answer, then again, maybe not. Only time will tell. In the meanwhile, I’ll try to figure out why all of this bothers me so much. Truth be told, it’s not normal. Then again, we’re not living in normal times, are we?

Mama never told me whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. I knew I was a Methodist.

So when I registered to vote I went non-partisan and I've never changed it.

I vote blue but I'm no Democrat. My interest is purely ideological, not partisan. Dems are the party of movement. Reeps are the party of order. My choice is clear.

Most of America falls right around your comfort zone. We all want government to quietly function in the background, not ask too much of us, help us when we need it, and not get us into any wars.

An algorithm could handle most of it.

I like my comfort zone. I’m more than willing to take small steps forward, gigantic leaps that take me out of my comfort zone tends to upset me. There’s times I’m not quite sure what I am. I do support the democrats on some issues, the GOP on others. Quite a lot of issues I just don’t give a dang. I took one of those are you a liberal or conservative test. I came out a social libertarian, whatever that is. Which simply means according to the test that on social issues, I’m on the left or liberal and on fiscal issues, right or conservative. Although I don’t think those who call themselves fiscal conservatives today are. All they believe in is low taxes. A true fiscal conservative or a traditional conservative believes in fiscal responsibility. Your revenue should match your outflow. In order to get there, if you have to raise taxes, you do it. If you have to cut spending you do it. Usually it takes both.

By the way...

https://twitter.com/leemillburn/status/1526869373947809793


Lee
@leemillburn
Replying to @jra4usmc and @MilesTaylorUSA

Pretty much the same inflation in Australia and we have a conservative government. If you think your President can stop global events putting pressure on prices you greatly overestimate his (and the US government’s) power.

3:16 AM · May 18, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

I'm with you on the Senate pick up. I've just had a niggling feeling that was gonna happen. I don't think there's gonna be a clear "winner" in this election and that both parties are gonna be disappointed. I've said that before and it bears repeating. McConnell will remain the minority leader. Schumer can safely burn the filibuster to the ground and the Republican-controlled House will act like right-wing weirdos making independents roll their eyes and think "Again?...No."

All I'm lacking is that Democratic candidate...a chimera of sorts...a mystery...

But I'm also thinking the results of the midterms will be good for both parties, forcing them into some bipartisan compromise on some of the easier issues.

When you get down to brass tacks, it doesn't really matter which party is in control, commerce must continue and emergencies must be dealt with.

As long as both parties elect decent honest citizens.

It's only when charlatans ascend to power that sh*t goes off the rails.