{"id":7770,"date":"2022-04-30T13:31:55","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T13:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7770"},"modified":"2022-04-30T13:31:55","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T13:31:55","slug":"how-democrats-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-gerrymander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7770","title":{"rendered":"How Democrats learned to stop worrying and love the gerrymander"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The grinding battle over congressional redistricting is drawing to a close. And, contrary to expectations<\/a> that the process would result in big Republican gains, the final House of Representatives map may well improve somewhat for Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main reason is gerrymandering \u2014 redrawing of district lines for partisan benefit. Republicans built on their existing gerrymanders to try to expand their House advantage, but Democrats fired back even more powerfully with gerrymanders of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically, Democrats saved themselves by resorting to a tactic they\u2019ve previously denounced as not only unfair but downright unethical \u2014 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called<\/a> gerrymandering \u201cunjust and deeply dangerous\u201d in 2019. But in the absence of national reforms banning the practice, refusing to gerrymander would have meant effective unilateral disarmament, ceding the GOP a significant advantage in the battle for control over the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redistricting has proceeded like a tug of war. As state legislatures, judges, and commissions have approved new maps, creating more safe or swing districts in various states, the underlying partisanship of the median House district has been pulled in one direction, and then the other. The most powerful pulls came from either state legislatures that gerrymandered, or state courts that struck down certain gerrymandered maps”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“it\u2019s entirely possible, perhaps likely, that Democrats will still lose badly in House elections this fall \u2014 the party has a small majority, President Biden is unpopular, and the historical pattern is for the incumbent\u2019s party to struggle in the midterms<\/a>. But unlike much of the previous decade, the underlying map may be at least somewhat less biased in Republicans\u2019 favor.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/22961590\/redistricting-gerrymandering-house-2022-midterms<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The grinding battle over congressional redistricting is drawing to a close. And, contrary to expectations that the process would result in big Republican gains, the final House of Representatives map may well improve somewhat for Democrats.<\/p>\n

The main reason is gerrymandering \u2014 redrawing of district lines for partisan benefit. Republicans built on their existing gerrymanders to try to expand their House advantage, but Democrats fired back even more powerfully with gerrymanders of their own.<\/p>\n

Basically, Democrats saved themselves by resorting to a tactic they\u2019ve previously denounced as not only unfair but downright unethical \u2014 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called gerrymandering \u201cunjust and deeply dangerous\u201d in 2019. But in the absence of national reforms banning the practice, refusing to gerrymander would have meant effective unilateral disarmament, ceding the GOP a significant advantage in the battle for control over the House.<\/p>\n

Redistricting has proceeded like a tug of war. As state legislatures, judges, and commissions have approved new maps, creating more safe or swing districts in various states, the underlying partisanship of the median House district has been pulled in one direction, and then the other. The most powerful pulls came from either state legislatures that gerrymandered, or state courts that struck down certain gerrymandered maps”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“it\u2019s entirely possible, perhaps likely, that Democrats will still lose badly in House elections this fall \u2014 the party has a small majority, President Biden is unpopular, and the historical pattern is for the incumbent\u2019s party to struggle in the midterms. But unlike much of the previous decade, the underlying map may be at least somewhat less biased in Republicans\u2019 favor.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[542,1262,198,1606,479],"class_list":["post-7770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-congress","tag-democrats","tag-elections","tag-gerrymander","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7771,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770\/revisions\/7771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}