“It’s just a simple redrawing. We pick up five seats.”
With those words, President Donald Trump last year launched an effort to thwart Democratic gains in this year’s midterm elections by changing the congressional map in Texas. This week’s special election in Virginia is the latest in a long path of unintended consequences that have followed his words.
No one familiar with the complicated process of reapportionment and redistricting would ever say such a thing. Because of the specific people being drawn in or out of a district and the broad demographic change that occurs, redrawing a congressional map in the middle of a decade can never be simple.
This would have become obvious over the years, but in today’s hothouse politics, it has taken only a few months. Trump didn’t stop with Texas, and Democrats have responded with their own redrawing. California, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have all redrawn their congressional maps to make them more one-sided in one direction or the other. In addition to Virginia, which votes on a redraw plan Tuesday, Florida and Maryland are considering proposals.
In every case where they are losing, Democrats have warned that this is bad for the country, and in every case where they are losing, Republicans have done the same. Both have been right.
If voters in Virginia approve the measure there, Democrats will have gained a temporary edge in this competition, but that could change if other states redraw their maps. The one thing that is certain is that these maps will contribute to the embrittlement of politics at the congressional level, which is already well underway.
Back before computer mapping made it such a science, there was a lot more talk about communities of interest when it came time for redistricting, and how they should be kept together so that blackberry growers and furniture manufacturers, for instance, would have their own representative in Washington. Quaint though the examples may have been, this idea gets at the concept of Congress as an interwoven fabric of distinct communities.
What it is being replaced with is a concept of Congress in which party is the only interest that matters, and in this case, a very narrow Washington definition of party. The chance the parties will work together on anything will grow smaller, even within state delegations.
When districts are drawn in the service of national, not local interests, they will draw national money. An interesting footnote to the recent 14th Congressional District race to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene was the entrance, late in the race, of American Mission, one of several super PACs bankrolled by artificial intelligence companies. It put down a $686,000 bet — in ad money, of course — on the favorite, Republican Clay Fuller, who is replacing one of AI’s sharpest congressional critics. Expect these newly drawn districts, Republican and Democratic, to draw a lot of that kind of money.
“By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field,” former President Barack Obama said in a video appeal to Virginia voters.
He made that sort of backhanded appeal because Virginia, like California, has a congressional map drawn by a bipartisan commission that was supposed to eliminate gerrymandering. In both states, the maps being voted on have been presented as a temporary solution to Republican tactics that will revert to the old system after the midterms have passed. What could possibly go wrong with that idea?
There is also the question of how real this unscrupulous strategy to change election results really works. Whenever you redraw a map that splits 6-5 for Democrats and turn it into a map that is supposed to be 10-1 for Democrats, you run the real risk of miscalculating. Already, newly elected Democratic Gov. Abigail Stanberger has taken a hit in polls for her support of the measure.
That caution goes for Republicans as well as Democrats. It has been a long time since the nation has had a truly realigning election, in which formerly solid districts shift to the other party. That’s exactly the opposite of what was intended when this all started, which means it’s a real possibility.
