NY Times Frets Over Redistricting Battles, Makes Admission About Dem Gerrymandering
“States where Democrats would have complete control over any redistricting, such as Illinois and Maryland, are already gerrymandered heavily in their favor. Squeezing more Democratic seats out of those states would be a challenge.”
When you’re a North Carolina native and political junkie and hear Democrats at the state and national levels whining about “gerrymandering,” it makes you laugh, considering my state is home to one of the most widely mocked and heavily litigated Congressional Districts in United States political history: NC-12.
Originally drawn by Democrats during their century-long reign of error, it has since been redrawn by the GOP-controlled General Assembly to be more compact, but here’s a version of what it used to look like:
On the left is how NC Democrats drew NC-12. On the right is how NC Republicans drew NC-12.
Which one looks like a partisan gerrymander, @RepJeffries? https://t.co/fPmpqJQKJp pic.twitter.com/nRHkVtwyi6
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) November 27, 2024
No Republican has ever held this seat.
It is with that in mind that we return to the current redistricting battles shaping up in states like Texas and California, with the Lone Star state being one of many red states urged by President Donald Trump to redraw its Congressional maps. Meanwhile, the Golden State’s governor, Gavin Newsom (D), is floating a seemingly improbable plan to strike back in the event they do, though the state has a voter-approved independent redistricting panel already in place (although some might wonder if they are really all that “independent”).
🚨BREAKING NEWS — CALIFORNIA HOUSE DEMOCRATS are looking to get 5-7 more seats in Congress in mid-decade redistricting being pushed by @GavinNewsom @allymutnick and I have all the details in @PunchbowlNews https://t.co/PC8v2K4oPn
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 17, 2025
And now, as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) throws her state into the mix for a possible attempt at even more redistricting, and as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is also proposing the idea, we’re seeing a lot of handwringing by anxious state Democrat leaders and the mainstream media about what it all means for future control of Congress.
Here’s Politico, for instance:
Democrats are facing a redistricting problem as Republicans in Texas — and potentially other states — are redrawing their maps to create more Republican-leaning seats. But state Democrats say that the real problem is the party doesn’t do enough to try to flip state legislatures and put Democrats in charge of redrawing the lines in the future.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee calls on its party to rethink their “failed federal-first strategy,” in a memo sent to donors and strategists obtained by POLITICO, and instead invest in winning seats in state legislatures ahead of 2030 redistricting.
[…]
The memo indicates that 39 of 50 states give state legislatures control over congressional lines, and Republicans have been significantly more successful in controlling statehouses since investing millions into their “REDMAP” strategy in 2010. Following the 2024 election, seven states had veto-proof Democratic majorities, while 18 had veto-proof Republican majorities. The DLCC said failing to change that lopsided math will keep them out of power.
The DLCC has listed their 2025-2026 battlegrounds as Alaska, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, with Maine being on their “watch list.”
Meanwhile, a sympathetic report from the New York Times made an admission about Democrats, observing that in states where they have “complete control,” they’re already pretty much maxed out on what they can do:
But the toolbox for Democrats is relatively sparse, aside from litigation or legislative protests.
Though Democratic leaders have indicated a willingness to go tit for tat with Republicans, most of the largest blue states do not have a partisan redistricting process akin to the one in Texas, where the governor can simply call in the Legislature to redraw maps.
California has an independent commission in charge of drawing maps, which voters applied to congressional districts in 2010. New York also has a commission (though it is subject to potential legislative changes), and New Jersey’s political commission is separate from the Legislature.
States where Democrats would have complete control over any redistricting, such as Illinois and Maryland, are already gerrymandered heavily in their favor. Squeezing more Democratic seats out of those states would be a challenge.
The New York Times is reporting that blue states have no tools to counter red state redistricting because democrat states are already insanely gerrymandered.
Seems kind of obvious, no? pic.twitter.com/nWD07wlFbf
— David M. McIntosh (@DavidMMcintosh) July 24, 2025
To be quite frank, I’m not a purist on this issue at all after watching Democrats play hardball in North Carolina with redistricting, even after they finally lost control of the state legislature in 2010, with their Hurt Feelings Reports lawsuits over Republicans redrawing districts for state races and Congressional races being mired in the courts at various points for well over a decade (a strategy known here as “sue ’til blue“).
Democrats keep shaking their fists and shrieking “you’ll rue the day the shoe’s on the other foot!” without realizing this *is* the shoe being on the other foot. Everything Republicans are doing, Democrats already did. https://t.co/P8BMj28fhG
— url of sammich (@dotsammich) July 25, 2025
Facts.
Final thoughts from GOP political strategist Scott Jennings:
The official narrative seems to be 👇
When Democrats redistrict: GOOD
When Republicans redistrict: BAD
One of the greatest things President Trump has done for the GOP is show them we never have to live under the Democrats' double standards ever again. pic.twitter.com/sNAeHjjCb4
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 16, 2025
Hard to argue with that.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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Comments
I’ve long thought a good faith solution to gerrymandering is for all to adopt a simple grid of ten mile squares, overlay it on the map, and there are your voting districts.
But since this is politics, there’s precious little good faith, will never be adopted, and always be complicated.
How about them judges?
Downvote by mistake….
The main problem with your solution is it’s not feasible in sparsely populated rural areas. But the general idea is better than the current approach.
Obviously, sparsely populated areas would consist of more geographic area (more grid squares on the map). The purpose of the grid is to ignore geographic features and man-made divisions (both physical, like highways, and political, like cities and towns) that are currently used as boundaries (which can be manipulated by permitting decision-making, such as favoring a natural boundary in one instance, but a man-made boundary in another).
Rather than a grid of squares, I suggest a grid of hexagons. A computer could be programmed to superimpose a grid on a state and to then assign district-size populations to blocks of hexes that are contiguous, with mathematical rules to minimize their perimeters (which would make each district as compact as possible, and would not permit districts to crawl like salamanders all over the map). I’m sure that mathematics governing the implementing software could be made bomb-proof to a certainty.
There are articles all over the Internet on such proposals, and how they fail. The NYT actually published an online game called Hexapolis so people could try it themselves.
One big downfall is all the stupid AA laws that REQUIRE you to gerrymander set-aside district for minorities when any other proposal would result in their votes being diluted or swamped by white voters (ahhhhh… remember when whites WERE a majority?) So you’re stuck trying to not gerrymander in a game that arbitrarily demands you DO gerrymander or be punished.
“how they fail”
Meaning how they objectively don’t work or meaning how people would be dissatisfied with them? Objectively, a computer, an algorithm, and possibly as few as one or two databases would be all that are necessary to create a system that is mathematically fair – that it, hasn’t been influenced by politics. This is as objective as it can get. The only real subjectivity is set by law as the lower and upper limits to a population in a single CD.
My point is that the politics can be removed by math. I’m not talking about people fixing the districts, but their fixing by an algorithm that doesn’t consider anything other than creating districts with the least deviation from each other’s mean population and with the shortest possible perimeters. Period.
Below, CommoChief mentions regard should be given to “communities” and “political boundaries.” But there’s no reason why districting for federal offices should abide by any such boundaries other than those of individual States. (Because the “political boundaries” of counties, cities, and towns can themselves be gerrymandered to intentionally skew even the automated making of CD boundaries and there can be endless arguments over what constitutes a “community” as well as what doesn’t.) The only solution to matter is to remove all political and geographic considerations save the State’s border. The only fair districts are those that have the shortest possible perimeter while encompassing the requisite number of persons to establish such a district.
This isn’t the “best” article on the subject that I have read (I couldn’t find that one, it talked about minimizing perimeters among other engineering improvements), but it’s adequate to get a taste of the problem.
Why Redistricting Reform Goes Off the Rails
Better yet add a simple requirement for drawing CD (after apportionment) that each CD must have equal numbers of US Citizens (+/-)10%. Then gut the blatant race based discrimination of ‘minority majority’ CD. Keep the remaining criteria compact, not splitting communities, don’t cross political boundaries but provide the freedom to draw the borders how they wish with no more than 8 ‘sides’ not counting State border, County border, City/Town border or rivers. That would probably get it done.
I included in a new post (above) limiting deviation from a mean population derived from potential CDs (based on shortest perimeters) could be used to adjust CD borders to be apolitical and with the optimum distribution of political clout per person in each CD. None of this requires human (political) input, just an algorithm that has been mathematically proven to yield objectively optimal results. Which is not to say that anyone will be happy with those results. Certainly, if nobody is happy with the results, that would be the surest sign the work was done objectively.
Dave,
Removing the racist ‘minority majority’ nonsense then requiring no more than 10% variance within a State among the the CD for distribution of Citizens v mere residents and much of the weird shaped CD go away b/c there’s no way to justify them. Plus it forces more competitive campaigns in these CD b/c there won’t be lopsided uncompetitive Districts. The other big factor is simple fairness and refusing to engage in systemic dilution of voter power. There’s CD with 300K Citizens next to CD with less than 100K Citizens. That makes the political power of a voter with less than 100K Citizens more than 3x more meaningful/powerful than the voters in the neighboring CD.
Congressional seats must represent equal numbers of people. The only way to eliminate gerrymandering is to get rid of single member districts (currently required by federal law) and make all races statewide with cumulative voting or some such other scheme, and these have their big problems too.
Bad idea. I want my rep to live in my district. We are who they represent (theoretically). Ideally
I want their campaign funds to also come from within the district. That would take changing the law but I’m all for it.
Just for giggles, here’s a district map of Arizona.
Compare district 9, in the heart of the Phoenix valley, with district 1, which covers seven counties and the Navajo and Hopi nations. Yeah, they’re “equal population.”
I live in District 4. “My” rep lives more than half the state away from me.
All politics may be local, but we don’t even come close to local.
If CD boundaries had the shortest possible perimeters necessary to include the prerequisite number of people to constitute a CD it would assure people in rural areas that their reps would be as nearby as the rural nature of the CD permits. (Cities already have the density to assure that this is so.)
ztakddot, both of your proposals would require changes not merely to the law but to the constitution. (And your second proposal is not only unconstitutional but also a very bad idea.)
You must not live in flyover country. 😄
Out here, a lot of those districts would have 0-2 people in them.
I learned a few years ago that my house is its own census tract.
lefty is the most racist group in the world
The only way Democrats can “win” an election is by fraud: ranked-choice voting, mail-in ballots, ballot box stuffing, ejection of conservative poll watchers, voter intimidation (Black Panthers, anyone?), lawfare, gerrymandering, misrepresentation (RINOs), secret vote counting…
Every one a form of fraud, and every one supported by Democrats.
agree
and the gop acts helpless…”if only we had the votes”
they have it but then gop sides with leftists
middle america maga loses
And when was the last time that anyone from the Left was charged with vote fraud, or even at risk to be charged for doing that? And if such were to happen the GOPe would be screaming that it cannot be allowed because of “comity”.
Subotai Bahadur
Yep. Which is why I have lately come to the conclusion that we may need an “Adam Selene” solution.
See: “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert Heinlein
Wait until the minority majority nonsense requirement is finally rejected as blatantly illegal race based discrimination. You’ll have many squishy gop party power brokers having hissy fits in addition to the wokiesta leftists. The dirty not so secret truth is the uniparty prefers these sorts of CD b/c it makes campaigns less competitive for the vast majority of the remaining CD.
true
the left need not debate
they just do it
people get used to it ( bad actions) and then the rest of us are like
whathe.k
What the hell. Hell. Not ‘heck’ and definitely not this abomination– ‘he.k’
You are self censoring on the orders of leftists and social conservatives.
Free speech is free speech. It is NOT saying what someone else has said you are allowed to say.
Our country is dying because of millions of these tiny acquiescences.
Every micrometer we give is a mile they take.
Use RICO to permanently abolish the Democrat Crime Cabal
Had the corrupt Democrat cabal pulled off coup 2.0 Iran would have a bomb already
They are domestic enemies of the Republic and there is much dirt for the special counsel investigating coup 1.0 to prosecute including crimes against humanity in addition to treason and sedition
USe RICO and bunker-bust the democrat crime cabal
I live in Nevada which while evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, the distribution of representatives does not reflect this.
In the past two elections for seats in Congress, more votes statewide were cast for Republicans than Democrats but the Democrats outnumber Republican representatives 3 to 1.
The state assembly consists of 27 Democrats and 15 Republicans. This despite the fact that the state total votes for the assembly actually showed more votes for Republicans than Democrats.
The Illinois Congressional delegation is 14-3 in favor of Democrats but the actual state wide vote count is much closer to fifty fifty.
Nevada is notorious for being completely composed of red counties except for ONE… which always gets to wag the entire dog on population alone,
The NC example shows that there may be a method of quantifying different redistricting plans for gerrymandering by comparing aggregate perimeters. The longer the lines, the more it is gerrymandered. How about a process where the majority party proposes a plan, and then the minority party gets to propose a plan, and the one with the less gerrymandering (i.e. least perimeter) is adopted.
Haha! I’m just now reading your post after I wrote my own (above) along similar “lines.”
You’re right, it’s the length of the perimeter that counts. Why not just program a computer to use hexes (hexagons) as a grid to most efficiently fill a state with federal districts (based on population) in a manner such that the perimeter of each district is as short as possible?
Take the politics, political boundaries, and geography out of it, allow math to rule.
You are severely underestimating the “people problems.” And ALL politics is nothing but people problems.
“Even in a conveniently rectangular state like Colorado, districts would end up comprising unrelated communities separated from each other by mountains and long distances. Coherent communities would be split, perhaps multiple ways, to no good purpose.”
“intelligibility. People want at least a fighting chance to describe their district in words, and to guess correctly whether someone lives in it based on knowing where his or her residence is. Curved and diagonal lines usually don’t register as intelligible, while “east of the River” or “south of I-70″ may work fine. And while some neighborhoods may need to be split to make the numbers come out evenly, intelligibility is lost if a district line heedlessly splits every neighborhood it hits rather than finding the boundaries between them.”
Here in Arizona, for years, the Hopi Nation and the Navajo Nation were assigned to different districts — no mean feat of gerrymandering, since the tiny Hopi Nation is entirely landlocked by the Navajo Nation, and an even tinier fragment of the Navajo Nation is entirely landlocked inside the Hopi Nation! (It’s like a Native American version of Inception.)
The political sticking point is that the Hopis and Navajos are ancestral enemies — hence their insistence not to share a representative. A “district umbilical cord” ran down the center median of routes 160 and 26 to accomplish all this.
(Don’t ask me how this requirement apparently vanished this last time around,)
It’s time to sunset the Voting Rights Act. It’s been used as a bludgeon against Republicans almost since its inception 60 years ago. All it does is put leftist judges in charge of States business in relation to state and Congressional maps. If a minority wants to run in a given district win on your own ideas and merit. Do this and the jasmine crickets of the world will no longer have a “safe” seat. It will make Republicans have to align with their voters too. You won’t get squish rino’s too.
We need a voting rights act, but not the one that currently exists, which you correctly describe. I don’t think we can work without any act at all, but a new one needs to be written.
In particular, it was a big mistake to ban literacy tests. Yes, they were being badly abused in some places; the remedy should have been to crack down hard on those places and make them do it the right way, not to ban them altogether, even in the places that were doing it right.
Instead of literacy, which will undoubtedly produce disparate outcomes, how about knowledge?
There can be podcasts produced, translated into any language, that discusses basic civics lessons. Then the candidates produce their own podcasts describing their positions.
Then give a test not too dissimilar to the naturalized citizen exam. I would prefer people show they know what they are voting for rather than if they can read agitprop and have a degree in LGBTQIA Literature.
Can we get an accurate census that only counts citizens and lawful permanant residents?
The only way to get that would be to amend the constitution.
As Milhouse said, it will take an amendment. Also, I’m just not sure how much of a difference it can make. Illegals not being counted will hurt Texas and Florida close to what Cali and NY will lose. I know margins in the House are slim right now, but less than 15 seat difference is ahistorical.
I realize courting illegals may augment the balance for Cali and NY, but how much longer can they keep it up as the wealthy and businesses continue to flee?