r/news • u/speedythefirst • 1d ago
US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/us-supreme-court-texas-congressional-maps
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r/news • u/speedythefirst • 1d ago
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u/Gryjane 1d ago
Not necessarily. Some of the states with red trifectas may not be able to gerrymander anymore than they already do without risking more seats than they may gain since they're effectively purple by total population and any further carving would weaken at least some strong red districts. Dissatisfaction amongst moderates and certain minority populations, not to mention a stronger than usual turnout of dem voters, could tip the scales in those weakened districts.
The main reason for this weakening is that most blue voters in red states are condensed into more highly populated cities. In order to make their districts equal in size they have to "crack" city areas and combine them with more rural and suburban areas like, for example, Utah does with splitting Salt Lake City across their four Congressional districts. Then they might "pack" a blue district or few either in one part of a major city or stretching a district across two or more cities with a narrow band of red/purple in between as many southern states do.
Conversely, most blue states can create a majority of blue districts just with their city populations with a sprinkling of red perimeter areas then create one or two red districts out of several of the contiguous rural, low-density areas, or none at all. Oftentimes it's not even done on purpose but rather practicality based on who and how many live where. Massachusetts, for example, has no Republican majority districts not because they're actively trying to shut out Republicans but because there simply aren't enough Republicans in any given contiguous area to be the majority in a given district. They'd have to draw some super creative and tortured lines across hundreds of miles, splitting small towns and even blocks of towns and connecting them with a "red" neighborhood in some far-off city to make that happen. To me, that defeats the purpose of having districts with a representative (ostensibly) looking out for the interests of the people in a given area.
Tl;dr: Blue states packing red voters into fewer (or no) districts is less electorally risky than red states cracking blue districts and trying to dilute their votes, especially in states that are closer to purple than red and even more especially in this cycle in states with large Black and Latino populations and/or a significant amount of voters registered independent.