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Virginia is voting on redrawing their congressional districts today. Here is the Wikipedia entry.
The main highlight is that it would change Virginia from 6-5 democrat-republican split to a 10-1 split. It is being sold by Democrats as an effort to counter Republican gerrymandering in other states. It is being panned by Republicans as unfair representation, and an election map that looks like Fairfax county (rich county in northern Virginia) gets to elect about half of the state's representatives.
I'm a Virginia resident. So I've been getting lots of mailers about the issue and simple vote "yes" or "no" signs are everywhere.
I'm very frustrated with the whole thing. First for Trump kicking off this fight. Second with the Democrats in Virginia that have made a ridiculously bullshit map. I still have yet to hear anyone from the "yes" side explain how this is good for Virginia other than "fight Trump". I even read one article that had a title implying it would be about voters not feeling represented, and it turns out the content of the article was about democratic leaders addressing the democrat voters in the now single solitary red district. No content about how Republican voters might feel in the 10 other districts.
If this level of bullshit is on the table I feel like other proposals that get shot down for being "crazy" in normal times might end up back on the table. Like a bunch of Virginia counties seceding and joining West Virginia. Or the right to giant congress
The most gerrymandered states are all Democratic. VRA throughout the South has given Democrats dozens of extra congressional seats. This was the original basis of the fight, Texas had explicitly gerrymandered minority-majority seats that caused DOJ to send Texas a letter. But this in turn was a response to a 2024 5th Circuit decicision about the VRA. Which, ultimately, yes, this is about the midterms, which ultimately is about the question of who gets to govern the country. Which is the only fight anyone is picking at all.
I feel as though being annoyed at Trump for starting a fight over political power is like being annoyed at Steph Curry for starting a 3-point shooting war.
The more notable story is that after Democrats have already gerrymandered half a dozen states and Republican states have a lot of slack they could pick up to fight back, the 2025-2026 redistricting wars will either end neutral or with a Democratic win. Well I feel confident that if we had 1,000 Trumps instead of 1,000 generic GOP party apparatchiks that would not be the case.
The worst gerrymandered states are all Dems? Really? the most offensive examples that i'm aware of are all in the south and all in favor republicans. I know in NY the dems tried to do a big redistricting a few years back but the state supreme court nixed it and they got much less meat off the bone than they hoped for.
either way, i'm no expert on the quality of district lines across the country but this list seems relatively nonpartisan (as far as commentary on this issue goes) and seems to paint a picture that neither party comes out looking clean if we wanna call gerrymandering a sin.
The list you cited is not very good because it looks at percentage points. This magnifies small changes. It cites, for example, North Carolina as the most-gerrymandered state. North Carolina has 14 Congressional districts. In 2024 Republicans won 52% of North Carolina's Congressional vote and Democrats won 42%. That would "naturally" produce a Congressional delegation of 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. Wow, the most gerrymandered state in the union -- Republicans gained 2 seats.
When you analyze by number of seats taken by gerrymandering instead of percentage points you consistently find that Democratic states engage in the most gerrymandering. This is why "neutral" analysts like to use the measure you cited. It sounds much better to come to a neutral conclusion about how gerrymandering is something both parties do equally. It sounds more fair and obvious. You must be some kind of partisan shill if you have any other intuition.
In California in 2024, Democrats won 60% of the vote and 43/52 Congressional seats.
In Illinois in 2024, Democrats won ~53% of the vote and 14/17 seats.
In New York in 2024, Democrats won 57% of the vote and 19/26 seats.
The link you posted somehow cites Illinois and New York but not California, possibly the worst offender. It's even more egregious now that Newsom passed his special referendum so that they could gerrymander it harder.
Traditionally, the Voting Rights Act has been interpreted to require the creation of "minority-majority" districts throughout southern states. I like the phrasing I found yesterday when reading this article for a different post in this discussion:
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/11/texas-redistricting-racial-gerrymandering-coalition-districts-trump/
You can't "dilute" minorities by "packing them into a single district or dispersing them throughout multiple". Ok then, what can you do with minorities? Logically the only legal outcome is whatever maximizes their voting power. This has traditionally only been applied to Southern States. A dozen Congressional seats reserved for Democrats by law, and you have to go all the way to the Supreme Court to overturn Civil Rights to stop it. Neat.
Oregon's last House election was 53% Democratic. They control 5/6 seats.
Washington State was 57% Democratic. They control 8/10 seats.
New England, as a region, does not send a single Republican to the House even though they only vote about 60% Democratic.
New York did mid-cycle redistricting in 2024. They increased Democratic margins in Democratic districts in response to concerns that the previous maps weren't generous enough to Democrats. You never hear about that though because all anybody cares about is Donald Trump. Trump gets involved in 2025, anything before that isn't real. Of course, after Trump gets involved, a Democratic judge in New York rules that the current map illegally discriminates against Latino and Black voters, which requires the elimination of more Republican seats. That one's being held up in court right now but it would eliminate a Republican Jewish congressional district in South New York City if it went through.
Let's look at Texas for a Republican equivalent.
In 2024, Texas Republicans won 58% of all votes cast for Congressional Representatives. Texas Republicans won 25 seats, out of 38. Democrats won 4/10 votes and still got 1/3 seats.
Now, of course everybody is gerrymandering, and it's especially favored to draw safe seats for powerful Congressmen from both parties. But when you look at the actual maps it's obvious and clear that Illinois and California, for example, have a special talent for gerrymandering.
There are some other things worth noting here as well.
For one, there were some errors made in the 2020 Census Reapportionment. Bizarrely, maybe a fluke of nature somehow, all these mistakes benefited Democrats. The Census Bureau released a report showing that mistakes had been made in 14 states. In terms of congressional representation, this resulted in Florida being short two seats, Texas being short one, Minnesota and Rhode Island retaining one seat each which they should have lost, and Colorado gaining a seat it should not have gained. (See here for Heritage's write-up on the situation)
For another base gut-check, consider how close Republican's Congressional majority is. In 2016, where Trump lost the popular vote, Republicans won the Congressional vote 48-47, and got a comfortable House lead of 241-194. In 2024, by contrast, where Trump won the popular vote, Republicans won the Congressional vote 49-47 -- and only got 220-215. The juice is being squeezed.
It's not ordered by percentage points. The first four are literally in reverse order of percentage-point difference. The list is bad, but not because it uses that measure (which I think is okay) - because it doesn't use any measure and is apparently just an arbitrary order.
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