By Curt_Anderson November 10, 2022 3:46 pm Category: Government (0.0 from 0 votes)
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I made this diagram of an imaginary state with 12 congressional districts. In this hypothetical state, the Republican voters have a 51% to 49% advantage. The red dots represent Republican voters and blue are the Democrats.
If a Republican legislature wanted all but one district to be strongly GOP-leaning they might come up with gerrymandering plan to corral all the Democrats into one district. In my example, the Democrats would account for 83% of the vote in their single district. The other 11 districts would tilt 54% toward the GOP.
I wonder if that is a significant advantage. In that single Democratic district, a candidate who is a Democrat is lock to win. In the other 11 districts, the Republican candidates have an edge slightly better than 50% but it is impacted by the quality of the candidate, voter mood and the fact the voters move from one district to another and that voters move in and out state. Of course, voters die and new voters arise. Not to mention there is always a share of the electorate who are independents and not aligned with either major party.
If you were in position to redraw districts, how would you divide up the districts to be to your party's political advantage? I have a feeling it's either said than done.
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