Gerrymandering, such a simple concept. Draw a bunch of circles, squares, triangles and squiggles on a map so that more of them come out red than blue. Sounds so simple, but as with so many other things in life, the simplicity is utter bullshit. It’s actuality both a science as well as an art, at its finest.
Gerrymandering is actually just a technique of a larger procedure called redistricting. It takes place every 10 years, in the year after the census. And actually, there are some basic ground rules. The census tells you how many seats you get in the US House, so that’s how many districts you draw. If I remember correctly, a district consists of about 225,000 voters, so the districts should have roughly that number in each district. A moron should be able to draw an 11-9 red map in about an hour, but an artiste can end up with 15-5.
When you’re dealing with redistricting, you’re dealing with three separate and distinct terrains. You have rural, suburban/exurban, and urban. Two of those three terrains are no brainers. Urban voters are almost universally Democratic, and rural voters are solidly conservative. If most states were nothing but urban and rural, most states would be blue, since the urban population would overpower the scattered GOP rural populations. It is the long time traditional, loyal GOP suburban and exurban voters that have provided the GOP with the secret sauce of gerrymandering.
Here’s how it works in simple form. Draw a good sized circle with a certain number of rural GOP voters. Then draw another circle in a nearby urban Democratic area with more voters. Then draw a corridor between the two containing just enough staunch GOP suburban voters to provide a safe 3-4% margin of victory. Done properly, the GOP can literally steal 2-4 what should be safe Democratic seats by using GOP suburban voters in conjunction with a large swath of sparse rural voters to siphon off their strength.
And that’s what Trump fucked up. A literal pig on two feet, Trump infuriated and alienated staunch suburban women And I’m betting that at least some of those women have at least some sway over their husband’s votes. 2018 turned out to be a bloodbath for the GOP, with white suburban women punishing the party, since they couldn’t punish Trump directly. And in 2020, while white suburban white women came home for some down ballot, traditional GOP voters, they punished Trump by either voting for Biden, or leaving the top of the ticket blank.
What have I said over and over again? In order to keep your faith intact, make sure it remains unsullied by fact. Trump dropped the scales from these voters eyes, and they’ll never go back on again. Having voted for Democrats as recently as three years ago, Biden is doing things that people, even Republicans, like. And white suburban women, especially college educated working women will vote their pocketbooks, and Biden is getting them monthly credits for their kids, and wants preschool rather than daycare for pre-k schooling. And the GOP? Critical race theory and white grievance. Which way would you vote?
And that’s what Trump fucked up. The secret of successful gerrymandering is a large, stable pool of voters that you can use to dilute the power of the Democratic strongholds. Over the last few years, especially in the New South, both gentrification, which forced lower income Democrats farther and farther out into the suburbs and exurbs, as well as racial migration had deteriorated the GOP’s advantage. That’s why Trump kept trying to scare white suburban women with the impending influx of lowlifes into their neighborhoods, because they would vote Democratic. But it was Trump, and Trump alone who tore the suburbs apart, by driving suburban white women away from him and the party. So, if you’re a GOP state representative, responsible for helping to redraw the legislative map for the next 10 years, ask yourself one simple question. How do you redraw the map to maintain control of the House, when you can’t count on what was your largest, most stable voting block? As far as I’m concerned, the 2022 House is wide open, simply because the bumpkins in the state legislatures just don’t know who to trust anymore. Don’t touch that dial.