'Gaining force': WSJ calls out MAGA and Dems alike

President Donald Trump initiated a crusade to gerrymander the House of Representatives to Republicans’ advantage, Democrats responded with their own gerrymandering campaign — and now, one distinguished newspaper argues, democracy in general has lost.

“Early voting began in Virginia last week, as Democrats seek the public’s permission to gerrymander the state to the max,” wrote The Wall Street Journal editorial board. They wrote that although the ballot language characterizes the initiative as intended to “restore fairness,” it will actually make it likely that Democrats will win 10 of Virginia’s 11 House seats, even though Trump won 46 percent of that state’s vote in 2024.

At the same time, the Journal blamed Trump for having “fired the opening salvo in this mid-decade gerrymander war” by encouraging Texas to redraw its House map so Republicans could gain another four or five seats. California responded by successfully pushing a referendum that will likely give Democrats another five seats, even compelling one Republican House member (Rep. Kevin Kiley) to become an independent so he could politically survive in his new district.

“The public dislikes gerrymandering, and for good reason: A Virginia map that’s tilted 10-1 for Democrats is less representative of the state overall, and likewise for a Missouri plan that’s 7-1 for Republicans,” the Journal wrote. “Some states are still considering redistricting, so it’s impossible to say how Mr. Trump’s gambit will work out in November, but it could be a backfire. Meantime, the case for Congress to put some limits on partisan gerrymandering is gaining force.”

In January CNN data analyst Harry Enten observed that, despite Republicans pushing for gerrymandering under Trump, Democrats have managed to out-maneuver them up to this point. After breaking down the numbers, Enter estimated that Democrats would be roughly one seat ahead when all the gerrymandering is over, and that is before their estimated advantage because of Trump’s low approval ratings and the traditional incumbency disadvantage.

"The bottom line is this: it started out as a plus for Republicans, and now it looks like the Democrats have fought back and fought back in a major way," Enten explained. "It looks like it‘s going to be a plus for them nationwide."

He continued, "If you said to me last summer, Democrats are more likely to gain than Republicans, I wouldn‘t buy it. But again, as I said at the start, Donald Trump and the Republicans started this mid-decade redistricting war, but it looks like Democrats are going to finish him off."

Kiley, when explaining why he switched his parties, admitted to The Atlantic in March that he felt compelled to do so for his political survival due to the gerrymandering.

“One of the evils of gerrymandering is that it elevates partisanship above everything else. It makes it the sum and substance of our politics,” Kiley told The Atlantic. “So I thought, well, maybe one antidote to that is to just take partisanship out of the equation.”

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