A Utah judge on Monday rejected a Republican-approved congressional map in favor of an alternative that will create a Democratic-leaning district in the Beehive State.
Third District Judge Dianna Gibson wrote in her ruling that the map, which had a finalizing deadline on Monday, “does not comply with Utah law.”
Republicans’ House map, known as Map C, “was drawn with partisan political data on display. Map C does not abide by Proposition 4’s traditional redistricting criteria ‘to the greatest extent practicable,’” Gibson wrote, referring to the 2018 ballot measure approved by voters that reformed redistricting standards.
Does not Comply with the LAW? What is she an ACTIVIST JUDGE?
Basically Antifa leadership
This whole gerrymandering backfiring on Republicans is the gift I need for 2026. Along with GTA VI
gerrymandering backfiring on Republicans
I wouldn’t bank on this. The GOP has an enormous institutional advantage via decades of gerrymander going back to the Bush Era. The latest efforts are squeezes at a juiced lemon.
It hasn’t backfired. It’s the reason the GOP keeps winning House majorities even in years with a Dem turnout advantage.
The thing that’s going to fuck them in 2026 is the massive backlash to an unpopular president. But four years after that? The deck remains heavily stacked in their favor. Over the long term, conservatives win.
There’s some math here that may work against them. The mechanics behind gerrymandering are such that you give your opponent a couple of safe districts of 15 to 20 points in their favor, and then give yourself a lot more districts that are 7 to 15 points in your favor.
What happens if the whole thing shifts out from under you, and suddenly there’s an extra 10 points against you? What happens is you lose almost everything.
The elections held last week were sometimes shifting 20 points in favor of Democrats. If those numbers hold for next year’s midterms, Republicans will be absolutely flooded out.
Wisconsin’s 2024 state assembly map isn’t as gerrymandered as it was, but still pretty gerrymandered. Here’s the list of results of that election:
https://www.wpr.org/election-results-2024-state-assembly
If you switch 20 points towards the Democrats across the board, I count that Republicans would end up with 11 seats out of 99. Some of those are even granting them the win on three way races or where they ran uncontested.
This will work very well as long as Democrats don’t do anything stupid. Such as caving on the government shutdown. That might be a disaster. Good thing they know to avoid doing that.
What happens if the whole thing shifts out from under you, and suddenly there’s an extra 10 points against you? What happens is you lose almost everything.
You never lose “almost everything” because there are still tons of seats in redder states that Dems consider fully unassailable. Florida, Ohio, and Texas have such a large GOP advantage over such wide territory that they can’t make every seat 7-pts even if they try.
From time to time, you get swept in a Blue Wave. And for 2-4 years, the Dems have a House majority built on an anti-Presidential turnout. But as soon as they win the Presidency (as in '08 and '20), the advantage evaporates and the GOP win back all those House seats.
And because the Democratic Party is so packed with corporate turncoats, corrupt shills, and wanna-be celebrities, the majority they secure during a wave year doesn’t produce legislation to counter prior Republican majorities. Republicans can slow down liberal reforms on parliamentary procedure and just wait out the Dems until the next conservative wave, at which point the gerrymanders pay their dividend.
If you switch 20 points towards the Democrats across the board
Why stop at 20? Rub your genie lamp and wish bigger. What if Dems get UK Labour scale wins and pull in 400+ House seats in 2026?
It doesn’t matter, if the majority the Dems assemble are bottled up with a conserva-Dem leadership, an intractable Senate, and veto-happy Presidency. All you get on these terms is another government shutdown. Exactly what happened in the 1980s under Tip O’Neil and 2018 under Pelosi.
