The Daily - How Democrats Evened the Congressional Map

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

In the past, Republicans have been able to secure what some see as an unfair political advantage by gerrymandering political districts.But after the recent redrawing of zones, the congressional map across the U.S. is perhaps more evenly split than at any time in the past 50 years.What happened?Guest: Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent for The Upshot at The New York Times.Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at [e-mail]. You can find more information and specific instructions here.Background reading: The surprisingly fair congressional map defies the expectations of many analysts — and it is something of an accident.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. After years of partisan gerrymandering, America's congressional map has heavily favored Republicans over Democrats. Until now. I spoke with my colleague, Nate Cohen, Republicans over Democrats. Until now. I spoke with my colleague Nate Cohen about why this year's midterm elections

could be the fairest in a generation. It's Thursday, March 31st. Nate, tell us about this reporting that you've been doing about the state of the United States congressional map. So I've been tracking a process called reapportionment. And that's where every 10 years after the new census, the states redraw their congressional maps to ensure that every district has an equal number of people. Right, because the census gives us a newer understanding of how many people are in every district. And some states get new districts as a result of gaining population, and then other states that

has a slower population growth or even lose people will lose congressional districts. So everyone has to redraw their maps to account for the new data. And in recent decades, the Republicans have really done well in this process. They have controlled the redistricting process in more states than Democrats, and they've used that power to draw more Republican-leaning districts than Democrats. Right, because this process is controlled by state legislatures. Yeah, the state legislatures have the responsibility to draw the maps under the Constitution. There are some exceptions. There are states that have independent commissions, for instance. But for the most part, it's under the control of the state governments.

And in recent decades, the Republicans have used that power to help build a significant structural advantage in the House of Representatives, one that gives them the ability to win the House of Representatives, even though they may not always win the most votes. Right, because Republicans are drawing congressional maps in a very specific way. Right. It's called partisan gerrymandering. And they try and draw as many districts that lean their way as possible and even draw them so that there's really no chance that they'll lose them. And in the past, the Republicans have used this power to build a considerable structural advantage in the House, large enough that it allows them to win the House of Representatives,

win the most seats for House, even though they don't always win the most votes. Can I just pause on that? Because I think that's important. You're saying Republicans have gotten so successful at partisan gerrymandering, at drawing districts to their political advantage, that even when they don't get the most votes around the country, they still emerge as the victor when it comes to the House of Representatives. They still win more seats, even though they don't win the most votes. Yeah. And sometimes that advantage has been

so significant that the race for the House hasn't even been competitive, even when the Democrats win the most seats. That happened in 2012, when the House wasn't even contested in a serious way. Republicans comfortably won the most seats, but the Democrats actually won the most votes for the chamber. Right, which in a lowercase d democratic sense is not how the system is supposed to work. It's not. And the House, more than any other part of the federal government, is supposed to reflect the will of the people. Right.

And partisan gerrymandering has been a major reason why it has sort of failed to do so in recent decades. So, Nate, as reapportionment gets underway in 2020, following the 2020 census, I suspect that you imagine Republicans are going to dominate the process once again. Well, that is what you'd expect. But in fact, the opposite happened. Miraculously, the map wound up being unusually balanced. It's the most balanced map in 50 years

by some measures. Maybe the simplest way to look at it is how many districts tilt towards the Democrats or the Republicans compared to the country. And, you know, there are 218 seats needed for a majority. And at the end of the day, it looks like there are going to be between 216 and 219 seats that tilt Democratic compared to the country. And there are going to be 216 to 219 seats that tilt Republican compared to the country.

So it's basically even. As recently as a decade ago, there were fewer than 200 seats that tilted towards Democrats compared to the country. So it's a huge change from where we were not too long ago. Yeah, I mean, that is genuinely surprising. It is, and it took a lot needing to go right for Democrats and reformers.

And it took some real luck, and a lot of it that you just wouldn't have expected at the beginning of this. So, Nate, how did that happen? What is the story behind how we get what you described as a miraculously even congressional map? Well, a lot had to happen. A lot of surprises had to break the way of the Democrats. And I think that one of the biggest surprises is just how far Democrats are willing to go to draw maps to their advantage in the states where they control the process, to do gerrymandering themselves. And the Democrats in 2010, the last time the maps were drawn, there were some states where they drew some extreme time the maps were drawn, there were some states where they drew some extreme gerrymanders and there were some states where they didn't. But I think after what they saw from the Republicans in 2010, they decided that they were going to

be much more aggressive about redistricting to their advantage. This played out in a half dozen states. There's no one state that just decided the whole thing. There are a couple of states that, you know, really shifted several districts by drawing the lines more aggressively to the advantage of Democrats, like New York and Illinois. And there are a lot of small states where Democrats made little decisions here and there that no one would have expected. In Oregon, for instance, the Democrats had made a deal with the Republicans that they were going to share power in redrawing the lines. And the Democrats this September said, actually, we're going to do it ourselves. And they just broke the deal. And the result of that is that the party drew at least one new Democratic district for themselves that wasn't going to happen at the beginning of the cycle.

Nate, you mentioned New York and Illinois. Let's dive into those. Yeah. So, you know, in Illinois, this is a state where the Democrats really did try and draw an aggressive gerrymander a decade ago. But honestly, they kind of failed. really did try and draw an aggressive gerrymander a decade ago. But honestly, they kind of failed. The way electoral trends were working in the country just didn't line up with the way they drew that map. They thought they were going to be able to win districts in downstate Illinois, that it just turned out weren't going to happen because of the growing Republican strength among white working class voters. This time they have done it right. They have drawn solid Biden districts that he won by double digits or more. And that's going

to yield a couple of new Democratic districts. I think there's a similar story in New York. The process is a little bit different because the Democrats did not have full control over the redistricting process a decade ago. The courts had to do it. But this time, Democrats had control of the state Senate. And so they decided they were going to draw a map themselves. And they've probably got every last district they could realistically have hoped to win in New York, including drawing districts that few people would have even thought to imagine at the beginning of the cycle, like combining Park Slope and Staten Island into one Democratic-leaning district. I'm going to explain that to the non-New York listener, because it's kind of fascinating. You're describing a district in which Staten Island,

which is known in New York City as a bastion of republicanism and used to have its own congressperson unto itself, is now been shoehorned into a congressional district with Park Slope, which is among the most liberal neighborhoods in all of New York City. That is not a very naturally occurring congressional district. And they are not exactly near each other. I mean, you have to draw like a narrow corridor from Staten Island to Park Slope for the sole purpose of linking this ultra-democratic area with this moderately Republican area and winding up with a district that leans Democratic. Right. I mean, talk about not close to each other. I mean, you literally have to take a ferry to get to Staten Island. So nothing about that seems natural.

That's right. So Nate, a district like this that combines Park Slope and Staten Island, I'm hearing you say that's surprising because it was unclear just how hard Democrats would lean into partisan gerrymandering because they haven't been particularly aggressive or good at it in the past. Yeah. And, you know, I think the biggest surprise is that they did it everywhere. You know, in one case, maybe it wouldn't have been surprising, but the Democrats in the past have not been so consistent about maximizing the number of seats that they win in almost every case. maximizing the number of seats that they win in almost every case. Democrats gained about a dozen seats that used to lean Republican in New York, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, and Oregon.

What else unexpectedly happened that got us to this even map? One of the other big things that happened is that the Republicans lost a long string of court rulings in Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And not only did they lose those rulings, but the courts imposed new maps that were far more favorable to Democrats than you would have guessed at the beginning of the process. And Nate, when you say lost court rulings, I'm guessing you mean Republicans lost court rulings over the fairness of congressional districts. Often. So in North Carolina, for instance, the Republicans tried to draw a harsh gerrymander that could have resulted in as few as three Democratic districts in a state that is routinely very competitive. And the state court there struck down that gerrymander. In Ohio, the Republicans tried to enact a map that could have resulted in as few as two Democratic districts

in a somewhat competitive state. The court struck down that gerrymander. And in Pennsylvania, the state legislature and the governor reached an impasse over the map and they didn't successfully enact one. And it was up to the courts to decide what map would ultimately be enacted. And the court basically just chose the governor's map.

Got it. So Republicans try to gerrymander and the courts basically say, no. That's right. And not only did the courts strike down these Republican gerrymanders, they imposed new maps that were just better for Democrats than at least I would have guessed. You know, in North Carolina, they drew a map that's basically going to yield an even split between Democratic and Republican districts. And they did that in a way that I just never would have guessed a court would do. They cut Charlotte's Mecklenburg County into two and created two Democratic districts out of that area rather than just have one district entirely in Mecklenburg County.

That's really unusual because keeping the core of a major metropolitan area together is usually what nonpartisan map makers do. That's the kind of tactic that you use for gerrymandering is to split up a city like that. Nate, do you have a feel for why the Republican gerrymanders this time around have been struck down at the rate they have versus court striking down Democratic gerrymanders? You know, I don't have a great explanation for that. In some of these cases, like in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the groundwork for these rulings was already laid during the latter part of the last decade when those courts already struck down Republican gerrymanders. In other states, you know, these are partisan Supreme Courts where there actually are more

Democrats than Republicans, and it's possible that that has weighed on their decision. And in other cases, you know, the provisions of the state constitution are relevant. You know, Ohio has constitutional restrictions on how the state legislature can draw new congressional districts. So that gave courts more to work with in restricting a gerrymander in Ohio than a court in Oregon has to work with. All that said, the courts don't always rule with the Democrats. Just on Friday, state court in Maryland struck down an extreme Democratic gerrymander in that state. We don't know what kind of map will replace it. And so while Republicans have been losing a lot, there's no reason why there won't be opportunities for them to erode Democratic gerrymanders in the weeks and months ahead.

So for now, the Democrats have been able to balance the congressional map because of a combination of legal luck and political strategy. Yes. But the final element is that this time around, Republicans were not as strategic about gerrymandering as they have been in the past. We'll be right back. Nate, you said that Republicans who have been masters of partisan gerrymandering in the past have not been as strategic this time around. What do you mean? Explain that. Well, there were a number of states where the Republicans were somewhat more defensive than they have been in the past. So rather than trying to eliminate Democratic districts, they chose to shore up already Republican districts.

And the effect of that is that the Republicans didn't gain nearly as many seats as they had in previous cycles. And where do we see an example of this Republican defensiveness? I think that the easiest example is Texas. And it's such an easy example because no one can doubt that the Republican Party in Texas was basically willing to go as far as anyone is willing to go in pursuit of an extreme gerrymander. I mean, the districts that they draw, they snake hundreds of miles from the Dallas metropolitan area to the New Mexico-Oklahoma border. But they actually didn't eliminate any Democratic districts, really. The number of Democratic districts is unchanged. But they actually didn't eliminate any Democratic districts, really.

The number of Democratic districts is unchanged. What really happened is that a number of districts that were previously leaning Republican in the suburbs around Dallas and Houston have been made into solid Republican districts. So they protected their own, but ultimately kind of purple to bright red in a way that means it's full of Republicans. It's a great example because that district was brutally gerrymandered before. I mean, it was another squiggly, snaky district, and it's still just as snaky, but they just moved it a little further away from the center of Houston. And the result of that is that they made that district more Republican. But to do that, the blue parts of Crenshaw's old district have been piled into his neighbor. And

so that made Crenshaw's district much safer than before. It's now a little farther away from downtown Houston, while his neighbor's district, which was a Democratic tilting district, is now solidly Democratic. Does that mean Republicans got a little bit greedy? Meaning they weren't just satisfied with a Republican tilting district. They wanted a Republican lock, a bright red district that they knew they couldn't lose. Well, no, I think the greedy thing to do in this case would have been to look at Crenshaw and look at his neighbor, who's a Democrat, Lizzie Fletcher, and say, you know what? We're going to eliminate that Fletcher district that we lost over the last decade. And maybe we'll keep Crenshaw in a leaning Republican district just to make sure that we get more Republicans into the Lizzie Fletcher district. Why wouldn't Republicans have done the greedier thing?

Why wouldn't they eliminate the Democratic district? I mean, that is the incentive every party has in this process. So I think there are two possibilities. One is that they don't want to run afoul of the Voting Rights Act, which tries to preserve the opportunity for people of color to elect the candidate of their choice in areas where black or Latino voters represent a majority of the population. And in a state like Texas, oftentimes, Democratic-leaning districts are predominantly non-white. And that means it's more difficult from a legal standpoint for the Republicans to eliminate those congressional districts than it would be if those were predominantly white districts.

The second possibility, and I think this is the likelier one, is that Republicans in Texas are afraid of the sweeping demographic changes that have brought that state from being solidly red to lean Republican over the last decade. And so they look at these lean Republican districts like Crenshaw's old district and they're like, yeah, we're still winning that district, but actually they don't know that they're going to win that district in four more years the way the trends are going. Fascinating. So I think they think that they have to play

defense because they're planning ahead for a time when maybe Texas isn't light red anymore. Meaning Republicans are focused on shoring up a district like Dan Crenshaw's because they see over time a blue wave coming and they want to make sure that they don't lose a Republican seat when that comes. Yeah, here's a different way to think about it. Right now, this new map didn't eliminate any Democratic districts compared to before. But if Texas turns blue over this decade, this map is way better for Republicans than the map they had before. So it appears to be a long-term defensive strategy to ensure that the Republicans still win an overwhelming majority of districts in Texas, ensure that the Republicans still win an overwhelming majority of districts in Texas, even if the state turns blue, and even if that costs them a couple of districts in 2022.

Okay, so that's how we get to this moment where the congressional map is strangely, and in a very unfamiliar way, even. Aggressive Democratic gerrymandering, favorable court rulings for Democrats, and Republican defensiveness. Yeah, and alone, there was no single state that was so surprising that it changed the whole trajectory of redistricting. But what was really surprising here is that almost everything broke the Democrats' way. They needed a lot to go right to get this outcome. They needed to get the best outcome they could have hoped for in 15 states, and that's basically the way it worked out for them. So let's project forward to November. It's election day. If the map looks like this, what will it mean for the likely outcome? what will it mean for the likely outcome?

Well, it doesn't necessarily tell us anything about who's going to win the House of Representatives. What it tells us, though, is that the fight for the House is going to be pretty fair. So the party that wins the most votes is probably going to win control of the House of Representatives. Now, that may not save the Democrats this November because Joe Biden's approval rating is at 42%, and the Democrats just lost a governor's race in Virginia.

So there's a distinct chance that the Republicans are going to win the most votes and potentially buy a lot, allowing Republicans to retake the House. But if the Democrats lose, they're going to sort of lose fair and square this time. This isn't going to be like in 2012 in all likelihood, where they win the most votes and aren't even competitive for the House. win the most votes and aren't even competitive for the House. So the outcome of this midterm, whatever it is, is going to be more reflective of the will of the American people than elections like this have been in the past. But it feels like there's an irony in that, right? Because partisan gerrymandering by both sides, and more by Democrats this time than last time, means that individual districts are kind of tortured

and as a result, less competitive, which never feels democratic. And yet overall, the map that that process has achieved is more even. There's clearly a conflict there. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in some essential sense, there's no higher level of fairness in a competition than just whether both sides who are competing have an equal chance.

And that basic partisan fairness has been accomplished here. And in fact, this map is more fair than the typical map that's drawn by a nonpartisan commission in a lot of states. But on the other hand, it's not exactly an unequivocal win for democracy here. On the other hand, it's not exactly an unequivocal win for democracy here. If we think about fairness in the context of democracy, you know, you're looking for the opportunity for every voter to have a certain say in the process. And I think it's fair to say that a lot of voters, a lot of communities have been denied a fair opportunity to have representation in Congress. Right. If you live in Staten Island, for example, this is not an ideal process. You have lost your ability to elect a congressperson. No, there was a deliberate attempt by the Democratic lawmakers in New York to make sure that people in Staten Island didn't get representation in Congress. Right. A certain kind of fairness has been achieved here on a national map. But in the process, some real unfairness has occurred at a local level.

So basically, what we have arrived at is an even map achieved through pretty ugly means. Yeah, absolutely. And there were alternative paths here. The Supreme Court had an opportunity to ban partisan gerrymandering, didn't take it. The Congress had the opportunity to ban partisan gerrymandering, didn't take it. And so the question at that point where there's not going to be a map

without partisan gerrymandering is, is it better for these two forms of gerrymandering to cancel out, even if that means that additional communities are disenfranchised? Or is it better to have a map where only one side gerrymanders and fewer communities are disenfranchised, but the overall balance of the map is unfair? I don't think that there's too much doubt that in a two-party system where partisan control of government is the single biggest issue at stake in an election, that achieving that overall partisan fairness is a significant accomplishment that's probably worth the minor trade-offs in representation for particular communities. And it is important

to keep both of those thoughts in our head and not let the triumph of one mean that we forget about the other. But I do think that there is an achievement here. There is an accomplishment here of some kind that improves confidence in the democracy at some level. I mean, I think we've all seen in recent elections, whether it's 2016 or 2000, just how traumatic it is for the country when the party that wins the most votes doesn't win control of government. And if that can't happen over many consecutive cycles, I don't think we want to know what that would do for the overall credibility of the system. So I think that there are some significant advantages to achieving this kind of partisan balance that has been pulled off.

Nate, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, American intelligence officials said that intercepted communications showed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been given incomplete or overly optimistic reports from his advisers about the state of Russia's military operations in Ukraine.

The U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said that Russian military leaders may be afraid to tell Putin the true state of the war for fear of upsetting him and being punished by him. One of the Achilles heels of autocracies is that you don't have people in those systems who speak truth to power or who have the ability to speak truth to power. And I think that is something that we're seeing in Russia. Putin has already put two top intelligence officials under house arrest for providing poor intelligence ahead of the invasion, something that may have contributed to the climate of fear.

And the Times reports that Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine has decided to support the confirmation of Judge Katonji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, becoming the first Republican to do so. Collins' backing all but assures that Brown will be confirmed to the court and that President Biden can claim a measure of bipartisan support for his nominee. Today's episode was produced by Luke Vander Ploeg and Muj Zayde. It was edited by Paige Cowan and John Ketchum, contains original music from Marion Lozano and Brad Fisher, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landfork of Wonderland.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilboro. See you tomorrow.