Underrated consequence of gerrymandering; weakening bench of opposition party?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I’ve thought this for as long as I’ve really thought about gerrymandering. Look at Nevada, there’s really no prominent incumbent republicans in the state to run for senate. I think Wisconsin has had a similar issue. They had a few state wide officials but no prominent congressmen willing.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

Who got elected on non-gerrymandered maps!

If Dems hadn’t let the court slip away they could have had fair maps for much longer. The hope is that Mark Robinson begins the Arizonification of the NCGOP and that leads to the party’s luck changing on SCOTUS races.

Well, I hope so but I wouldn't bet on it.

Why not?

North Carolina isn’t Arizona. Whereas Arizona is just one massive city with little to no rural population, North Carolina has several medium to large cities but also a large rural population, and is general just much more inelastic

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

100%. This was and still kind of is a big problem for NC Dems.

To be fair the 2022 class gave us Nickel and Jackson, both of whom are potential strong statewide candidates. “Moderate white guy” has always been a winning formula for the NC Dems, as seen by Roy Cooper and Josh Stein. Of course it also gave us Cal Cunningham.

Who got elected on non-gerrymandered maps!

If Dems hadn’t let the court slip away they could have had fair maps for much longer. The hope is that Mark Robinson begins the Arizonification of the NCGOP and that leads to the party’s luck changing on SCOTUS races.

Well, I hope so but I wouldn't bet on it.

Why not?

North Carolina isn’t Arizona. Whereas Arizona is just one massive city with little to no rural population, North Carolina has several medium to large cities but also a large rural population, and is general just much more inelastic

This, plus in AZ Dems can win the state leg just by continuing to flip suburban Pheonix and Tucson seats. In NC, just making gains in suburbs is unlikely to be enough to flip the state leg; Dems have to hold down and claw back in some of these rural areas where they've been losing ground for a while.

For instance, here's the State Senate map; Biden won 19 seats in 2020. Where are the extra 6 or 7 seats coming from that would allow Dems to win? SD-07, SD-18, and maybe SD-34 seem like the only ones with decent long-term trajectories.

NC Dems should focus on statewide races first. If they get the courts back they can get fair maps both for congress and the legislature. Eventually Dems will hit their floor in rural areas and can focus on maximizing their performance in the big cities.

The NC GOP doesn’t play “fair”. They were the ones who gutted all powers from the governor in 2016, they were the ones to push for the independent state legislature theory. If NCDems take back the Supreme Court I wouldn’t put it past them to pass constitutional amendments barring them from redistricting

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Honestly if the NCGOP could get away with it I wouldn’t be shocked if they’d switch to a parliamentary system

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

How hard would it be to change the super majority? I know some states have it as just 50%+1