Percentage of House seats and NPV

[DC Al Fine]

and it should be illegal.

Reminds me of all those times I responded to TimTurner or someone's extreme gerrymanders in the Redistricting board with "You should be in prison!"

At the end of the day is to a large extent criminal distortion of the popular will.


I will say this though, a lot of GOP gerrymanders are based on a wishful thinking from the Obama years. The same kind of wishful thinking that governed the Romney campaign in 2012 was ever present in 2011 in a lot of states. That mindset is coming home to roost in a lot of places where we have seen GOP gerrymanders collapse like VA and also I would point out the GOP vote sinks drawn by the Democrats in the Chicago suburbs.

I can definitely see Texas getting into a Georgia dummymander type situation in the 2020's, where the GOP has too many incumbents to appease, draws the gerrymander too aggressively rather than sacrificing one or two reps to produce a more effective map, and the whole thing falls apart the first good year the Dems have.

[DC Al Fine]

Republicans got blown out in Wisconsin and yet lost one seat in the Assembly. This is exactly what the case that went before SCOTUS was all about. Republicans have totally insulated themselves from being held accountable by rigging the elections, leading to majorities so calcified that it would take a historic wave election (for WI) to dislodge them. But apparently this issue is going to be non-justiciable, because yes this is all perfectly normal and is how true democracy works.

/rant

How much of that is due to gerrymandering vs Democratic self-packing Virginia? In the Bush/Obama era one would expect the GOP to win a 50/50 race due to the Democrats running up the margins in their strongholds while the Republicans would have comparatively muted margins in the burbs and rural areas. Wisconsin is an interesting case of this because you get two very different packs; one in Milawaukee and another Madison. Obviously this effect is starting to disappear in states like Texas and Georgia but Wisconsin is the sort of place one would expect it to hold up.

[DC Al Fine]

Did I say anything about election rigging? I just said the Democrats didn't gain much ground from 2016 to 2018 in the PV.

And so you are implying that their is no problem with the election rigging in NC.

BTW, the election rigging itself affects the popular vote by changing turnout - why vote in a rigged election where your vote can't make any difference anyway? So even just looking at the popular vote doesn't necessarily tell the full picture. And in addition, the elections in NC were also rigged in 2016 (Dems should have won more seats than they actually did then, not just in 2018).

This all brings us back to the central point - if you think that election rigging is ok, why don't you leave the USA and go to a country like Russia or Syria instead? Or maybe Iran? Apparently you might feel right at home there.

You seem lost. This is Atlas Forum. Youtube comment sections is three blocks over.

[DC Al Fine]

How much of that is due to gerrymandering vs Democratic self-packing Virginia? In the Bush/Obama era one would expect the GOP to win a 50/50 race due to the Democrats running up the margins in their strongholds while the Republicans would have comparatively muted margins in the burbs and rural areas. Wisconsin is an interesting case of this because you get two very different packs; one in Milawaukee and another Madison. Obviously this effect is starting to disappear in states like Texas and Georgia but Wisconsin is the sort of place one would expect it to hold up.

Self-packing also makes it easier to draw these kinds of gerrymanders (for Republicans). You might argue that is why this one is particularly rigid. But geographic effects in this case would not totally neuter Democrats in the legislature. That kind of margin should have flipped the Assembly or come close like VA 2017.

I'm going to have to push back a little bit on your Wisconsin example. According to Ballotpedia, the GOP left 30/99 state assembly seats uncontested vs only 8 for the Democrats. That's bound to screw up any comparison of popular vote vs seat share.