By Chris Stirewalt | Friday, April 24
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By Chris Stirewalt
Friday, April 24
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Onward to the gerrymandering apocalypse
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[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audience.]
SAN FRANCISCO — Californians are having a helluva time picking their next governor, what with the sex scandals and the nonpartisan primary. But the issue lurking behind it all is one that dominated state politics through its boom years and is now reasserting itself during California’s population decline: redistricting.
Indeed, depending on how things go this fall, this could be ground zero for the next escalation in the gerrymandering wars that threaten to take America into a redistricting nuclear winter.
California has been a Democratic state since 1958. Since then, it has produced the Republican presidents who won the two biggest electoral landslides in the party’s history, but the party has never again owned a majority of California’s seats in the House.
There are a lot of other reasons why Republicans have been lost in the fog in California for the past 30 years, but California Democrats’ gift for gerrymandering has most certainly been a part of the story.
What happened in 1958? The Republican boss at the time, Sen. William Knowland, had lost his post as majority leader in Washington and wanted to come back home. He pushed the incumbent GOP governor out of the race so Knowland could run himself and got the governor to run for his Senate seat. Both of them got their clocks cleaned in Ike’s second midterm. San Francisco District Attorney Pat Brown beat Knowland by 20 points and carried a brand new Democratic majority into both houses in Sacramento.
The timing was propitious. California’s still-booming population would garner the state an astonishing eight seats after the 1960 census. That gave Brown and the Democrats a once-in-a-lifetime shot at gerrymandering.
California Democrats got so good at gerrymandering that by the 1980s, the wildly tilted maps had become a political issue themselves. In the days before AI models and deep data, Democratic Rep. Phil Burton had managed to devise a map even Republicans had to admire as a “diabolical masterpiece.” In 1982, as part of a Republican sweep that included a Senate defeat for Brown’s son, Jerry, then the incumbent governor, voters vetoed the Burton map. But through a combination of legal legerdemain and a lame-duck power grab in Sacramento, the Democratic maps went into place anyway.
In 1984, as former Gov. Ronald Reagan won his smashing national landslide and carried his home state by 17 points, only one incumbent House Democrat lost reelection. Reagan was atop political Olympus, but Democrats controlled 27 of his state’s 45 House seats. For the next 30 years, as Republicans predominated in the governorship, the parties reached a truce in which the Democratic advantage would be preserved but that the state Legislature would forswear the most egregious kinds of land grabs. That basically held until 2008, when voters approved an anti-gerrymandering measure, which Democrats felt comfortable supporting because by then, they didn’t need rigged maps to dominate. In the 2018 blue wave, Democrats won 46 of 53 House seats — 87 percent.
But even that wouldn't be enough. In 2025, voters ended the 2008 gerrymandering ceasefire in order to seek revenge on President Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for their audacious mid-decade gerrymander.
You know what happened next, with the two largest states, one Republican and one Democratic, setting off a chain reaction of gerrymandering that, most recently, exploded the bipartisan consensus on mapping in Virginia. Democrats’ narrower-than-expected but still-decisive win in Tuesday’s plebiscite undoing the commonwealth’s own truce may or may not be the end of it.
There’s a long-shot legal bid to block the change that would take Virginia from an equitable apportionment to a likely 10-1 Democratic blowout map this year, but the Supreme Court has been exceedingly deferential to states’ rights to set their own boundaries, especially with the power of a popular vote behind it. If, as expected, Virginia gets the go-ahead, all eyes turn to Florida where Republicans have vowed a late-game maneuver for one more attack.
What Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has been waiting for, other than the hope that the Virginia Democrats would fail, has been the long-nurtured Republican idea that the Supreme Court will soon strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which has long constrained former Jim Crow states from maximizing their partisan advantages in gerrymandering. With such a decision in hand, Florida and other former Confederate states could sweep away many majority-Black districts and tip the balance in the gerrymandering war back to Republicans.
With such a decision, Republicans would still come out ahead in the current battle. Without it, it ends up as a slight gain for Democrats or about a wash.
Court watchers agree that the longer the court waits to render such a decision, the more likely it is that it won’t apply to this year’s elections. Seven of the states subject to the civil rights era rules have already closed their candidate filing periods, including Texas and Georgia. Upending maps in those states would be massively disruptive and expensive for the states and the candidates.
But those same court watchers believe that the rule will eventually fall, setting up a wild redistricting fight not just for 2028 but also for the 2030 census redistricting. And there is zero chance that Democrats would go away quietly if a dozen or more of their districts get wiped out across the South. And California would be the leading candidate for action.
After the 1965 Voting Rights Act, some affected states dropped geographical districts altogether. Rather than carve out minority-influence districts, they went to at-large elections as a means to again shut out Black voters and, in those days, Republican influence. Like the Electoral College, these rules gave all the seats to the party that won a majority of the popular vote for House candidates. In 1967, Congress passed an apportionment act to forbid the practice and preserve the intent of the original Voting Rights Act.
But if the original act is struck down, what becomes of its successor? Might justices not continue the trend of deferring to states on their own elections? In this scenario, it would be blue states seeking to get rid of geographic districts so that California would be 51-0 Democratic after the next census, Illinois would be 16-0, Washington state would be 10-0, etc.
The Texas gerrymandering move may have set off a 20-year arms race. The old consensus that extreme maneuvers were unpopular and painful eventually led to a truce, not just here in California, but around the country. The combination of the return of mid-decade redistricting plus a major Supreme Court shift could mean that the wild days of the mid-20th century will look like kids’ stuff compared to what comes next.
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[Programming alert: Watch "The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt" — After Virginia voted to redo its congressional maps, all eyes are on Florida. Will the Sunshine State take the next offensive in the redistricting wars? Congressional Republicans sure hope so as they stare down a jam-packed week with several controversial items on the docket. We’ll cover the latest and break it all down with voices from both sides of the aisle. And, as always, we’ll be joined by our best-in-the business panel of journalists. Be sure to catch us on NewsNation at 10 a.m. EDT / 9 a.m. CDT or your local CW station.]
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Change from last week: ↓ 2.2 points (-22.4 points)
Change from one month ago: ↓ 2 points (-22.6 points)
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[Average includes: Reuters/Ipsos 36 percent approve - 62 percent disapprove; AP/NORC 33 percent approve - 67 percent disapprove; American Research Group 32 percent approve - 63 percent disapprove; Echelon Insights 41 percent approve - 57 percent disapprove; Fox News 42 percent approve - 58 percent disapprove]
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Democrat: 48.2 percent
Republican: 42 percent
Advantage: D + 6.2 points (↑ 2.6 points since February)
[Average includes: Reuters/Ipsos 41 percent Democratic - 38 percent Republican; Echelon Insights 50 percent Republican - 44 percent Democratic; Marquette University Law School 53 percent Democratic - 43 percent Republican; Cygnal 49 percent Democratic - 43 percent Republican; CNN/SSRS 48 percent Democratic - 42 percent Republican]
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Writer Elena Saavedra Buckley with a dispatch from the frontier for Harpers: “To become a Martian colonist, I first had to fill out a Google Form. It asked me about my aviation know-how, medical training, and experience ‘working in extreme environments.’ I sheepishly wrote ‘N/A’ each time, adding a note that highlighted my cooking and social skills. It turned out that this was okay: I was only going to Utah, after all, and the institution running the show was not a multibillion-dollar federal agency but the Mars Society, a scrappy nonprofit. The organization was founded in 1998 by the aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin to advocate for human settlement of the red planet. In 2002, it opened the Mars Desert Research Station, a simulated Martian settlement—laboratory, theater, and summer camp all at once. Located in a corner of rural southeastern Utah, the MDRS’s environment looks enough like Mars to play the part while still being accessible to participants and potential donors. (Antarctica and the Atacama Desert, arguably the best Martian analogues on Earth, are harder sells.)”
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Steyer takes heat as Democrats struggle to coalesce in California: The Hill: “Six candidates running for California governor squared off on the debate stage Wednesday, yet the forum may have created more questions than answers for political observers, as Democrats struggle to coalesce around a candidate ahead of the June primary. … [Tom Steyer]’s billionaire background comes under scrutiny … ‘Me paying more taxes is not the answer,’ Steyer later said, prompting an audible reaction from [Republican front-runner Steve Hilton]. ‘If one person puts more money into the government, that doesn’t solve it. We need structural change.’ In her closing statement, [Katie] Porter jabbed that ‘one candidate is a billionaire who got rich off polluters and ICE prisons and is now using that money to fund this election.’ Steyer, who followed her in closings, again stressed the big-spending groups that oppose him.”
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Maine Senate front-runner Graham Platner backs court packing, impeaching and removing Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — NBC News
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Nate Cohn: The Senate is in play, but the path for Dems without Iowa or Texas is daunting — The New York Times
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Jonathan Chait: How Democrats can lose Michigan, again — The Atlantic
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Harmeet Dhillon, a top contender for Trump’s next attorney general nominee, picks high-profile fight with Michigan over 2024 ballots — The Hill
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Poll shows Iowa Democrats in the lead for both governor and Senate — KGAN
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Vivek Ramaswamy in dead heat with Democrat Amy Acton in Ohio governor's race — The Hill
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Both parties at a loss for what to do with chatbot-educated voters — NOTUS
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Betting site Kalshi boots three congressional candidates for insider trading — CNBC
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Congress matches all-time worst rating — Gallup
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With a punishing midterm ahead, Republican incumbents bogged down in Washington — The New York Times
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Susie Wiles, GOP strategists aim to shift midterm focus from a referendum on Trump to a “choice” election about Democratic radicalism — CNN
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YOU KINDA HAD TO BE THERE
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"I would've won Vietnam very quickly if I were president.” — President Trump in an interview with CNBC.
“Mike Johnson has a very difficult job. He has the second toughest job in the world … The Lord Jesus couldn't lead this delegation.” — Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) on the legislative week ahead.
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“Your shot at the Baby Boomers misses its target badly. Let me note: What generation had the greatest cars? GTOs, Firebirds. Camaros, Mustangs, Corvettes, the list goes on…. What generation produced the greatest music: The Beatles, ELO, The Rolling Stones, Three Dog Night, Genesis, The Band…. The list is endless. What generation produced the greatest fashion trends: mini skirts, bell bottoms, halter tops, wide ties, Air Jordans, leisure suits, the list goes on. What generation filled the economy by building McMansions, buying Suburbans, having an RV and or a boat for the weekend. What generation facilitated the opening of gyms in almost every strip center? What generation facilitated the development of Florida into the paradise that it is today? What generation is going to live forever? The list goes on. But I will stop here to let you catch your breath. Now again. What generation are we talking about: THE BABY BOOMERS.” — Lynn W. Gardner, Arlington Va.
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Ms. Gardner,
I am certainly not suggesting that you all haven't had a really good time! And while I know you're partly kidding, it is definitely true that some of the legacies of your generation are indeed awesome, Three Dog Night and leisure suits notwithstanding.
But I think the case is very strong that the political journey that boomers took from 1964 to 2024 was a long, strange trip indeed. From hippies to yuppies to tea parties to today, it's been quite a ride.
I would remind my fellow Generation Xers, though, that the baby boom may be the worst generation, it was also in many ways the first generation — or at least as we now understand the term.
Prior to the advent of modern mass marketing, the idea of a single cohort based on birth year wasn't really how people thought of themselves. When writers spoke, for instance, of the “lost generation” after World War I, it wasn't that everyone born between 1885 and 1900 was that way, but that the men who had fought in the war were unmoored from society.
The post-1945 explosion in birth rates coincided with the rise of the television age and the profusion of social science claptrap to serve and soothe a nation anxious in its affluence. And so, the baby boom was born.
Generational cohort is no more useful than astrology for describing the traits of individuals, and only a little helpful for discussing the traits of large groups. Unless, that is, generational identity becomes self-reinforcing. Am I so cool and awesome because I was born in 1975 and grew up with laissez-faire parents, the best music, the best political era, amazing television shows and the best movies, or does my group identity as part of Gen X cause me to believe that I am cool and awesome?
I'm going to go ahead and credit the Talking Heads, Magnum P.I.
All best,
c
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WWL-TV: “‘It was just crazy,’ is how Uptown neighbors describe a weekend shooting near Joseph and Willow streets in the University section of New Orleans. Authorities say suspected car burglars opened fire on a parked pickup truck after being startled by what was inside. Residents said they woke up to the sound of gunfire early Saturday morning. The victim, who asked not to be identified, said the suspects had been moving down the street breaking into vehicles when they reached his Toyota pickup. ‘These guys were coming down the street and going into vehicles, and when they got to mine, they started opening the door, and they got scared,’ he said. They were startled by a mannequin sitting in the passenger seat, dressed in a Michael Myers [the killer from the 'Halloween' movies] mask that the victim had placed there to deter would-be burglars. ‘He jumped backward and started shooting, and then his two friends started shooting as well,’ the victim said. ‘It was like 30-something rounds.’”
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Chris Stirewalt is political editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of "The Hill Sunday" on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media.
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