Political redistricting in the U.S. typically becomes a galvanizing issue following the decennial census, after which partisan majorities in state legislatures across the country draft voting maps that allow, as longtime GOP redistricting operative Tom Hofeller put it, “the politicians to pick [their] voters.” The practice is also defined as “gerrymandering” and inevitably leads to the disenfranchisement of millions of voters on account of race and political affiliation. While the manipulation of electoral boundaries has long been a practice in American politics, the unprecedented level of gerrymandering unleashed by GOP lawmakers under the Trump administration requires a new level of urgent attention and action from the American public.
As the struggle for power intensifies in Washington, D.C., however, President Trump and his allies have pressured Republican-led states to disregard the decennial process and immediately enact new mid-decade Congressional maps designed to eliminate existing Democratic districts and insulate GOP Speaker Mike Johnson’s narrow House majority from electoral blowback. Several Democrat-led states have threatened to retaliate, with lawmakers in California and Maryland drafting maps designed to offset losses in other states.
Partisan gerrymandering is typically executed by a majority party through the “packing” or “cracking” of voting blocs that support the opposition. In the former case, the majority party will attempt to pack opposition voters into a limited number of districts. Ohio’s current congressional map, for example, was devised by state Republicans to pack the Democratic-leaning cities of Columbus and Cleveland into single districts in order to solidify GOP control over the surrounding ones. Meanwhile, cracking represents the dilution of opposition voters across several districts in which they would be outvoted by the majority party. The gerrymander employed by Ohio Republicans during the previous decade (2011-2021) employed similar packing tactics as those described above while cracking Democrat-leaning Cincinnati into two solidly Republican districts.
The fact that voting districts are intentionally crafted to give an unfair advantage for one partisan group undermines the idea that our government — or, at least, a large part of it — is responsive to public opinion. The unprecedented attempt by Donald Trump to encourage the redrawing of district lines represents gerrymandering on steroids and, if successful, will allow the Republican Party to retain control over the House even if a decisive majority of voters support Democrats.
This threat is genuine and based on recent history: despite winning a plurality of the popular vote in the 2012 congressional elections, Democrats were unable to recapture the House due to rigged voting maps passed by Republican state legislatures after the 2010 census. The REDMAP initiative, itself championed by Hofeller, was a redistricting initiative created by the Republican Party for this purpose. Partial control of the federal government allowed Congressional Republicans to stymie initiatives supported by the Obama administration, in spite of a plurality of voters signaling support for his efforts in the previous election. In light of this precedent, it’s hard to imagine that a Trump-controlled Republican Party will seek a free and fair election in 2026.
This issue is particularly acute in Ohio, which is obligated to conduct mid-decade redistricting this year to comply with a successful ballot initiative that, ironically, sought to curtail partisan gerrymandering. In reality, state Republicans now have the chance to pass gerrymandered maps by a simple majority vote and target up to three of Ohio’s five Democratic representatives, and the State Supreme Court — itself composed of Republican politicians — will likely rubber stamp this scheme.
It would be remiss of me to ignore the racial underpinnings of this issue. Gerrymandering has historically been used to pack Black voters in the South into a limited number of districts — a strategy thinly veiled by Republicans as compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which established specific preconditions for the creation of majority-minority districts. Prior to court-ordered remedial maps taking effect before the 2024 elections, only one of Alabama’s seven representatives was Black, despite African Americans comprising 26 percent of Alabama’s population. Similarly, Louisiana only had one majority-Black voting district since the 2010 redistricting cycle, despite Black voters comprising almost one-third of the statewide population.
Current plans to add Republican seats in Texas, Missouri, and Indiana entail the elimination of eight Democratic districts, seven of which are represented by people of color. If the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the next decision cycle, several additional minority-held districts in the South and elsewhere will be at risk of erasure.
Given that majority support in Congress is necessary to pass our shared priorities — be it protecting reproductive rights, restoring vital funds for undergraduate and graduate research, or combating climate change — gerrymandering represents a major affront to a better future. If elected officials are inclined to ignore popular sentiments due to the insulation partisan gerrymandering offers, even initiatives with broad bipartisan support may be stymied. After all, under what circumstances would a partisan majority elected — and subject to reelection — under fair maps be inclined to support the cruel and fiscally destructive provisions of Trump’s recently-passed reconciliation bill, which cut taxes for high earners while rolling back Medicaid access?
Current attempts to rig the voting maps for the next midterm election should be publicized and protested to the same degree as any of the other unpopular and destructive policies pursued by the Trump administration. While protests and other forms of dissent may not prevent those who intend on rolling back American democracy from enacting their plans in the short term, they will provide moral clarity in a time of fear and uncertainty.
