Last year, the Trump administration bulldozed yet another political norm when the president, encouraged by key advisers, pushed Texas to redistrict aggressively ahead of the 2026 midterms, as opposed to the usual practice of waiting until the next census. Texas complied, drawing several Democrats out of their districts and beginning a long battle over maps that would ricochet around the country. The Democratic response was led by California Governor Newsom, who spearheaded a voter referendum that allowed his state to redraw its maps in favor of Democrats. And after further Republican setbacks, it briefly seemed as though the party’s efforts had backfired, and that Democrats would emerge with the ultimate advantage. But late-in-the-game legal developments tilted the playing field back to the GOP. Then, the Supreme Court punctuated their advantage with a June ruling that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act, which almost immediately led to more Republican gains in the South.

So how much does this all matter for House control this year and beyond? Perhaps the best-qualified person to answer that question is Dave Wasserman, Senior Editor & Elections Analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. In an article last week, Wasserman wrote that after recent developments, the average House district’s PVI, or partisan voting index — which Cook defines as “how partisan a district or a state is compared to the nation as a whole” — had leaped from a one-point Republican advantage to a three-point cushion. I spoke with Wasserman about how he thinks November will play out, Democrats’ structural disadvantage over the next few years, and how the disease of gerrymandering might finally be cured.

By far the most important question for House Democrats right now is simply whether they will win the majority back in November. How much has your view on that key question changed with these new maps?Whereas in February I might have given Democrats a 90 percent chance of retaking the House, today I think it’s fallen to somewhere in the 70 to 75 percent range, mostly because of the late developments in the redistricting wars — specifically the Virginia Supreme Court striking down the referendum process — and the U.S. Supreme Court. And it wasn’t just the Supreme Court rendering section two of the VRA unenforceable. It was the speed with which three states acted to change their maps when most legal analysts believed it would be too late to do so. Those two developments cost Democrats around five to six seats on net, and as a result, the gerrymandering wars went from a wash to Republicans adding about five or six seats worth of insurance, or sandbags, or whatever metaphor you’d like to use. So instead of needing to pick up three seats to win control of the House, Democrats really need to flip more like eight or nine seats.

By most historical measures, that is well within their grasp. However, the historical comparisons we so frequently use are complicated by or hindered by the decline in the number of swing districts and the decline in split ticket voting and voters’ persuadability. So even though we’ve seen robust performances for Democrats in special elections, those were for the most part low-turnout races. The kind of turnout we saw in Virginia and New Jersey last fall better approximates the turnout we’re likely to see this November. And in those races, we saw eight to nine point swings towards Democrats versus the 2024 presidential result.

Now, President Trump’s approval or net approval has gotten worse since last November. So there’s a reason to........

© Daily Intelligencer