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Polls show broad opposition to gerrymandering, unless GOP or Dems do it first

12 23
31.08.2025

Americans are broadly opposed to political gerrymandering, but polls show even Democrats are coming around to the idea as the redistricting battle between the parties has intensified over the summer.

Polling shows voters across the spectrum view gerrymandering with distrust and support limits on politicians being able to draw the lines to help their side. But in practice, members of both parties are becoming more open to their states responding to others’ efforts to capitalize on the process.

“You can have these views, and they seem opposed, but they're not totally inconsistent,” said Alexander Rossell Hayes, a senior data scientist for YouGov. “It kind of makes sense, in a way, for someone to say, ‘I think gerrymandering should be banned at the national level. If it’s not going to be banned at the national level, and other states are doing it, we've got to do it too.’”

Although the practice is common in red and blue states, partisan gerrymandering regularly polls poorly among voters on both sides of the aisle.

That sentiment among Democrats led to the spread of independent commissions that a number of blue-leaning states set up in the 2000s and 2010s to handle redistricting in a nonpartisan way.

A YouGov poll from early August showed half of American respondents disapproved of Texas drawing more Republican-leaning House districts, including 40 percent who said they strongly disapprove. Two-thirds of Republicans said they were at least somewhat on board with the plan, but it didn’t receive much support elsewhere.

More than 30 percent overall said they support Texas’s action, and only 16 percent said they strongly approve.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after

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