For the past four months, states across the country have been locked in a redistricting arms race. The goal: redraw enough congressional seats to lock in a partisan advantage ahead of next year’s midterm elections. But the tit-for-tat battle that President Donald Trump initiated has somehow left control of the House in 2027 even more of a question mark than when the year began as the courts weigh in and local politics come into play.
Through all the madness, a new poll from Politico shows that the rush for redistricting has plenty of fans within both major parties. Its survey found a supermajority of those who say they’ll vote for Democrats next year (68%) support or strongly support redrawing congressional maps to “match and neutralize Republicans doing so in red states.” Republicans feel the same about countering potential Democratic gains, albeit with a smaller majority (57%).
A new poll shows that the rush for redistricting has plenty of fans within both major parties
The survey was conducted by polling firm Public First between Nov. 14 and Nov. 17, a window that fell between a series of major setbacks for the GOP’s redistricting efforts. California voters approved Proposal 50, pausing the state’s independent redistricting committee in favor of letting the legislature draw five new Democratic-leaning seats. Last week, a panel of federal judges nixed the Texas GOP’s newly drawn map, threatening to erase any net seats that Republicans had hoped to gain next year. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which put the lower court’s ruling on pause Friday, but it still represents a major setback for the White House-led effort.
Redistricting efforts are also running into roadblocks in other red states, including Indiana and Kansas. In short, some key GOP state legislators are hesitant to revamp their maps to snuff out Democrat-held seats out of fear that the move may backfire in the long term. The same can be said in some blue states as well, many of which either have already set up independent redistricting panels or have lawmakers concerned about the future effects.
Where I find myself troubled is the apparent shift from voters toward seeing gerrymandering approvingly. A majority of respondents in the Politico survey want redistricting to go beyond merely balancing out their opponents. “Among voters who say they would vote for Democrats in the midterms, 54% say they support drawing maps to gain an advantage over Republicans in the midterms,” Politico reported. “A similar 53% of GOP voters agreed with gerrymandering to help their party, the survey of 2,098 U.S. adults found.”
Granted, a plurality of the survey’s respondents, 38%, is in favor of an “independent, politically neutral process” to draw political maps, with only 7% wanting state legislatures to do so without voter sign-off. But compare that finding to a 2019 poll from the Campaign Legal Center, which saw a massive show of support in favor of independent redistricting commissions. Or even to a poll from Reuters in August, which found that 55% of Americans are opposed to any partisan redistricting. It can seem like playing to the ever-shrinking pool of competitive seats is a fool’s errand It may be the case that the current surge of support for gerrymandering is situational. The Politico poll’s questions didn’t make clear that the current round of redistricting came from a White House order. By framing each party as acting in opposition to the other, it may have led to greater support for than might otherwise have been the case. In many ways I empathize with the respondents’ concerns, given the unprecedented streak of narrow margins in the House. As more and more House districts have become gerrymandered to within an inch of their lives, twisting and convoluted, it can seem like playing to the ever-shrinking pool of competitive seats is a fool’s errand. I did write in 2021 that Democrats were right to move legislation that would have ended federal gerrymandering entirely, but cautioned that they shouldn’t disarm unilaterally until that nationwide ban was in place. It’s a sentiment that Democrats have taken to heart in response to Trump’s meddling. The degree to which Democratic voters have apparently embraced this shift though leaves me feeling more concerned than I was four years ago. By wanting not just to balance out Republican gerrymanders but gain an advantage themselves, the moral high ground the party holds on gerrymandering collapses. If this trend continues, I fear the party’s position will shift from wanting every vote to count, giving all candidates as close to even a chance as possible to win over their constituents, to mirroring the GOP’s need to have certain votes be dominant.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House. 
