Analysis: What makes a fair election? Recent redistricting the most politically balanced in years

For years, Democrats have criticized partisan redistricting plans that have disproportionately favored Republicans, allowing them to secure more congressional seats than expected. However, this advantage has now dissipated.

In the latest elections that incorporated the 2020 census data, Democrats responded with their own strategic redistricting to benefit their party, resulting in a more equitable outcome. Although Republicans managed to gain control of the House from Democrats, the closely divided chamber now more accurately reflects the national ratio of Republicans to Democrats among voters than it has in recent years, according to an analysis conducted by Big Big News.

“While we have witnessed fairer and more representative outcomes, it seems that gerrymandering is still prevalent,” remarked Doug Spencer, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who oversees the All About Redistricting website.

The situation mirrored itself in state capitols during the 2022 elections. An analysis by the Associated Press (AP) revealed that Democrats and Republicans obtained a nearly equal number of states with House or Assembly districts favoring their respective parties—a stark contrast to the significant Republican advantage observed in the previous decade.

The notable change is not solely attributed to reduced gerrymandering by Republicans; rather, “more Democrats have embraced the practice,” noted Spencer.

The implications are significant. Districts designed to favor one party can assist in winning, preserving, or expanding majorities, subsequently influencing the types of legislation enacted on contentious issues such as abortion, firearms, taxes, and transgender rights. This year, divergent paths have been pursued by Republican-led and Democratic-led states concerning many of these topics.

Previously, the loudest dissatisfaction concerning gerrymandering came from Democrats residing in states where Republicans had manipulated district boundaries. However, now even Republicans, like those in rural Macoupin County, Illinois, are expressing their discontent. In the past decade, a Republican representative represented the former coal mining county in Congress, but in 2022, after the district underwent a transformation into a slim, serpentine shape, a Democrat emerged victorious. The new district comprises the twin university cities of Champaign and Urbana as its head and the Democratic suburbs of St. Louis as its tail. Macoupin County, which leans Republican, now remains the only complete county within the 13th District.

“We’re now tied to people—anchors up north and anchors in the south—with whom we share very little, and we’re not pleased,” remarked Tom Stoecker, the Macoupin County GOP chairman.

Illinois’ congressional districts exhibited the most pronounced partisan bias nationally, allowing Democrats to secure three more seats than expected based on their share of the votes, as per the AP’s analysis. Among statehouse chambers, the Nevada Assembly displayed the most significant partisan tilt, favoring Democrats once again.

Republicans, however, still reaped benefits in certain regions. Texas Republicans won approximately two additional U.S. House seats than anticipated based on their percentage of votes. The GOP’s longstanding advantage also persisted in the Wisconsin Assembly.

The AP’s analysis of redistricting’s impact on the 2022 elections employed an “efficiency gap” formula intended to identify potential instances of gerrymandering. The test, devised by Eric McGhee from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California and Harvard Law School professor Nick Stephanopoulos, identifies states where one party demonstrates an extraordinary efficiency in translating votes into victories. This can occur when the politicians responsible for redistricting either concentrate opponents’ voters into a few densely populated districts or dilute their voting strength by dispersing them across multiple districts.

Previous AP analyses indicated that Republicans had gained a substantial advantage from districts drawn following the 2010 census. In 2016, the GOP secured roughly 22 more U.S. House seats than expected based on their share of the votes, followed by an additional 16 seats in 2018 and around 10 seats in 2020. By comparison, the slight one-seat Republican advantage observed in the 2022 election essentially nullified any partisan imbalance.

John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which has challenged Republican-drawn maps in court, celebrated the recent changes, attributing them primarily to four states: Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In 2016, under Republican-drawn congressional maps, these states collectively elected 39 Republicans and only 17 Democrats—an overrepresentation of about nine Republicans based on their share of the votes. However, in 2022, under maps adopted by courts and Michigan’s new independent commission, these states elected 26 Republicans and 29 Democrats, with Democrats winning one more seat than expected based on their vote share.

During the two most recent midterm elections, the AP’s analysis identified 15 states in each cycle where a political party secured at least one more congressional seat than anticipated based on their votes. In 2018, 12 of those states favored Republicans.

However, the gains resulting from redistricting were more evenly distributed in the latest elections. Democrats gained at least one more congressional seat than expected from their vote percentage in eight states, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Washington. Meanwhile, Republicans secured at least one additional seat in seven states, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Illinois’ new districts were formulated by the Democratic-dominated state Legislature and signed into law by Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, despite his campaign pledge in 2018 to veto any maps drafted by politicians. Pritzker defended the maps, stating that they would “ensure all communities are equitably represented” while incorporating a second predominantly Latino district and maintaining three predominantly Black districts. Under the new districts, Illinois Democrats expanded their congressional advantage from 13-5 to a 14-3 majority, flipping one Republican seat and merging others. Due to a decline in population, the state lost one seat.

Republican Representative Rodney Davis, who had represented the 13th District for a decade, was effectively drawn out of his district and placed into the heavily Republican 15th District. He lost in the GOP primary to Representative Mary Miller, who received an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. The reshaped 13th District was won by Democrat Nikki Budzinski, a former aide to Pritzker and President Joe Biden.

Davis expressed his discontent, stating, “That district was drawn in a very gerrymandered way to maximize Democratic turnout.”

Sheldon H. Jacobson, director of the Institute for Computational Redistricting at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, asserted that numerous politically neutral alternatives could have been considered, referring to the situation as “a horrendous situation that truly does not represent the people of Illinois.”

The notion of fair representation has also been called into question in Nevada, where the Democratic advantage resulting from redistricting was so significant that it could have influenced control of the state Assembly. Despite Republican candidates receiving more total votes, Democrats secured a 28-14 majority last fall—seven more Democratic seats than expected, according to the AP’s analysis.

A lawsuit filed by affected residents and several Republican elected officials argued that the new districts constituted an “intentional extreme partisan gerrymander” that unlawfully diluted votes. However, a judge determined that there was no clear standard to evaluate claims of partisan gerrymandering under the Nevada Constitution, echoing a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that federal courts should not involve themselves in partisan gerrymandering claims.

As a result of the new maps, the Somersett golf community in the Reno area, previously part of a Republican-controlled Assembly district, was divided into two. A Democrat now represents a portion of the subdivision, while the rest falls within a rural Republican-led district stretching hundreds of miles to the Oregon and Idaho borders.

“It was truly detrimental to our community,” expressed Jacob Williams, president of the Somersett Owners Association, who unsuccessfully ran in a Republican primary for the state Assembly. “It was quite disheartening.”

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More about fair election

• Understanding Redistricting
• What is Gerrymandering?
• The Impact of Redistricting on Fair Representation
• Independent Redistricting Commissions
• Challenges to Redistricting in the Courts