The risk in drawing aggressive gerrymanders, as Republicans did in a few red states and plan to do in several more, is that your candidates inherently get put in more competitive districts. In wave elections, those newly vulnerable lawmakers can get swept away.
“Tonight is such a blowout so far that I wonder if it gives some Rs pause about redistricting in states that are still pondering it,” tweeted Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA. “They already needed to ‘stress-test’ the districts (and they did in TX-NC-MO, I think, even considering tonight), but still.”
If Tuesday is a sign of where the midterm winds are blowing, the Republican gerrymanders may lead to bigger Democratic gains — on top of the big Democratic (Gavin Newsom) win, as voters approved a defensive California gerrymander by almost 64 percent.
As we all were schooled relentlessly after the last election, not all Hispanic voters are the same. So, maybe all those Texas Latinos are now permanently Republican no matter what Trump and his henchmen do. But if they were actually voting on the economy last time as everyone says and didn’t realize that Trump would have masked thugs racially profiling and brutalizing them, citizen or not, they might not be so anxious to vote GOP again. We’ll see.
I’m not going to predict election outcomes anymore because I’ve obviously very bad at it. I can’t understand why anyone would vote for these fascist morons no matter how hard I try so neither reason or instinct can be relied upon to guide my thinking. But I do believe that last night’s results in the Latino districts in Virginia and New Jersey says something:
Trump made significant inroads with Latinos during the 2024 presidential election. In fact, no Republican presidential candidate won a higher percentage with Latinos — ever.
But there have been signs that Latinos were moving away from Trump. Poll after poll has shown that, and Tuesday night was the first time it showed up at the ballot box in a significant way. Spanberger and Sherrill, the governors-elect from Virginia and New Jersey respectively, both won Latinos by 2-to-1 margins, according to the exit polls.
Going deeper into New Jersey specifically, Trump won Passaic County in North Jersey, a county that is nearly half Latino, according to the census. He was the first Republican presidential candidate to win it since 1992. Trump won it by 3 points, but Sherrill won it by 15.
There are 10 counties in New Jersey where Latinos make up at least 1-in-5 people, per the U.S. census. Sherrill not only won them all, she expanded Democratic margins and flipped three Trump had won.
Maybe that’s just a fluke. But if I were a Republican I’d be worried.