Reflections on Virginia mid-decade redistricting
Republicans got their stopped clock cleaned in Virginia on Tuesday when voters approved a new congressional map that — say it ain’t so! — disenfranchises a large swath of voters: theirs. Donald Trump in clockwork fashion declared the election rigged. Republicans were winning earlier in the day (before any votes were counted?), he insisted, before the dreaded “Mail In Ballot Drop” (whatever that is). “Where have I heard that before?” Trump raged. He’s more obsessed with the manner of voting than the outcome. Disenfranchising Republicans is an afterthought.
Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley barred state officials from implementing the new maps, calling the ballot language “flagrantly misleading” and the process in violation of the Virginia constitution. Virginia Attorney General Jay pledged to appeal the ruling.
“Republicans lost,” says Virginians for Fair Elections. “Now they’re trying to overturn the will of the voters in court and trying to relitigate an election they couldn’t win.”
Where have you heard that before?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez offered a terse rejoinder to Republican howls of disenfranchisement. Essentially, don’t like it when it’s done to you? Then stop doing it to us. Join us and ban partisan gerrymandering.
The Atlantic‘s Adam Serwer responds to the accusation that the effort by Virginia Democrats disenfranchises Republicans: “That is exactly what the new Virginia map does,” Serwer states bluntly, offering a summary history of partisan gerrymandering.
Republicans justify their rigging of district maps on the grounds that “the votes of constituencies that lean Republican are more legitimate than those that lean liberal.” They state it explicitly. Serwer brings receipts:
“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority—we would have all five constitutional officers and we would probably have many more seats in the Legislature,” Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the state assembly in Wisconsin, said in 2018. The logic here is clear: Rural votes, more likely to be Republican, should count more than urban votes, which tend to come from Democrats. At the time, Republicans in Wisconsin had managed to draw maps so effectively that even when Democrats won 53 percent of the vote, they won only about a third of the seats in the legislature.
When Democratic states tried to lead by example in adopting nonpartisan redistricting commissions, Republicans saw an advantage. If Democrats would not pursue maximum advantage for themselves, Republicans would in states they controlled.
Republicans’ will to power vs. Democrats defense of democratic principles does not win them the approval one might assume.
Over at Strength In Numbers, Elliot Morris this morning reflects on a recent poll on party favorability. Democrats are -3 on favorability and Republicans -16. But part of that unfavorability for Democrats is, you guessed it:
Even voters who say they have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party often plan to vote for Democrats anyway. And when Democrats’ own voters complain about their party in their own words, the complaint is not that Democrats are too liberal or “weak and woke”, it’s that they’re not fighting hard enough, particularly against Donald Trump.
Morris reflects on his polling’s findings:
As I wrote back in February, the Democratic brand is not predominantly woke, but weak. Respondents to our survey associated the Democrats with traits like honesty and caring about the working class, but they are seen as weak and not particularly effective. The Republican brand, by contrast, is a strong brand that a majority of the country finds extreme.
This takes us back to Virginia. Republicans’ howls do not presage a recommitment to small-d democratic principles any more than Tucker Carlson’s mea culpas about Donald Trump this week reflect a “road to Damascus” change of heart about his embrace of fascism. (Carlson is simply positioning himself to secure a base in a post-Trump MAGA.) Serwer sees it too, writing that Republicans “simply believe that disenfranchising Democrats is good but disenfranchising Republicans is bad.”
Serwer concludes with Justice Elena Kagan:
“The partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her 2019 dissent in Rucho. “If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government.”
Kagan was right then, and she’s right now. If Republicans had listened at the time, they would not be tasting their own bitter medicine today.
What I wonder now is whether in the next poll Democrats’ clapback in Virginia will improve their standing with Democrats and independents who perceive the party as weak in this one. When polled on which Democrats they see as sharing their values, “Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani lead the pack, with more traditional voices including Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Gavin Newsom coming in close behind.” AOC’s comments above show why she’s in the first group. It’s a flashing red light that party leaders won’t heed that no Democrat in House or Senate leadership even show up in the chart below.
Morris writes:
The strategic implications here are straightforward. Democrats do not need to reinvent themselves ideologically nearly as much as they need to convince voters they can act with purpose and deliver on their promises. Their own supporters are not begging for moderation so much as urgency; independents, too, have fewer specific ideological qualms with the party as they do personal germane criticism. They are not demanding a lurch left or right so much as evidence of leadership, coherence, and fight.
In a political environment where neither party is broadly beloved, voters must know you stand for something — and for standing up for it, too. The Democrats have made a lot of progress on these numbers over the last year. But a perception of weakness is still its biggest one.
Fight more, libs.