How Republicans held the House: It's the gerrymander, stupid [View all]

How Republicans held the House: It's the gerrymander, stupid
Sure, both sides do it — but Republicans have ruthlessly redrawn the maps to bake in a nearly unbeatable advantage

By David Daley
Contributing Writer
Published December 1, 2024 6:00AM (EST)


(Salon) Republicans have held the House of Representatives by an extraordinarily small margin. Partisan gerrymandering is once again a huge reason why the right will hold the chamber. The three seats nabbed by the GOP in a mid-decade gerrymander of North Carolina look like they will be the difference-maker.

First the math: As of Thanksgiving weekend, the Associated Press has Republicans winning 220 seats and Democrats winning 214, with only one race still undecided. That's in California's 13th district, where it looks as if Democrat Adam Gray may defeat GOP Rep. John Duarte by a few hundred votes.

If the final result is a 220-215 GOP majority, that's already one of the smallest margins ever. But it's about to get smaller. Two sitting members — Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York and Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida — have been nominated or appointed to posts in the Trump administration, and Florida firebrand Matt Gaetz resigned from the House after his nomination as attorney general. (Despite withdrawing from consideration, Gaetz has said he will not return to the House in January.) So at least temporarily, the GOP will hold a minuscule edge of just 217-215.

....(snip)....

As it happens, three seats is exactly the number that Republicans engineered in their favor this cycle in North Carolina, as the result of an extreme gerrymander gifted to them by that state’s Republican-controlled Supreme Court. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/12/01/how-held-the-house-its-the-gerrymander-stupid/