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Winning the next ten years

Adam Roberts: Midwest correspondent, The Economist, CHICAGO

Could gerrymandering become a tiny bit harder to do?

2021 in brief

Horse-drawn carriage licences in Chicago cannot be renewed this year after the city
council voted to ban the vehicles from the city’s streets. The new rule marks a long-
sought victory for animal-rights activists

FOCUS ONLY on elections and you risk missing how, once in a decade, decisions are
made that greatly influence who gets to hold power in America. In the year after the
2020 census it is up to states—either through their legislatures or through special
commissions—to redraw voting districts to adjust for population change. Where
politicians or their appointees oversee this, they get a chance to gerrymander. By
drawing lines craftily, such as by concentrating their own likely voters and dividing
those of their opponents, they can lock in a partisan advantage that endures for ten
years.

Last time around, Republican strategists did so skilfully. Democrats, clobbered by the
Tea Party wave, did badly in elections for state legislatures and governors in 2010.
Republicans won those easily in Midwestern swing states, such as Ohio, Michigan,