The Economist June 4th 2022
Graphic detailGerrymandering81
Beating the
bounds
S
ome of theearliest employees of the
United States government were statisti-
cians. Their methods may have been prim-
itive by today’s standards, but the so-called
enumerators were bound by the constitu-
tion once a decade to record where each
person in the country lived. These tallies
are used to draw the boundaries of the dis-
tricts represented by each member of the
House of Representatives. State politi-
cians, who are charged with redistricting,
typically try to draw maps that benefit their
own side, within limits set out by state
constitutions and federal judges. The maps
must divide the population roughly equal-
ly, must not split up racial minorities un-
necessarily and not be excessively funnyshapes. Aside from that, anything goes.
A year after they received the enumera-
tors’ latest counts, officials in each state
have now completed this decade’s round of
redistricting. The last cycle, in 2010-2012,
came at a low point for Democrats. With
Republicans riding high in state legisla-
tures, they drew maps that heavily fa-
voured their own side. The new bound-
aries were supposed to be better for the
Democrats than the last set, since this lat-
est round of redistricting happened after a
good 2020 for the party. Some election-
watchers predicted that pro-Democratic
gerrymanders would even things out,
eliminating the bias of the chamber alto-
gether before November’s mid-terms.
In the end the new maps will still be
lopsided, but are less biased towards Re-
publicans than they were after the 2010
census. According to The Economist’s anal-
ysis of results for the presidential elections
since 2008, compiled by FiveThirtyEight, a
data-journalism website, Republicans
could have held onto the majority of seats
in the House in 2012 while losing the popu-lar vote by 4.3 percentage points. In fact,
Republicans did win a hefty majority in
2012 while losing the popular vote by one
point. This November, Republicans could
pull off the same feat while losing by as
much as 2.5 points. Any less, and Demo-
crats are favoured to hold their majority.
Less biased maps are an improvement.
But partisan mapmakers have also man-
aged to make members of Congress even
safer than they were already. The number
of truly competitive seats—defined as
those where Democrats or Republicans
have won by fewer than five points relative
to the national popular vote over the previ-
ous two election cycles—will fall from 46
to 40 out of a total of 435. (That is already
down from 54 in 2010.) Put another way,
less than 10% of seats will be competitive
in November. Republicans have accom-
plished this by giving up some ground in
competitive seats in exchange for shoring-
up their margins in friendlier areas. For
nine in ten members of the House of Rep-
resentatives, the primary is the only elec-
tion they need to worry about. Congressional races are about to
become even less competitive→ Redistricting has produced a slightly fairer map, but the new boundaries still give the Republicans a large edgePredicted vote margin*, % points
Congressional districts, 2022Predicted Democratic seats, change from baseline
Baseline=seats won if the popular vote is tiedShare of vote v predicted share of seats, %*Weighted average vote margin in last two presidential elections
Sources: FiveThirtyEight; The EconomistDemocrat Republican15 55 1547.152.92020 Court decisions reduced but did
not eliminate the Republicans’ advantage35 40 45 50 55 60 6548.351.72022 Democrats need 52% of
votes to control the House35 40 45 50 55 60 653540455055606544.455.6% of seats
if vote is tied2012 Republican gerrymandering
produced bias in their favour35 40 45 50 55 60 65DemocratRepublicanVote, %Seats, %+13 seats-6-6+12-13Change, 2020-22Share of vote, %50 52 54 56 58 600204060802012
20202022↘ Democrats are expected to get fewer
seats in a landslide than in previous years