On this edition of Your Call, we discuss the GOP’s gerrymandering efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
After Trump asked Texas Republicans to approve a congressional map that will create five new GOP-leaning seats in August, California Governor Gavin Newsom countered with his own redistricting plan to make up the difference. These efforts have ignited a “gerrymandering arms race” as state lawmakers enter a partisan showdown to protect and expand their power ahead of the critical midterm election.
Though the current battle over gerrymandering is reaching a fever pitch, the roots of the GOP’s attack on voting rights are much deeper than the Trump presidency, making the fight against them significantly harder to win. As David Daley writes in a recent op-ed in The Guardian, a handful of Democrats warned about the power of redistricting decades ago, but too many leaders ignored them. As a result, Democrats are now "on the wrong side of a gerrymandering armageddon" that promises to reshape US democracy as we know it.
Guest:
David Daley, journalist, author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count, Unrigged: How Americans are Battling Back to Save Democracy, and Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right's 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections, and former editor-in-chief of Salon
Resources:
The Guardian: Democrats face a gerrymandering armageddon. This didn’t have to happen
The Guardian: How did we get all this gerrymandering? A short history of the Republican redistricting scheme
NPR: The California redistricting measure cites Texas, highlighting the partisan stakes
CalMatters: Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan is on its way to voters. What you need to know
YouGov: Large majorities of Americans say gerrymandering is a major problem, unfair, and should be illegal
Politico: How California Dems bluffed their way into a gerrymandering showdown
