Democrats seek foothold in critical states for redistricting
Far away from the glare of the presidential campaign, a competition rivaling it in importance is playing out across the country: for power over the redistricting process — and potentially control of the House for the next decade.
Republicans dominated the 2010 elections and used their authority over map-drawing to cement a hold on the House for most of this decade. This time, Democrats are poised to claw back some of that power, and the extent of their gains will come down to under-the-radar elections in a pair of GOP-leaning Sun Belt states: North Carolina and Texas.
Both parties are funneling millions into the battle for the Texas state House and the North Carolina legislature, eager to have a greater say in the crafting of what could be as many as 53 congressional districts between the two states combined. Republican mapmakers locked in a GOP advantage there over the past decade: Before 2018, the GOP held 69 percent of House seats in Texas and 77 percent of seats in North Carolina.
"North Carolina and Texas have a history of some of the worst gerrymandering in the country," said Kelly Ward Burton, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an initiative formed to break the GOP's hold on the map-drawing process. "And so the ability to move from extreme gerrymandering into fair maps is incredibly notable."
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/20/democrats-redistricting-foothold-in-critical-states-for-redistricting-418664