In 2017 Election, Democrats Win Phase One of Redistricting Wars

[LongTomH]

Vann R. Newkirk II writing in the Atlantic: Democrats Win Phase One of the Redistricting Wars: "In the crucial state of Virginia, wins by the party in the governor’s mansion and the state legislature give it a foothold in the 2020 mapping game."

After Virginia, the Democratic Party is breathing a sigh of relief. The rather easy victory for Governor-elect Ralph Northam stems the tide of recent hemorrhaging of key positions across the United States to Republicans, and continues Democrats’ control over a blue-ish state. Northam’s victory, and that of Justin Fairfax, the second black official elected in a statewide race in Virginia, also offers a sign that virulent and race-baiting white-identity politics—politics that characterize the Trump era and the late portion of Republican Ed Gillespie’s campaign—are beatable, even in the cradle of the old Confederacy.

Those signs are reason enough for Democrats to celebrate. But the true national significance of Northam’s victory, as well as of major gains by the party in the General Assembly, might not be in the message they send, but the fact that those gains constitute the first big victory for Democrats in the political mapmaking game in at least a decade.

Republican hegemony in the decennial political-redistricting game is well documented. The competition to control just who draws each state’s political maps has taken shape as an arms race, with Republicans capturing the advantage over the past 20 years through a combination of technology, big data, expertise, and electoral strategy. The result has been a set of some of the most contentious—and legally challenged—racial and political gerrymanders in history. But despite the controversy, Republican strength has also increased, as target states where Republicans gained control of the mapmaking process in 2010 saw their share of legislative seats steadily grow, even as their actual vote shares decreased. In other words, these maps helped Republicans retain majorities even when they earned substantially fewer votes.

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A purpling state with distinct geographic patterns of movement and a burgeoning population, Virginia would be an ideal state for showcasing some of the recent extreme trends in redistricting: packing reams of Democratic voters in Northern Virginia and the Tidewater into a select few districts, and then picking off influential D.C. suburbs and college towns across the state and diluting Democratic votes by placing them in heavily-red districts. And, in the case of Virginia, with well-known settlement patterns, such a map might be drawn purely on partisanship lines instead of using race, a factor in political mapmaking that has recently attracted the ire of courts.

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With Republicans running the same playbook in REDMAP 2020, and Democrats countering with a well-funded redistricting scheme of their own, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), the 2017 Virginia election was both the first and one of the most important battlegrounds between the two efforts. According to Kelly Ward, the executive director of the NDRC, “a good portion of the Democratic disadvantage in Congress boils down to seven states,” many of which have seats and governorships on the table in 2018. “You have Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania,” Ward says. “If Democrats can win those seats, then we have a seat at the table during the redistricting process.”

Vann R. Newkirk's interview on the Bill Press show:

This is only Round One. The big fight will be for state houses in 2018.

[vi5]

1. Good. Enough playing nice and worrying about "tradition".

If we control a state, we should be doing everything Republicans did as soon as we have the opportunity to do so. We should be redistricting them right into obsolescence.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

3. Yes! Enough apologetic backing down.

The wrongs of Democrats belong to individual's poor decisions as a general rule, or they are wrongs of treating Our Friends Across the Aisle with undeserved courtesy.

They are nowhere near the traitorous systems that pukes started building decades ago and uphold as a unified group.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Don't forget the blue states, either...

Here in WA, District 8 should be in play next year after Reichert announced he's retiring. There may be a couple more red districts we could flip, too.

I know there are several in CA that should be in play, and NY/NJ are also showing some blue leanings. If we could flip 8 or so red districts in blue states, it makes the road to winning the House a lot easier.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Trump appointing illiterate gerrymanderer to head Census bureau. Gerrymandering fight so important

Trump's appointee to head the Census Bureau is illiterate when it comes to statistics but is enthusiastic about gerrymandering.

Good news in OP. Must fight gerrymandering everywhere all the time until redistricting is locked away in independent non-partisan commission, permanently.