Democratic governors in seven “red” states, and Republicans in two “blue” ones, will help insulate 81 likely Congressional seats from gerrymandering after 2020. Redistricting for another 61 seats will likely remain entirely in Republican hands compared to just seven seats in states with unified Democratic control.
Yesterday’s election helped limit potential gerrymandering after the 2020 Census in a half-dozen states but not, unfortunately, in the largest prizes. Democrats appear to have failed in their bids to win the gubernatorial elections in Florida, Georgia, and Ohio, and in all three states Republicans maintained their control over the state legislatures as well. Barring Democratic legislative victories, all three of those states will remain prospects for Republican gerrymanders in 2021.
Democrats did win or retain the governorships in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and will likely face either Republican or split legislatures when redistricting maps are redrawn after 2020. Together those states will probably encompass 64 Congressional districts after reapportionment. Two states, Maryland and Massachusetts, with a likely total of seventeen seats, will see Republican governors facing off against Democratic legislatures in 2021. I would not be surprised to see a new Republican representative sent to Washington after the 2020 Census from both these states which now have uniformly Democratic Congressional delegations.
Because the Democrats failed to win the governors’ races in Florida, Georgia, and Ohio, all three states will be prime targets for Republican gerrymanders in 2021. (Iowa, with its four Members of Congress, matters much less.) Ohio and Florida accounted for three to five “excess” Republican seats after the 2010 Census, and Georgia may have added another. Because the Democrats fared less well in these larger states, the GOP will be drawing district lines for 61 of the 149 seats in “trifecta” states where they control both the governor’s mansion and the two houses of the state legislature.
1Both Michigan and New York appeared in the earlier version of this chart. However both states will be using nonpartisan redistricting commissions in 2021 and have been excluded from the analysis here.
