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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gerrymander

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February 7, 2022 12:21 p.m.
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You’ve likely seen from Kate Riga’s reporting that things were trending in this direction. But over the weekend, Dave Wasserman of The Cook Report announced that according to his analysis the Democrats are now the net winners of the 2020–22 redistricting process nationwide.

Take a moment to let that sink in. For much of last year people were assuming that Republican state legislatures were going to use redistricting to engineer a gerrymander that might put the House and thus functional control of the federal government out of the reach of Democrats for the next decade. But that’s not how it’s turned out. Wasserman now thinks Democrats are on track for a net 2–3 seat gain.

Before we go any further there are critical caveats to understand here.

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