re: #42 Sly_

Sam Wang at PEC makes a convincing argument, backed up by polling data, that partisan gerrymandering actually hurts the majority party incumbent when there are big voter swings.

The short version is that the kind of gerrymandering Republicans generally engaged in after 2010 entailed pushing as many Democrats into as few districts as possible, leaving other districts with a Republican/Independent majority. If the Independents switch sides, however, which appears to be happening in quite a number of these districts, then those assumed safe seats are made more vulnerable than the average seat.

In other words, gerrymandering works “best” when it is done to keep a particular incumbent in a particular seat (like Peter King in New York), not when it is done to give more seats to a particular party, as was done in states like North Carolina and Ohio. Especially when that particular party is ideologically exclusive to the point of pushing away constituencies that it needs for an electoral majority.

Hello.