In 1812, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry redrew his commonwealth’s state legislative districts to benefit Gerry’s party, the Democratic-Republicans. Gerry succeeded, but not without leaving behind fingerprints; a state senate district in Essex County was so blatantly contorted in order to benefit Democratic-Republicans that it looked like a salamander.
Hence a portmanteau was born: Gerrymander, or the practice of redrawing legislative districts in ridiculous ways so one party will benefit.
Gerry, it’s worth noting, was elected vice president the same year that he pulled off that deft move, and today’s California Governor Gavin Newsom had an even loftier ambition in mind. He pushed, through a referendum known as Proposition 50, to give California up to five more congressional seats through transparent gerrymandering. If the Supreme Court overturns a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as they seem poised to do, the South could offset this by adding as many as 19 more seats through their own gerrymandering. All told, that means Democrats will be at a net disadvantage of 14 seats going into the upcoming 2026 midterm elections… and in a legislative body where the Democrats are already behind by 219 seats to 214 seats.
As I see it, Democrats cannot afford to allow Republicans to retain control of the House of Representatives. If they do, they will embolden President Trump to further erode democratic institutions. With those institutions thereby eroded, democratic socialists like myself will have no realistic hope of implementing reforms that reduce income inequality, eliminate ecocide and promote social justice.
For this reason, I reached out to Kyle Kondik of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Sabato, Kondik and their team of political scientists are among the best in the business in predicting and deconstructing election results. I asked Kondik, based on his knowledge of election realities, if the other large blue state — New York — might also contain a few potential House seats. He referred me to this passage from his piece at the Center for Politics, which I quote in full.
Meanwhile, in New York state, Democrats already used a legal gambit to re-open redistricting in advance of 2024 after an aggressive gerrymander was blocked by courts in advance of 2022 (the state uses a weak commission system written into the state constitution by voters last decade). New York too has constitutional language saying that districts shouldn’t favor or disfavor candidates of specific parties, but the constitution also indicates that mid-decade redistricting without a court order is not allowed. State legislative Democrats only ended up making modest modifications to the previously court-drawn map for 2024, though. In our new book on the 2024 election, Campaign of Chaos, I analyzed the New York map and found that Democrats likely would have performed just as well on the 2022 map if it had been in effect in 2024, with the possible exception of Rep. Tom Suozzi (D, NY-3). Democrats appear to be unable to ask voters to change the state constitution on redistricting by 2026 because of the state’s rules: A statewide constitutional amendment has to be approved by the legislature in two consecutive sessions (with an election in between) in order to go before voters, so such a vote could only come after 2026.
Kondik concluded in his email to me, “We know that if they had the opportunity to redraw without limitation, they could try to squeeze an extra 2-3 seats out of the state. Nick LaLota on Long Island and Nicole Malliotakis on Staten Island would be obvious targets.”
I suggest, as Kondik’s own analysis indicates, that Democrats target six potential districts in Illinois, Maryland, Nevada and Oregon. Democrats could also pick up one additional seat apiece by targeting an increasingly moderate Nebraska district and relying on a slow-moving Utah redistricting process.
I write all of these suggestions not because I am a Democrat; I’m far from it. I am, however, a democratic socialist, and the Democratic Party cannot collapse without them taking democratic socialist reform hopes down with them. For this reason, we need a viable two-party system, and that cannot happen unless Gerry’s shrewd vision for the Democratic-Republicans in 1812 saves the Democrats in 2026.
Back Seat Socialism
Back Seat Socialism is a column by Matthew Rozsa, who has been a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently, he is writing a book for Beacon Press, “Neurosocialism,” which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.