Let's not smear all media sources, the WaPo has clearly shifted well to the right, but other sources, if sometimes frustrating, have also done fantastic work in investigating the Trump administration.
Any independent needs ~10-16k signatures in order to make the ballot (no less than 5% but no more than 8% of the number of votes cast in the last general election) by May 26
Is there much he can realistically do? Sometimes the incumbent party has fucked up a state’s government or done so many unpopular things so bad that voters are eager for someone “reasonable/moderate” from the minority party to lead—look at Kansas, Vermont, Kentucky, Virginia, and Louisiana as recent examples of that.
Iowa 2026 strikes me as Kansas 2018 all over again except in a less red state than Kansas was at the time. You have an unpopular Republican governor exiting. It also helps that Sand is an established statewide winner with voter familiarity. It makes sense that he would be leading. Maybe the margin he’s leading by is a bit of a surprise, but I could believe a pretty big win by him when you consider the above factors. Laura Kelly won by 5 points in 2018, and that was with a socially liberal indy candidate splitting votes! It doesn’t help Iowa Republicans that Trump is polling quite poorly in the state.
All that to say I’m not from Iowa and can’t speak well to its dynamics, but if you look at analogous stories in other states, you would expect a Sand win.
What will it take for the legislature to either get rid of top-two or combine it with ranked choice voting? Like, will it actually take getting locked out of something major? This is all so unnecessary and we have the supermajority we need to make any necessary changes, so for the love of all things holy, just get it done!
If anything Top 4 with RCV would be the way to go after a "Jungle Primary" In that case it would be Becerra, Steyer, Bianco and Hilton in the General so no chance of any lockout. Would that even be possible with a ballot measure?
It's something small to panic over, but I'd rather not nominate Zach Shrewsbury for Senate here in a few weeks. Not based on his progressive credentials or electability, but his past as a sexual harasser. It's a bad look for Democrats nationally to have someone like that be the nominee for federal office.
I'm not in VA, but as an avid postcard and Vote Forward letter-writer, I have strongly supported VA legislative candidates the last few election cycles ('21, '23, '25) and I wrote a bunch of "Vote Yes" postcards this year.
So I am curious about your opinion of the impact of all the robocalls and mailers with disinformation telling Democratic-leaning voters to vote NO and claiming that Obama, Spanberger, etc. were against the referendum.
It would have been one thing for the GOP to send mailers to GOP voters telling them to come out to vote NO to preserve the GOP majority in the House. That would have been fair game. What they did is dirty pool and cheating in my book and I am glad it failed!
I will also eat crow. I thought it would easily pass, but it only barely did. Oh well. A win is a win. I don't think this tells us much about the environment though--referenda are historically weird and rarely closely match typical partisan voting patterns. Otherwise we would still be competitive in places like Missouri and Arkansas!
It looks like there was a lot of dirty pool with the R disinfo campaign. Of course they can always do that, but I think referendum questions are particularly vulnerable to those sorts of shenanigans because it's not immediately obvious whether you're team R or D the way you can always fall back on in a candidate choice.
All that said, I can see an argument for not wanting to keep that map indefinitely--going by the numbers, in a different, more R-headwind environment, that looks like it potentially opens up vulnerability to a dummymander.
This year, though? Yeah, GOP can suck it. I love the whining from the exact same people who were cramming Texas down their constituents'/everyone's throats literally months ago. At least CA and VA voted on ours.
I really want to ask, or someone to ask: just how dumb do you think we all are? Listen, just because y'all are in a personality cult and echo Fearless Leader if he said the moon is made of cheese, the rest of us didn't sign up. You started the gerrymander war here, remember? Pick a lane. Either you want fair maps or you want gerrymanders, but you don't get to go "gerrymanders for us, but it's NO FAIR when Dems do the same damn thing."
Or, do, but then don't be surprised when everyone calls you out for being whiny little spoiled toddlers.
The fact that it passed at all in what was once a swing (and before that, red) state is, to me, just as much of an indication of a blue tsunami as the overperformances. We’d have likely lost in a different environment. This might as well be an overperformance to me.
The polling for the VA referendum ended up being pretty much spot on. Yet another data point indicating that the death of the polling industry has been greatly exaggerated. Generally speaking, arguments that polls are worthless tend to be trotted out when people don't like what the polls have to say.
WI-1: Democrats could have a formidable candidate here in Milwaukee alderman Peter Burgelis, who will reportedly challenge Rep. Bryan Steil. Milwaukee is not in the 1st district.
This district was a Democratic target in 2018, and Ironworker Randy Bryce is running now, along with physician Mitchell Berman. WI Supreme Court justices Taylor and Crawford easily carried the seat in their elections, based in southeast Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee. Its conservatism has spawned the likes of Paul Ryan in the past.
Need some juice in CD1 - Steil is definitely beatable but the current slate of candidates is not that exciting. I had hope a member of the state legislature might have ran but it seems like they all have designs on being in the majority in Madison. Dems did well in the municipal elections in Janesville so I think the district is primed for a flip.
The earlier date is all federal offices (Senate and House) and the later is for all state and local offices. There is a federal law requiring very long windows for overseas/military ballots because they can take a long time to go and come back (especially with military mailboxes). The constitution (and later court cases) limits how much Congress can regulate non-federal elections. Few states go to the both of having different filing deadline for the two.types of races, but they have that options.
Yeah either the reporting about the dissent being slow-walked is accurate, or they want to kill the VRA but not have it be so close to the elections so people forget who's to blame.
Or they're not actually going to kill the VRA outright. I recall a few people who listened to the hearings note that Roberts and Gorsuch expressed opposition to further gutting of the VRA.
I’d love to quickly “open source” what a potential federal anti-gerrymandering bill would include. And it can’t be anything quirky that would never pass Congress like mixed-member districts or ranked choice or anything similar. What elements of a bill do folks think could a) legitimately curb gerrymandering in single-member districts, and b) pass Congress? Some options:
- a party’s share of districts needs to match presidential results (by how much?)
- independent commissions everywhere (how are they picked?)
- do we assume VRA is in place or not (would GOP even consider a proposal if this is included)
I would pass a stand-alone bill separately that simply bans mid-decade redistricting.
It will probably end up being something like “Districts shall not be drawn to unfairly advantage or disadvantage any one political party.” with a whole lot of fighting over what counts as “unfair.” By necessity, I think most standards would have to be floaty and vague to account for the various factors. For instance, while these days there is an extreme urban v rural discrepancy in politics, that has not always been the case, and it probably won’t always be the case going forward.
Some actual specifics that might be considered:
-Geographic limitations such as not needlessly splitting cities and counties
-Some requirement of a coherent community of interest, if feasible or possible (which could cover things like race, ethnicity, and limiting the mixing of urban v suburb v rural)
I would say a federal anti-gerrymandering bill would at minimum 1) ban mid-decade redistricting, 2) all 50 states required to use 13–15-person independent commissions for both state and Congressional map drawing, and 3) implement geographic limitations that keep map drawers from cracking and packing districts.
MA and ID are actually good cases, for me, that strike down the idea of mandating that a state's representatives should always closely match the partisan breakdown of a state. In ID with only 2 districts (even likely with 3 after the next census), you really can't draw even a competitive seat that isn't a horrific tendril-monster creeping around the state. In MA, you can draw a couple of seats R's could be competitive in, but it's a struggle to draw the 3 out of 9 seats that Trump's 36% 2024 vote count would suggest.
All that being said, I do think there should be a standard that encourages maps close to each state's partisan breakdown while recognizing when that's not possible, like in MA and ID.
I agree with your point about the impracticality of drawing "proportional" maps, but I also think its a bad idea philosophically. It would dramatically reduce the concept of checks and balances by having the house vote mirror the presidential vote. We already effectively have that in the Senate - we don't need it in the House too.
The Idaho constitution actually does bar splitting counties and I believe voting districts for the purpose of gerrymandering. It’s Idaho, so nobody realizes that.
A big geographical limitation would be a requirement not to split cities or counties and if a county or city is too big to fit in one district it must fully contain one district before it’s split. You can’t split a county or city until you have overflowing population that in and of itself is too small for its own district and so on.
The issue with that is that there are some counties or cities where there is a COI argument for splitting, like putting northern Manhattan in with the Bronx, or putting the majority Hispanic parts of Newark in a different district than the majority Black parts.
Michigan's model is a good one, and is working well. No officers of a party, or politician, or former politician, or lobbyists can serve on Commission. By Constitution amendment the districts have be drawn as competitively as physically as possible. Non of those boundary rules are included.The NAACP did bring suit after the first primary where it was applied eliminated most Black Candidates around Detroit. That first election brought a very narrow Democratic Trifecta. After the NAACP won their suit, Democrats lost the State Senate. The fact that the new lines consolidated the Black Vote inside the City of Detroit instead of spreading it like spokes of a wheel with suburbia, by results: First Election, City of Detroit got a massive increase in funding from the State for everything from public schools to infrastructure, and social services. After the lawsuit: almost no bills have passed the deadlocked legislature and no new funding for anything.
MAGA still in control of House Republicans. New Republican Candidates show Republican Voters seem be choosing the more moderate one, if given a choice. Each District most be drawn as close to a 50/50 split as possible. Lines as square as possible to achieve this.
In a State like Michigan, where the Minority Vote is very small and concentrated, Cities like Detroit actually were better served by the first map by adding together the Union and Minority Vote to the betterment of both. The first legislature also benefited labor by eliminating the Right to Work law in Michigan. Labor never would have gotten this through the present legislature. The first legislature also got free lunch for every public schools child regardless of income plus A new Green New Deal on energy. Coalitions work, even in a narrowly divided Legislature!
The Detroit districts, as I recall, didn't elect as many black candidates to the state leg, but as Louise said, Detroit benefited more because it elected more candidates that cared about Detroit's interests. Afterward, the Black vote was packed and Black community got numerically more Blacks elected, but fewer total people that cared about their issues. Which begs the question as to whether VRA was truly serving the community, or if its current construction is still as effective as it could be.
For example, in SC, where I live now, the state senate has 12 of 46 seats filled by Dems (26%). 8 are Black. The state is about 25% Black. The floor for Dem votes is about 40%. The ceiling is about 45%. The Dem seats are packed in the gerrymandered sense with the Black population but they meet VRA. As a result the Dem districts are sinks and the Dems can't even prevent a supermajority of Rs. VRA assures 17% representation by Black senators, but anti-gerrymandering non-VRA might go farther in supporting Black interests. 21st century white Dems are not closet Klan members.
Oh, no! I was responding to the person who was asking what public commission models were proving effective and the details. My understanding is that the VRA is temporary lasting only through or to 2030. I would vote for the same in Michigan if it was presented as temporary! Alas, with our Senate held now by Republicans, there will be no changes here in Michigan, even temporary. Our delegation will probably be pretty evenly spit, with Dems holding on to retiring Sen.Peters seat. I am backing El-Sayed, but would be perfectly happy with McMorrow. I would take Stevens even over Mike Rogers any day!!!! I'm flexible as long as it isn't Republican. My own Congress person, Debbie Dingell is running unapposed.
Depends on how you want to view the data. RCP had him at -12.3 on April 22, 2018 for reference. There's a big negative spike right after Jan 6, and another one in Dec 2017. Otherwise as best I can tell he was better than -17 for the rest of the term on RCP.
It's sad that the Virginia redistricting is necessary, but I hope the Democratic congressional leaders take this opportunity to promise to ban gerrymandering next time they can. We need to be clear that we're doing this in self-defense and that we still believe in clean maps.
That's been a central part of the messaging in CA, VA, and elsewhere, but it does need to be taken to the national level. We support a NATIONAL ban on gerrymandering. Until then, we're going to "10-1" every state we can. Also, a national ban would likely require GOP votes, so it's important for both parties to realize this is needed (which is the core lesson of the gerrymandering wars anyway).
I'd love to see how the Virginia redistricting referendum fared in the each of the new congressional districts. It wouldn't surprise me if as many as 8 of the 11 districts went for the No side, although I could be very wrong about that.
Wow. Votehub took the by-precinct results offline.
It seems they initially didn’t distribute the county vbm to the by-district summary. (I.e most districts outside 3rd should have close to 300k votes. The total they had by each district was too small.)
Just eyeballing the vbm total, I think yes won 7th and 2nd probably comfy. Probably also carried 6th, or very close.
It seems what happened in VA was the opposite of what happened in CA. Anti-referendum spending spiked near the end for VA while anti-referendum spending in CA basically gave up in their last few weeks (also, CA is bluer of course).
Why was there the push to move redistricting out of the lege's hands? It felt like it came out of the blue in early 2020. It's not like NC in 2010 where Dems were still reliant on federally red, locally blue turf.
That's a big part I think. If Virginia's vote had been held on the same day as California's I think we'd have seen a much bigger margin in favor of yes.
Another data point telling us that voters have a short memory. It's an important detail to remember.
I'm curious, considering this referendum didn't perform so great in downstate Virginia, if there's any backlash to the dems who will be running here? Could have countering winds, an anti-trump one and an anti-gerrymandering one.
I don't think so. At least we shouldn't conclude anything from this. Many red states vote for liberal/progressive-championed referenda all the time and that has no effect on Republicans who are against those things.
The only one who probably should be worried about their political standing is Abigail Spanberger. The polls that had Yes only narrowly winning had her approval ratings almost completely eroded to zero. She needs to course-correct the perception of her gubernatorial start if she has Senate or VP ambitions.
It performed fine downstate in the places that matter for Dems. Richmond suburbs were solid for Dems and Yes won in 6/7 of the Hampton Roads localities. Charlottesville/Blacksburg areas voted in line with how they have in typical VA elections.
As far as virginia vote goes: I have neighbors who live in VA 6 mo/yr and in CA 6 mo/yr. They vote in VA and went back to VA last week so they could vote NO. They are retired Gov/University types who are loyal Dem voters. They said they and many others they know are voting NO because they are against the process (I couldn't convince them otherwise) of mid-term redistricting. I suspect this may have skewed the vote a little.
Let's not smear all media sources, the WaPo has clearly shifted well to the right, but other sources, if sometimes frustrating, have also done fantastic work in investigating the Trump administration.
Any independent needs ~10-16k signatures in order to make the ballot (no less than 5% but no more than 8% of the number of votes cast in the last general election) by May 26
Is there much he can realistically do? Sometimes the incumbent party has fucked up a state’s government or done so many unpopular things so bad that voters are eager for someone “reasonable/moderate” from the minority party to lead—look at Kansas, Vermont, Kentucky, Virginia, and Louisiana as recent examples of that.
Iowa 2026 strikes me as Kansas 2018 all over again except in a less red state than Kansas was at the time. You have an unpopular Republican governor exiting. It also helps that Sand is an established statewide winner with voter familiarity. It makes sense that he would be leading. Maybe the margin he’s leading by is a bit of a surprise, but I could believe a pretty big win by him when you consider the above factors. Laura Kelly won by 5 points in 2018, and that was with a socially liberal indy candidate splitting votes! It doesn’t help Iowa Republicans that Trump is polling quite poorly in the state.
All that to say I’m not from Iowa and can’t speak well to its dynamics, but if you look at analogous stories in other states, you would expect a Sand win.
Sounds like a Nexstar-produced debate (KTLA and KRON are Nexstar-owned), similar to the WGN/WCIA-produced debates in Illinois.
Also, an apparent glitch caused your comment to post four times.
Fox 5 and KUSI in San Diego are also both NextStar.
What will it take for the legislature to either get rid of top-two or combine it with ranked choice voting? Like, will it actually take getting locked out of something major? This is all so unnecessary and we have the supermajority we need to make any necessary changes, so for the love of all things holy, just get it done!
If anything Top 4 with RCV would be the way to go after a "Jungle Primary" In that case it would be Becerra, Steyer, Bianco and Hilton in the General so no chance of any lockout. Would that even be possible with a ballot measure?
The top two primary was put in by a ballot measure. I am pretty sure that it needs another vote of the people to be repealed.
Why LOL?
The poll in the digest
No, why would it be a laughing matter?
It's something small to panic over, but I'd rather not nominate Zach Shrewsbury for Senate here in a few weeks. Not based on his progressive credentials or electability, but his past as a sexual harasser. It's a bad look for Democrats nationally to have someone like that be the nominee for federal office.
I'm assuming alien's generation here but I think this article helps:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-do-millennials-write-lol-after-everything_l_6622dd3be4b0167f7bf4e2d0
particularly this quote: "Alex Liggett, a millennial from Pittsburgh, likens millennials’ 'lol' overuse to 'a scream at the state of the world.'"
Ok, fair enough. I won't emulate that overuse, as it risks sapping the abbreviation of meaning.
Ok, no one was asking that of you...lol
The whole "you tried to give us a 10-1 map, let's see how you like it" was iconic.
I'm not in VA, but as an avid postcard and Vote Forward letter-writer, I have strongly supported VA legislative candidates the last few election cycles ('21, '23, '25) and I wrote a bunch of "Vote Yes" postcards this year.
So I am curious about your opinion of the impact of all the robocalls and mailers with disinformation telling Democratic-leaning voters to vote NO and claiming that Obama, Spanberger, etc. were against the referendum.
It would have been one thing for the GOP to send mailers to GOP voters telling them to come out to vote NO to preserve the GOP majority in the House. That would have been fair game. What they did is dirty pool and cheating in my book and I am glad it failed!
I will also eat crow. I thought it would easily pass, but it only barely did. Oh well. A win is a win. I don't think this tells us much about the environment though--referenda are historically weird and rarely closely match typical partisan voting patterns. Otherwise we would still be competitive in places like Missouri and Arkansas!
It looks like there was a lot of dirty pool with the R disinfo campaign. Of course they can always do that, but I think referendum questions are particularly vulnerable to those sorts of shenanigans because it's not immediately obvious whether you're team R or D the way you can always fall back on in a candidate choice.
All that said, I can see an argument for not wanting to keep that map indefinitely--going by the numbers, in a different, more R-headwind environment, that looks like it potentially opens up vulnerability to a dummymander.
This year, though? Yeah, GOP can suck it. I love the whining from the exact same people who were cramming Texas down their constituents'/everyone's throats literally months ago. At least CA and VA voted on ours.
I really want to ask, or someone to ask: just how dumb do you think we all are? Listen, just because y'all are in a personality cult and echo Fearless Leader if he said the moon is made of cheese, the rest of us didn't sign up. You started the gerrymander war here, remember? Pick a lane. Either you want fair maps or you want gerrymanders, but you don't get to go "gerrymanders for us, but it's NO FAIR when Dems do the same damn thing."
Or, do, but then don't be surprised when everyone calls you out for being whiny little spoiled toddlers.
The fact that it passed at all in what was once a swing (and before that, red) state is, to me, just as much of an indication of a blue tsunami as the overperformances. We’d have likely lost in a different environment. This might as well be an overperformance to me.
Or, political shifts that take place over periods of time have solidified Virginia as a solidly blue state in this time of American history.
That too.
The polling for the VA referendum ended up being pretty much spot on. Yet another data point indicating that the death of the polling industry has been greatly exaggerated. Generally speaking, arguments that polls are worthless tend to be trotted out when people don't like what the polls have to say.
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2026/04/21/alderman-peter-burgelis-exploring-run-for-congress/
WI-1: Democrats could have a formidable candidate here in Milwaukee alderman Peter Burgelis, who will reportedly challenge Rep. Bryan Steil. Milwaukee is not in the 1st district.
This district was a Democratic target in 2018, and Ironworker Randy Bryce is running now, along with physician Mitchell Berman. WI Supreme Court justices Taylor and Crawford easily carried the seat in their elections, based in southeast Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee. Its conservatism has spawned the likes of Paul Ryan in the past.
Need some juice in CD1 - Steil is definitely beatable but the current slate of candidates is not that exciting. I had hope a member of the state legislature might have ran but it seems like they all have designs on being in the majority in Madison. Dems did well in the municipal elections in Janesville so I think the district is primed for a flip.
Wonder if RDS is reconsidering how to redraw the FL Congressional maps after the narrow YES vote in Virginia.
The earlier date is all federal offices (Senate and House) and the later is for all state and local offices. There is a federal law requiring very long windows for overseas/military ballots because they can take a long time to go and come back (especially with military mailboxes). The constitution (and later court cases) limits how much Congress can regulate non-federal elections. Few states go to the both of having different filing deadline for the two.types of races, but they have that options.
The Callais decision may be announced in a few minutes which may give him more ammunition
Nope, not today
At this point, no shot Callais is released before June imo
I think you may be right. So it won’t apply to this year’s elections.
Yeah either the reporting about the dissent being slow-walked is accurate, or they want to kill the VRA but not have it be so close to the elections so people forget who's to blame.
Or they're not actually going to kill the VRA outright. I recall a few people who listened to the hearings note that Roberts and Gorsuch expressed opposition to further gutting of the VRA.
I’d love to quickly “open source” what a potential federal anti-gerrymandering bill would include. And it can’t be anything quirky that would never pass Congress like mixed-member districts or ranked choice or anything similar. What elements of a bill do folks think could a) legitimately curb gerrymandering in single-member districts, and b) pass Congress? Some options:
- a party’s share of districts needs to match presidential results (by how much?)
- independent commissions everywhere (how are they picked?)
- do we assume VRA is in place or not (would GOP even consider a proposal if this is included)
I would pass a stand-alone bill separately that simply bans mid-decade redistricting.
It will probably end up being something like “Districts shall not be drawn to unfairly advantage or disadvantage any one political party.” with a whole lot of fighting over what counts as “unfair.” By necessity, I think most standards would have to be floaty and vague to account for the various factors. For instance, while these days there is an extreme urban v rural discrepancy in politics, that has not always been the case, and it probably won’t always be the case going forward.
Some actual specifics that might be considered:
-Geographic limitations such as not needlessly splitting cities and counties
-Some requirement of a coherent community of interest, if feasible or possible (which could cover things like race, ethnicity, and limiting the mixing of urban v suburb v rural)
I would say a federal anti-gerrymandering bill would at minimum 1) ban mid-decade redistricting, 2) all 50 states required to use 13–15-person independent commissions for both state and Congressional map drawing, and 3) implement geographic limitations that keep map drawers from cracking and packing districts.
MA and ID are actually good cases, for me, that strike down the idea of mandating that a state's representatives should always closely match the partisan breakdown of a state. In ID with only 2 districts (even likely with 3 after the next census), you really can't draw even a competitive seat that isn't a horrific tendril-monster creeping around the state. In MA, you can draw a couple of seats R's could be competitive in, but it's a struggle to draw the 3 out of 9 seats that Trump's 36% 2024 vote count would suggest.
All that being said, I do think there should be a standard that encourages maps close to each state's partisan breakdown while recognizing when that's not possible, like in MA and ID.
I agree with your point about the impracticality of drawing "proportional" maps, but I also think its a bad idea philosophically. It would dramatically reduce the concept of checks and balances by having the house vote mirror the presidential vote. We already effectively have that in the Senate - we don't need it in the House too.
The Idaho constitution actually does bar splitting counties and I believe voting districts for the purpose of gerrymandering. It’s Idaho, so nobody realizes that.
A big geographical limitation would be a requirement not to split cities or counties and if a county or city is too big to fit in one district it must fully contain one district before it’s split. You can’t split a county or city until you have overflowing population that in and of itself is too small for its own district and so on.
The issue with that is that there are some counties or cities where there is a COI argument for splitting, like putting northern Manhattan in with the Bronx, or putting the majority Hispanic parts of Newark in a different district than the majority Black parts.
Michigan's model is a good one, and is working well. No officers of a party, or politician, or former politician, or lobbyists can serve on Commission. By Constitution amendment the districts have be drawn as competitively as physically as possible. Non of those boundary rules are included.The NAACP did bring suit after the first primary where it was applied eliminated most Black Candidates around Detroit. That first election brought a very narrow Democratic Trifecta. After the NAACP won their suit, Democrats lost the State Senate. The fact that the new lines consolidated the Black Vote inside the City of Detroit instead of spreading it like spokes of a wheel with suburbia, by results: First Election, City of Detroit got a massive increase in funding from the State for everything from public schools to infrastructure, and social services. After the lawsuit: almost no bills have passed the deadlocked legislature and no new funding for anything.
MAGA still in control of House Republicans. New Republican Candidates show Republican Voters seem be choosing the more moderate one, if given a choice. Each District most be drawn as close to a 50/50 split as possible. Lines as square as possible to achieve this.
In a State like Michigan, where the Minority Vote is very small and concentrated, Cities like Detroit actually were better served by the first map by adding together the Union and Minority Vote to the betterment of both. The first legislature also benefited labor by eliminating the Right to Work law in Michigan. Labor never would have gotten this through the present legislature. The first legislature also got free lunch for every public schools child regardless of income plus A new Green New Deal on energy. Coalitions work, even in a narrowly divided Legislature!
Surely you aren't proposing we scrap the VRA?
The Detroit districts, as I recall, didn't elect as many black candidates to the state leg, but as Louise said, Detroit benefited more because it elected more candidates that cared about Detroit's interests. Afterward, the Black vote was packed and Black community got numerically more Blacks elected, but fewer total people that cared about their issues. Which begs the question as to whether VRA was truly serving the community, or if its current construction is still as effective as it could be.
For example, in SC, where I live now, the state senate has 12 of 46 seats filled by Dems (26%). 8 are Black. The state is about 25% Black. The floor for Dem votes is about 40%. The ceiling is about 45%. The Dem seats are packed in the gerrymandered sense with the Black population but they meet VRA. As a result the Dem districts are sinks and the Dems can't even prevent a supermajority of Rs. VRA assures 17% representation by Black senators, but anti-gerrymandering non-VRA might go farther in supporting Black interests. 21st century white Dems are not closet Klan members.
Oh, no! I was responding to the person who was asking what public commission models were proving effective and the details. My understanding is that the VRA is temporary lasting only through or to 2030. I would vote for the same in Michigan if it was presented as temporary! Alas, with our Senate held now by Republicans, there will be no changes here in Michigan, even temporary. Our delegation will probably be pretty evenly spit, with Dems holding on to retiring Sen.Peters seat. I am backing El-Sayed, but would be perfectly happy with McMorrow. I would take Stevens even over Mike Rogers any day!!!! I'm flexible as long as it isn't Republican. My own Congress person, Debbie Dingell is running unapposed.
Trump drops to -17 approval on RCP. Second term low. -20 on NY Times.
Was he lower than that at some point in his first term?
Depends on how you want to view the data. RCP had him at -12.3 on April 22, 2018 for reference. There's a big negative spike right after Jan 6, and another one in Dec 2017. Otherwise as best I can tell he was better than -17 for the rest of the term on RCP.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179-test-v2.html
It's sad that the Virginia redistricting is necessary, but I hope the Democratic congressional leaders take this opportunity to promise to ban gerrymandering next time they can. We need to be clear that we're doing this in self-defense and that we still believe in clean maps.
That's been a central part of the messaging in CA, VA, and elsewhere, but it does need to be taken to the national level. We support a NATIONAL ban on gerrymandering. Until then, we're going to "10-1" every state we can. Also, a national ban would likely require GOP votes, so it's important for both parties to realize this is needed (which is the core lesson of the gerrymandering wars anyway).
I'd love to see how the Virginia redistricting referendum fared in the each of the new congressional districts. It wouldn't surprise me if as many as 8 of the 11 districts went for the No side, although I could be very wrong about that.
Someone did calculate this!
"No" won 2, 6 and 9
https://x.com/FLPolEnjoyer/status/2046778262567759905?s=20
Probably only the new 9th and 6th.
Votehub showed no ahead by hundreds of votes in 2nd and 7th. With provisionals and late arriving VBMs, quite possibly they flip back to yes.
Yeah quite possible
Wow. Votehub took the by-precinct results offline.
It seems they initially didn’t distribute the county vbm to the by-district summary. (I.e most districts outside 3rd should have close to 300k votes. The total they had by each district was too small.)
Just eyeballing the vbm total, I think yes won 7th and 2nd probably comfy. Probably also carried 6th, or very close.
It seems what happened in VA was the opposite of what happened in CA. Anti-referendum spending spiked near the end for VA while anti-referendum spending in CA basically gave up in their last few weeks (also, CA is bluer of course).
Why was there the push to move redistricting out of the lege's hands? It felt like it came out of the blue in early 2020. It's not like NC in 2010 where Dems were still reliant on federally red, locally blue turf.
That's a big part I think. If Virginia's vote had been held on the same day as California's I think we'd have seen a much bigger margin in favor of yes.
Another data point telling us that voters have a short memory. It's an important detail to remember.
Yep, California was fresh off texas
Nobody should underestimate the antipathy we have for Texas. It is almost an insult to call someone a Texan here (Oakland, Ca)
I'm curious, considering this referendum didn't perform so great in downstate Virginia, if there's any backlash to the dems who will be running here? Could have countering winds, an anti-trump one and an anti-gerrymandering one.
I don't think so. At least we shouldn't conclude anything from this. Many red states vote for liberal/progressive-championed referenda all the time and that has no effect on Republicans who are against those things.
The only one who probably should be worried about their political standing is Abigail Spanberger. The polls that had Yes only narrowly winning had her approval ratings almost completely eroded to zero. She needs to course-correct the perception of her gubernatorial start if she has Senate or VP ambitions.
I agree, stop worrying about polling, of course republicans aren't going to like it.
It performed fine downstate in the places that matter for Dems. Richmond suburbs were solid for Dems and Yes won in 6/7 of the Hampton Roads localities. Charlottesville/Blacksburg areas voted in line with how they have in typical VA elections.
How funny it will be if somehow Greg Abbott who started this redistricting battle also loses his reelection bid for Governor.
As far as virginia vote goes: I have neighbors who live in VA 6 mo/yr and in CA 6 mo/yr. They vote in VA and went back to VA last week so they could vote NO. They are retired Gov/University types who are loyal Dem voters. They said they and many others they know are voting NO because they are against the process (I couldn't convince them otherwise) of mid-term redistricting. I suspect this may have skewed the vote a little.