The Self-Defeating Republican Gerrymander
And how it just might backfire in November
After the census of 1890, Democrats, who were led at the time by President Grover Cleveland, engaged in widespread gerrymandering in several states, and they did it for exactly the same reasons that Republicans are doing it today. In total, they redrew 148 districts out of a total of 357 seats. The United States has a long and ugly history of this kind of voter manipulation, and while today’s GOP is taking it much farther than anyone ever has before, it’s safe to say that this subject is one where the “both sides” label actually applies.
But the post-1890 gerrymandering ended up creating an outcome no one expected just one election cycle later. In 1893, the United States entered into a significant recession that hit working Americans hard, and they responded by voting against the party in power in 1894. The result was a loss of 114 Democratic seats. Ironically, if the Dems had run in neutral districts, they would have only lost 59 seats. The gerrymander backfired spectacularly, and the resulting self-defeat kept Democrats out of power in the House for 16 years.
And the closer we get to November, the more I believe that this kind of blowout may just be possible again.
While there is non-stop coverage of Republican gerrymandering efforts all over the Jim Crow South, none of that coverage gets into the math of it. That makes sense when you consider that no one wants to tune into a corporate spin hour just to get a math lesson, but that math is going to make things very interesting when we go to the polls in November, especially if Trump’s poll numbers keep dropping. And there is no evidence of any kind that his numbers are likely to recover anytime soon.
If the war ended today and the Strait of Hormuz opened completely, most economists believe that the effects of the actions we have already taken will last months, even years. Even if we made peace today, prices will remain high and the cost of living for working Americans will not come down anytime soon. And while there would certainly be a public relations campaign telling us that everything is just dandy, the math won’t add up, and American families will still be struggling mightily on the day they cast their next vote. And rather than trying to solve these problems that they created, Republicans have instead launched into a ridiculous campaign to disenfranchise voters rather than work for them.
In Texas, and again in Florida, for example, Trump ordered new gerrymandered maps designed to add seats for Republicans in the Fall, but for these gerrymanders to hold up, Trump needs the state’s Latino voters to back him in numbers similar to those he received in 2024. Problem is, his poll numbers among Latino voters have dropped 27 points since 2024. Now, these numbers will vary by district of course, but the trend is easy to see, and the potential for a real surprise at the polls is certainly there.
And when Trump isn’t busy sleeping on camera or getting dog-walked by foreign strongmen looking to become the next leader of the free world, he’s making one bad decision after another, insulting American voters and MAGA goons alike with his constant grifting, corruption, and his outright disdain for working people. So as we suffer, he builds ballrooms with money that could but won’t feed our children. He wants to build an arch and dye the reflecting pool, but he does not want to help us put food on the table or roofs over heads.
“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.” This is what Trump said when asked about the economic toll currently being paid by working Americans as a result of his nonsensical war of choice in Iran.
And it gets worse. Much worse for the GOP. After our illegitimate Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last month, most southern states immediately installed the most racist gerrymanders America has seen since Reconstruction. And they did it smiling, with all the old hate alive and well within them. These acts are unlikely to go unanswered, as talk of a new Civil Rights movement is growing every day.
This kind of oppression has a history to it. It’s a history people remember, and a history they seem eager to repeat. They remember the poll taxes, the literacy tests, and certainly the violence. And they know what will happen if they organize again like they did before. The people currently being targeted by America’s newly uncloseted racists know how to rise up and take what’s theirs. I look forward to seeing them do just that.
While the outcome is certainly unknown, and will remain so, there are a number of easily seen factors that could swing things dramatically in November. Simply put, greed makes people overreach, and Trump is both the greediest and the most unpopular president in American history.
I don’t know if the GOP’s gerrymandering plan will backfire, but the conditions are right, and it has certainly happened before …
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.
Don't you mean "Robertsmander?"
The unsupreme court decreed racism is over as they handed down a racist ruling! Make it make sense?!