Surprise: Democrats dodged a gerrymandering fiasco. A top analyst explains why.
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The long-awaited, long-feared Gerrymandering Apocalypse of 2021 has not materialized for Democrats after all.
Throughout last year, many analysts and panicked Democrats alike concluded that Republicans would win the House in 2022 because of their outsize control over the redrawing of district lines. Some suggested Republicans could take the House on the strength of extreme gerrymanders alone.
But that conventional wisdom just took a big hit with the release of a new analysis by the Cook Political Report. It concludes that the redistricting wars are shaping up as a wash and that the map may be somewhat better for Democrats than during the past decade.
The analysis finds that in the 34 states that have completed redrawn House district lines thus far, President Biden would have carried 161 of 293 districts based on the 2020 vote totals versus 157 under current lines.
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