Astead Herndon

It showed that one person in Wyoming had similar influence in the Senate to 68 people in California, 50 people in Texas, and 37 people in Florida.

And it's not just that the numbers don't add up.

It's that the type of people changes also.

Those 68 people in California who add up to one person in Wyoming, those are three black people, dozens of Hispanic folks, a dozen of Asian folks.

That's also true in places like Texas and Florida, which have higher representations of non-whites.

Because of the way the Senate's made up, those voices are almost intentionally suppressed.

The third chart, which might be the most important, is about how fewer competitive house districts there are overall.

In the 2026 cycle, there's only about 30 or so competitive house districts, which is a drastic decrease from 20, 30 years ago.

Check out this chart from G. Eliot Morris.

In 1976, there were more than 90 competitive house districts.

And as recently as 2000, the number hovered around 60, 65.

That has been cut almost in half by this midterm cycle, and it could get even lower as Republicans go further and further in terms of drawing red districts.

Gerrymandering isn't really about the maps.

It's about power.

Who gets it?

Whose voice matters in our democracy?

And who's written out of the process?

And in the midterms here especially, the maps itself could be more important in terms of determining the November result than the individual candidates themselves.

So all of this is important context when we think about the redistricting wars currently playing out in this election cycle.

Because while Donald Trump's push to get Republicans to do mid-year redistricting was unprecedented, it's only possible because the ways both parties have been comfortable with less competitive districts over time as it suited their partisan goals.