Republicans may already be regretting their extraordinary mid-decade redistricting gambit pushed by President Donald Trump, according to a report.
If history is any guide, last Tuesday's election wins by Democrats in California, New Jersey and Virginia suggest that Republicans may have pressed their presumed advantages too far by redrawing their congressional maps in states like North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, reported Politico.
"Political scientists have a term for parties spreading their vote perilously thin through redistricting: dummymanders," the outlet reported. "The idea is that, by spreading a party’s voters more thinly across a greater number of districts in order to pick up more seats, a new map will turn strongholds into potential areas of danger. Instead of having five districts where the party can generally count on 60 percent support, say, they’ll create seven districts where their likely share is more like 53 percent — leaving more of them at risk during a wave election."
Last week's results have already spurred some observers to wonder whether Republicans had dummymandered themselves with the newly redrawn 2026 congressional maps.
"Tuesday’s elections supercharged those warnings," according to Politico. "Democrats won every closely-watched election, mostly by huge margins. They also posted gains among Latinos, voters under 30 and those who lack college degrees — a particular point of weakness for the party during the Donald Trump era."
The 1894 election serves as a clear example of the problem Republicans might have created for themselves by attempting to right next year's midterms in their own favor.
"That year, it was Democrats who lost a massive number of seats after taking redistricting too far," Politico reported. "Still, their devastating losses, and their failure to give themselves enough cushion to weather political setbacks and hold onto some seats, contain some lessons for Republicans today."
Frequent redistricting was routine in the 19th century, when parties would take power, draw new maps and then get blown out.
"After the 1890 census, Democrats were able to redraw 148 House districts, compared with just 40 for Republicans. And they got greedy," Politico reported.
Districts were generally more competitive in those days, compared to the present day, and Democrats failed to boost their more promising districts and instead tried to maximize the number of districts where they had a chance of winning, but 1894 turned into a disaster for the party.
"The politics of that year in many ways resemble our own,' Politico reported. "The nation had a president, Democrat Grover Cleveland, who’d returned to power thanks largely to inflation, after having lost his first reelection bid. Congress was arguing about tariffs. And the president sent federal troops into Chicago over the objections of the governor of Illinois — in that case in response to a railroad strike."
The top issue that year was the economy, with the U.S. still reeling from a severe recession, and that doomed the Democrats – who had majorities in both chambers of Congress and the White House.
"The maps Democrats had drawn in 1890 turned this setback into a bloodbath," Politico reported. "In Missouri, for example, Democrats had drawn maps that gave them 13 out of the state’s 15 House seats in 1892. After their share of the statewide vote in congressional races dropped by 6 percentage points in 1894, however, they lost eight of those seats. In New York, they lost 15 of their 20 seats that year. Throughout the Northeast, their total number of seats plunged from 44 to 7, while in the Midwest they lost 40 out of 44. They were reduced essentially to a regional rump party in the still solidly Democratic South."
"All told, Democrats surrendered 114 seats at a time when the House had only 357 seats," the report added. "They controlled no districts at all in 24 of the 44 states and only one in six other states. They would not regain control of the House for 16 years."