Democrats need to bring gerrymandering back to California

Politics & Elections
1

As long as red states gerrymander and California does not, we are going to keep losing the house.

There are something like 40 democrats and 12 republicans representing California. I believe with gerrymandering it would be closer to 50 democrats and 2 republicans. I read that years ago in an article though, so I don’t have a source.

That is easily the difference between a house that supports Trump’s agenda vs a house that blocks it.

I fully support a federal ban on gerrymandering (as well as federal laws to protect voters and make voting easier). But as long as the GOP gerrymanders in places like TX and the democrats do not in places like CA, we are going to keep losing.

2

You’d have to basically carve out all of eastern California, from Kern County up to the top of the state, as red. I don’t think you could give the R’s just 2 seats out of that big half.

3

Actually, this map says it would be 47-6, but thats still a better advantage than 40-12.

This map was before 2020 when CA lost a seat and dropped from 53 to 52.

4

The reason you don’t have a source is because it isn’t true. Despite the perception of California being a “liberal stronghold”, outside of the populous Los Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas (and more recently San Diego and Sacramento) and certain coastal enclaves, most of the state is pretty mixed and the northeastern counties (a.k.a. “The State of Jefferson”) are deep red. You can gerrymander the shit out of any map if you work hard enough, I guess, but a 50:2 map would have some extremely tortured districts.

Stranger

5

Exactly this.

But beyond that you’d first have to convince a majority of voters to amend the CA constitution to allow for it. Prop 20 in 2010 (won with 61% of the vote) made it a “non-partisan” decision by committee. Further it only undertaken after a census year, the last one was in 2020 and redistricting was not complete until 2022. Next census is in 2030, which means the earliest you are going to see any redistricting is maybe 2031. Which means the 2032 election, two full presidential terms from now.

Even if you want to do it, it requires plenty of uncertain hoop-jumping and will not happen until several years from now at the earliest.

6

True.
And if you want to run with the angels and allocate EC Votes proportionally I get:

Votes EC Electors
Harris 7,267,019 31
Trump 4,792,460 21
Kennedy 143,435
Stein 115,416
12,318,30 52

With Trump getting the 52nd spot by about 31k votes ahead of Kennedy.