The nation continues to struggle along under the weight of the Trump administration, but there’s going to be a chance for a reprieve later this year when the 2018 midterm elections roll around.
Considering the widespread unpopularity of the president and, in some respects, the even more widely spread unpopularity of his party, many hold to the perception that Republicans are gearing up to lose big time later this year in a possible foreshadowing of losses in 2020.
Now, Democrats have one more item casting the odds even more in their favor in their efforts to make those possibilities reality.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has now released the new map of state Congressional districts, a release in time to make them relevant to the state’s primary and general elections later this year.
The map replaces a formerly in place map that was an example of gerrymandering to a remarkable extreme, crafted by Republican state lawmakers. That map was ruled as violating the state’s constitution by the state’s highest judicial body after the League of Women Voters brought a lawsuit over the matter.
The new map shifts the state significantly more in Democrats’ favor than before. As one indication of this, eight districts on the new map cover areas won by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, whereas on the old map, Clinton only won 6 districts.
There are also only 13 county splits on the new map versus 28 on the old map, a measure perceived as indicative of a district map’s fairness.
Indicating just how wildly gerrymandered the state’s Congressional map was ahead of the new one released by the state supreme court this week, although Democrats in Congressional elections since the 2011 redistricting have managed to capture roughly half of the overall statewide vote, they’ve only managed to hang onto about a third of state’s Congressional seats.
Trump, for the record, won the state by just over one percent in the 2016 presidential election. It was one of the few states that were essential to his victory, the others being Wisconsin and Michigan.
The map of state Congressional districts wouldn’t have affected Trump’s victory over Clinton, but there are other issues in other states — like Wisconsin — that could have very well contributed to his victory.
There, like in other Republican held states, the government imposed tough new voting ID laws that kept an unknown but significant number of minority voters away from the polls.
That happened because not all lower income or otherwise minority voters had the ability to have the newly required, state approved ID in time to vote.
Thus, even though the issue of Pennsylvania’s state map of Congressional districts is resolved for the time being, there remain other issues to address across the rest of the nation.
Experts weighing in on the new map, crafted by the court in the absence of a new map from GOP leadership, reinforce the perception that it’s significantly more fair than before and shifts the state rightfully more towards the Democrats.
Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, for instance, called it “Democrats’ dream come true.”
Elections expert at the University of California at Irvine Rick Hasen commented similarly, saying that “the early indications are that this is a much more competitive map which will help the Democrats compared to the gerrymandered maps drawn by the Republican legislature.”
The president has, of course, paid little substantive attention to the real issues affecting American voting.
In one case, he formed an entire commission to investigate his made-up claim that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election.
In another case, he has refused to actively confront the threat posed to American democracy by Russian interference efforts.
Featured Image via MANDEL NGAN/ AFP/ Getty Images
