Shawn Fleetwood writes for the Federalist about a current national election map controversy.
Several Republican-controlled states are looking at (potentially) undertaking mid-decade redistricting that could boost the GOP’s prospects of retaining the House in the 2026 midterms. And predictably, leftists are going berserk.
After the Texas Legislature released a new congressional map on Wednesday that could reportedly help Republicans pick up five additional House seats next year, state and national Democrats quickly rushed to characterize the proposal as an “attack” on “democracy” and an attempt to “suppress” voters.
Of course, such hyperbolic tantrums completely neglect the partisan gerrymandered maps enacted in Democrat-run states like Maryland and Illinois and leftist-led efforts to replicate them in places such as Wisconsin. And while entertaining to watch, the left’s meltdown drowns out two other major points on the redistricting issue that they’ve seemingly tried to sweep under the rug.
Townhall.com’s Guy Benson raised one of these issues in a Wednesday column, in which he highlighted a problem that came to fruition several years ago involving the U.S. Census Bureau. After its 2020 census, the agency released a report disclosing significant errors that favored Democrats in future elections.
As The Federalist previously reported, the agency effectively found that five of the six states that experienced population undercounts are considered “red states,” and six of the eight states that saw population overcounts are “blue states.” Put another way, the undercounted states (most of which are considered “Republican”) were apportioned fewer congressional seats than they were supposed to receive, while the overcounted states (most of which are considered “Democrat”) were apportioned more than what they were entitled to.
The other major redistricting issue is one previously admitted by Democrats themselves. That is, illegal immigrants are included in census counts and deporting them could result in their party losing House seats and electoral power.
