Gerrymandering and the Rising Risk of a Monopoly on Power

The Democratic Electoral College disadvantage is more a product of bad luck than geography. In a decade or two, perhaps the oddities of state lines might wind up working to Democrats’ advantage. If Texas turns blue, for instance, they’ll benefit from the fact that it didn’t decide to divide itself into five states. But just because it’s bad luck for the Democrats doesn’t mean it’s not a real disadvantage.

Let’s suppose that Hillary Clinton had won the presidency in 2016. With the typical midterm headwinds for the party in power (in this case the Democrats), it’s possible that Republicans could have won a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in 2018 by reaching 60 seats.

In that kind of political environment, they would have also most likely controlled the redistricting process in the crucial states again in 2020, and probably held full control of state government in nearly two-thirds of states, placing them close to what they would have needed to unilaterally amend the Constitution, had they then won the presidency in 2020. They could have even probably succeeded in awarding electoral votes by congressional district, as was common fairly early in the country’s history and as some Republicans proposed doing after President Obama’s 2012 victory.

Republicans could gain an even greater edge in the Senate and the Electoral College than exists today. All it would take is a continuation of current trends, with the Rust Belt turning Republican before the Sun Belt turns blue. Total Republican control of government — say, all three branches with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate — wouldn’t be hard to imagine even with a fairly competitive national vote. Democrats could find themselves locked out of the Senate for prolonged periods, and perhaps take only fleeting control of the House in midterm election years.

It would be hard for partisan gerrymandering to completely lock Democrats out of control of the House of Representatives, but you couldn’t rule it out. In terms of gerrymandering, there are certainly states where Republicans could go even further than they do today.

Trends don’t have to continue

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the Democrats face a persistent and deep structural disadvantage. Democrats have incentive to broaden their appeal and break the cycle of partisan polarization, as they did in the 2018 midterm election. Perhaps they will do so, or maybe something else will change the balance. (It is foolish to assume that current trends will continue indefinitely.)

The long-predicted “emerging Democratic majority” may never actually materialize, but the same trends could be enough to break an inexorable slide toward a large Republican structural advantage, whether it’s a breakthrough in Texas or even a blue Montana and blue Alaska brimming with West Coast expatriates by 2040. Stranger things have happened.