(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . How extreme could gerrymandering get? [1] ['Andrew Mangan', 'View Profile'] Date: 2026-05-17 Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture. Lo, the era of gerrymaxxing is upon us. On April 29, the Supreme Court functionally set fire to what remained of the Voting Rights Act, declared racism defeated, and allowed states to rig their congressional maps to their hearts’ content as long as they do so without mentioning race. Now, Republicans are passing even more extreme gerrymanders, like one in Tennessee that will likely hand the GOP all nine of the state’s House seats, despite the party regularly winning about 63% of the statewide vote. And Democrats, like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, are vowing to retaliate. But in this race to the bottom, which party will come out on top? Maybe Republicans, but maybe neither. No result is guaranteed. Let’s look at what’s possible. In states where one party controls redistricting, Democrats hold 133 seats and Republicans hold 157—a gap of 24 seats in favor of the GOP. However, in the race to gerrymaxx their maps, Republicans have one big advantage: They control redistricting in states with more total seats (193) than Democrats do (97). That puts the Democratic Party in high danger. GOP-led states are moving swiftly and breaking norms. Beyond Tennessee, Republicans in Louisiana and Alabama have taken the dramatic move of delaying elections to redraw lines to favor their party. At the same time, Republicans won’t be able to pull off a Tennessee-level takeover in every state where they control redistricting. For one thing, they oversee redistricting in multiple purple states, where it will be impossible to dilute blue votes enough to erase all Democrats from a map. Take Georgia. Currently, Republicans control redistricting and hold nine of the state’s 14 House districts. But the Peach State has been trending toward Democrats, who hold both of the state’s Senate seats and are polling well in this year’s gubernatorial race. Attribution: AP People leave after voting in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, Georgia, in 2024. As The New York Times’ Nate Cohn and Jonah Smith pointed out last November, a state can hypothetically be gerrymandered to match its partisan lean. And since Georgia leans just 2.4 points toward Republicans in an average of recent statewide elections, that means the GOP can theoretically draw a map where all 14 House seats are R+2.4. But they wouldn’t want to, since such a map would spread their vote too thin and make every seat in the state competitive. Instead, Republicans would want to draw as many safe seats as possible. And in Georgia, they can theoretically draw 12 seats that are R+15 or higher, leaving Democrats just two dark blue seats, probably around Atlanta. Like any gerrymaxxed map, this would face significant legal hurdles, but it’s mathematically possible. And when it comes to rigging elections, the GOP is all about testing the limits of what’s possible. If all states where one party controls redistricting were to maximize their number of safe seats in that same way, Democrats would walk away with 106 seats to Republicans’ 184. To win a majority in the House, Republicans would then need just 34 more seats out of the 145 that reside in states where redistricting is not under single-party control. Democrats would need 112. As far as drawing safe seats goes, this should roughly represent the parties’ ceilings in how far they can gerrymander states where they control the process. Put down the drink. There is hope. In Colorado, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, redistricting is primarily handled by commissions. But all four states have Democratic trifectas, which is where a party controls both chambers of the state legislature as well as the governor’s mansion. That means these blue states can—and should—work to bypass, suspend, or outright dissolve those commissions, amending state constitutions where necessary. Across the four, Republicans hold a total of 16 House seats, and Democrats could theoretically turn 14 of those into D+15 districts. A commission also technically remains in place in Virginia, where a court recently tossed out the results of a voter referendum to allow Democrats to redraw the state’s map. The proposed map would have likely given Democrats 10 of the state’s 11 House seats, flipping four GOP-held seats—on par with its theoretical maximum gerrymander. Attribution: AP New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, shown in January. Republicans, ever leery of democracy, don’t have the same well to draw from. Only two states with GOP trifectas have commission-directed redistricting—Idaho and Montana—and Republicans hold all four House seats between the two. If those five blue states all circumvented their commissions to draw their theoretical maximum gerrymanders, it would raise Democrats to 170 seats to Republicans’ 187 in states with single-party control over redistricting. That narrows the gap to 17 seats in favor of the GOP, which is seven better for Democrats than where things stand now. It is important to note that these maxed-out maps all function in theory, but in practice, some could violate state laws around district compactness, dividing up communities of interest, and so on. And while laws can be changed, parties may prove too squeamish to fully test the limits. But it is also necessary to recognize the upper band of what’s possible because we’re likely in for years, if not decades, of the most grotesque maps you’ve ever seen. Whatever gerrymanders that Democratic- and Republican-controlled states arrive at, it will result in far fewer competitive races nationally. Winning the House will then depend even more heavily on which party cleans up in states with fairer maps. The thing is, the number of fair maps could shrink as well. Numerous states with fair maps, like Virginia and Colorado, have been mentioned above as top gerrymandering targets. But there are also states like Arizona, where Republicans need only win the governorship and maintain their majorities in the state legislature this November to pull together a trifecta. Since an independent commission steers redistricting here, Arizona’s map earns high marks on fairness and holds a handful of competitive districts. But with total control of state government, a party could move to bias the commission and tilt the map. (The GOP tried this once before.) Put simply, Democrats need to start winning statehouses to neutralize Republicans’ map-rigging now and in the future. Luckily, there are opportunities to do that. In Minnesota, Democrats are just one state House shy of a trifecta. With the state leaning an average of 7.2 points toward Democrats in recent statewide races, they could theoretically draw a map giving them a strong advantage in seven of the state’s eight seats, taking three out of the GOP’s hands. Attribution: AP The Wisconsin State Capitol, in Madison, shown in 2020. Pennsylvania offers another chance for gains. Though the state leans just 2.7 points toward Democrats, Democrats need to flip only three seats to win a majority in the state Senate and take full control of government. Republicans hold 10 of the state’s 17 House seats, and theoretically, Democrats could boot eight of them with a gerrymaxxed map. If both Pennsylvania and Minnesota pulled off those feats, and if those five blue states also passed their own gerrymaxxed maps, Republicans could theoretically be at a two-seat disadvantage in states where one party controlled redistricting. Beyond that, the waters get even choppier. In Michigan, Democrats need to flip the state House to score a trifecta, but redistricting is overseen by a commission that could prove hard to sidestep. In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court’s liberal majority could swap Republicans’ gerrymander for a fairer map, but there isn’t much momentum for that right now. And to pass a new map themselves, Badger State Democrats would need to maintain the governorship and flip both chambers of the state legislature this fall. It is a crime against democracy that this is what electoral politics in America has come to. But until partisan gerrymandering can be outlawed nationwide, Democrats must fight back. And hopefully, one day, they can gerrymander themselves into enough power to ban the practice forever. Any updates? Conspiracy theories—they’re not just a Republican thing. A new survey from NewsGuard and YouGov finds that 30% of Americans think that at least one of the three attempts on President Donald Trump’s life in the past two years was staged. One in five Democrats thinks all three attempted assassinations were staged, compared with 1 in 10 independents and just 3% of Republicans. More shockingly, 42% of Democrats think the most high-profile attempt—in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024—was staged. A new poll from GOP firm AtlasIntel, the most accurate pollster of the 2024 election, delivers two shocking results about the 2028 presidential race. First, in that year’s Democratic primary, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has the most support in the field, at 26%. That puts her ahead of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (22%), California Gov. Gavin Newsom (21%), and former Vice President Kamala Harris (13%), the latter two of which typically poll at the top of the pack. But not only that, the poll also finds Secretary of State Marco Rubio leading the Republican race, with 45%, to Vice President JD Vance’s 30%. Vance has generally had a large lead in other polling. This outlier survey shows exactly why we have polling averages. Vibe check America is split on its approval of the Supreme Court, but when it comes to the justices themselves, not so much. A new YouGov poll finds that the liberal justices are seen most favorably among the nine black robes. A little more than a third of Americans (38%) approve of how the Supreme Court is operating, while a little more than a third (45%) disapproves, with the remaining 16% not sure. But when it comes to the justices, all three liberals have net-positive favorability ratings, while all six conservatives have net-negative ones. Sonia Sotomayor is the most well liked (+11 points), and John Roberts, the chief justice, is the most reviled (-10 points). Much of this difference is likely due to more highly educated Americans being more likely to have an opinion on the justices. For example, 43% of those without a college degree don’t know who Ketanji Brown Jackson is, while the same is true for only 25% of college graduates. And in general, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to have college degrees. So it would make sense that they, in turn, have a more positive view of the court’s liberals and a less sunny view of its conservatives. 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