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Stephen Wolf @stephenwolf.bsky.social Profile picture
Stephen Wolf @stephenwolf.bsky.social
@PoliticsWolf
@DKElections writer covering voting rights, redistricting, election reform, demographics, maps, & political science. Bluesky: StephenWolf Threads: ElectionsWolf
eDo Profile picture Aviva Gabriel Profile picture Puneet Kollipara Profile picture 3 subscribed
Dec 7, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: The Georgia GOP has passed new districts after a court ruled the old gerrymanders violate the Voting Rights Act.

But the GOP refused to add a congressional seat for Black voters, & the Supreme Court could further weaken the VRA if the case reaches it
dailykos.com/stories/2023/1…
Image Georgia GOP's new congressional map renumbers 3 districts to hide how they took an existing Black-opportunity seat, the 7th, & packed it to majority-Black.

District 6 becomes 7 (74% of old 6)

13 becomes 6 (53% of old 13; 0% of old 6)

7 becomes 13 (47% of old 7; 29% of old 13)
Oct 25, 2023 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
BREAKING [Thread]: North Carolina GOP just passed extreme new gerrymanders to make Dem majorities impossible in a big swing state.

The congressional map below will elect an 11-3 or 10-4 GOP majority & replace a court-drawn map that went 7D-7R in 2022 dailykos.com/story/2023/10/…
Image North Carolina GOP also enacted extreme new gerrymanders for the state House & are about to do the state Senate.

Not only do they make Democratic majorities effectively impossible, the GOP will likely keep veto-proof 3/5 majorities in all but the most Dem-favoring election years Image
Oct 23, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
North Carolina Republicans advanced a new congressional gerrymander with 10 safe GOP seats, 3 safe Dem seats, & 1 GOP-trending swing district in this major swing state.

It would be among the nation's most extreme gerrymanders & replace a court-drawn map that went 7D-7R in 2022
Image Here's our recent story explaining how North Carolina's GOP is targeting four House Dems.

NC's Supreme Court had ruled gerrymandering unconstitutional last year, but the GOP flipped the court in 2022 & reversed the ruling this year dailykos.com/stories/2023/1…
Oct 5, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: North Carolina GOP's new budget became law this week & contains power grabs to boost GOP control over NC's courts & elections.

One of its many parts expands GOP control over a commission they're using to target NC's only Black Supreme Court justice dailykos.com/stories/2023/1… The North Carolina GOP's new law also expands the powers of GOP Chief Justice Paul Newby & creates new trial court judges for the gerrymandered legislature to appoint.

Newby could handpick them to hear lawsuits against the state, such as those challenging the GOP's gerrymanders
Jun 27, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: In a huge relief for democracy, the Supreme Court just rejected a radical GOP legal theory that aimed to give gerrymandered state legislatures near-unfettered power to gerrymander & suppress voters in federal elections dailykos.com/story/2023/6/2… After the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the GOP's gerrymanders last year, the GOP wanted the U.S. Supreme Court
to strip state courts of their power to enforce state constitutional protections against gerrymandering & voting restrictions.

But SCOTUS rejected them
Jun 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
After the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act ruling required Alabama to create an additional Black congressional district, similar lawsuits could win elsewhere.

The next tweets look at the changes plaintiffs are seeking in two cases with strong odds to win in Louisiana & Georgia Louisiana's case seeks a new Black VRA seat in Baton Rouge & northeastern LA. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

The graphic below shows the GOP's gerrymander davesredistricting.org/join/3e0a3c85-…

& the plaintiffs' remedial map. #LA05 (yellow) would become 52% Black & likely Dem davesredistricting.org/join/a3b85806-… Image
May 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: Democrats just passed a law adding Minnesota to the National Popular Vote Compact, giving it 205 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to activate.

This map shows how enough states could join the compact for it to activate in 2028. Details here: dailykos.com/story/2023/5/2… Image In addition to Minnesota's law, Nevada Democrats just recently passed the first part of a multi-year plan to join the National Popular Vote Compact.

Two other states where Dems hold full power could also join soon: Michigan later this year & Maine in 2024
May 10, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: Ohio's GOP has passed a measure that would make it harder for voters to put constitutional amendments on the ballot & require 60% support to pass them.

The GOP measure must win voter approval in August & aims to thwart a November abortion rights vote dailykos.com/story/2023/5/1… A top Republican sponsor already got caught saying the whole point of the GOP's effort here is to prevent Ohio voters from passing ballot initiatives that could overturn the GOP's abortion ban this fall & end their gerrymanders in 2024 ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/12/15/ohi…
Apr 28, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
North Carolina's new GOP Supreme Court majority just re-legalized gerrymandering so that the GOP can lock in their supermajorities in 2024.

The prior Dem majority had deemed gerrymandering unconstitutional just 4 months ago. The only thing that's changed is the party in power Dem Justice Anita Earls' dissent makes the important point that this isn't a GOP court replacing the Dem court's Dem-leaning map with a GOP-leaning map.

The prior Dem majority drew a fair map that gave NC a 7-7 House delegation betting a 50-50 swing state Image
Apr 27, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Missouri GOP senators have passed a measure that uses gerrymandering to make it harder for liberals—but not conservatives—to amend MO's constitution.

How? It requires 57% statewide to pass or a simple majority both statewide & in 5 of 8 congressional districts—which the GOP drew The GOP's gerrymander ensured that 5 of 8 congressional districts are far redder than Missouri overall dailykos.com/stories/2022/1…

Conservative measures that win a simple majority statewide would thus also win in 5 districts, but liberal measures would not & would need 57% statewide
Apr 5, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
GOP officially gains veto-proof control of North Carolina's legislature thanks to this safe seat Dem switching to GOP.

That could have huge consequences & see the GOP try to ban most abortions, attack voting rights, strip the Dem governor of power, & more dailykos.com/stories/2023/4… What a complete betrayal of all her previously expressed values.

This Dem-to-GOP party switcher in North Carolina just earlier this year had co-sponsored a bill to codify Roe v. Wade but now says she could restrict abortion rights newsobserver.com/news/politics-…
Mar 27, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
[Thread]: Since 2010, red states progressives have used ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid, raise the minimum wage, protect abortion & voting rights, curb gerrymandering, & more.

In 2023, the GOP wants to make future initiatives impossible in 10 states dailykos.com/stories/2023/3… The GOP war on ballot initiatives works as follows:

1—GOP tries to cement its power via voter suppression & gerrymanders

2—Voters try ballot initiatives to protect voting access & fair maps

3—GOP restricts initiatives

4—If that fails, GOP stacks courts to neuter voter reforms
Feb 15, 2023 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
NEW: We calculated 3 decades of the U.S. Senate popular vote & how many people each party represented, updated for 2022.

The results are striking: Republicans last won more support than Dems in the 1990s yet won the Senate half the time from 2000 onward dailykos.com/stories/2023/2… This graph shows the Senate popular vote since 1994 & which party won power.

Blue/red dot color shows the majority party, & dots above the horizontal line are Dem popular vote wins.

The GOP last won the popular vote in 1998 but has won the Senate in 6 of 12 elections since then
Feb 2, 2023 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
NEW: Dems could soon take over Maricopa County, home to greater Phoenix & 3/5 of Arizona residents.

So several GOP lawmakers want to gerrymander it into 4 new counties by packing Dems & Latino/Black voters into 1 of them to ensure GOP controls the other 3 dailykos.com/stories/2023/2… Maricopa County was a longtime GOP bastion that Biden flipped 50-48 in 2020 & has been voting Dem downballot too. Dems could flip the county govt in 2024.

But the GOP bill splits it into 4 counties, & 3 of them covering 3/5 of its population backed Trump: davesredistricting.org/join/349f69da-…
Nov 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
This is wild: Democrats are currently leading in every House district touching the Pacific Ocean.

Uncalled races are #AKAL, #CA26, #CA47, #CA49, & #WA03. Those first four seem very likely to stay blue, while #WA03 still has many ballots left.

Doubt this has ever happened before Image Note that the USA Today/AP map above still has #OR04 as uncalled, but other media outlets have called it for Dem Val Hoyle, who leads by over 8 points dailykos.com/stories/2022/1…
Nov 9, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
If the GOP wins the House by anywhere near this small of a margin, it appears very likely that gerrymandering cost Dems the majority, with the U.S. Supreme Court allowing elections to proceed in several states where lower courts ruled GOP maps illegally diluted Black voting power Keep in mind when analyzing the 2022 House popular vote & the accuracy of the generic ballot polls that Democrats were penalized somewhat simply by not having as many candidates on the ballot as Republicans
Sep 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
What if NY's Dem House map wasn't blocked in court & FL+OH GOP gerrymanders were?

See:
NY D map davesredistricting.org/join/22e2010f-…
Nonpartisan OH map
davesredistricting.org/join/c0c55ef9-…
FL legislature GOP map blocked by DeSantis davesredistricting.org/join/a7087256-…
Fully nonpartisan FL map
davesredistricting.org/join/483818cf-… ImageImageImageImage In reality, Biden won 226 House seats & the median #MI08 by 2% (his national margin was 4.5%)

With the NY Dem map, OH nonpartisan map, & FL lege GOP map, Biden wins 231 seats & the median #CO08 by 4.6%

Add the nonpartisan FL map & Biden wins 234 seats & the median #PA17 by 5.8%
Dec 16, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
PA's redistricting commission has proposed a very fair state House map. Biden won 102 districts to Trump's 101, & Biden won the median seat by his statewide margin. Sharp contrast to the prior GOP gerrymanders that elected GOP majorities even when Dems won more votes in 2012/2018 Under the current GOP gerrymander of Pennsylvania's state House, Trump won a 109-94 majority of districts despite Biden winning the state by 1 point, & Trump won the median district by 3 points. The commission's proposal would strongly reduce the odds of future GOP minority rule
Nov 9, 2021 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Nevada is one of the very few states where Dems control redistricting. They've proposed a modest gerrymander aiming to keep the 3-1 Dem majority, but all 3 Dem seats only backed Biden by 7-8 points & could be vulnerable in a GOP-favoring year. DRA version: davesredistricting.org/join/5ec729ee-… If Nevada Dems were willing to propose a Texas GOP-style extreme congressional gerrymander, they could have made all 3 Dem districts go for Biden by 14-17 points instead of 7-8, but connecting Reno to Las Vegas was probably never going to fly for Dems davesredistricting.org/join/ca4af7d2-…
Nov 2, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: Voting rights are on the ballot today in three key states: Virginia, New York, & Pennsylvania. My new story looks at the key ballot measures, legislative & governor elections, & judicial elections that could reshape voting rights [thread 1/9] dailykos.com/stories/2021/1… Virginia Dems have passed dozens of voting reforms since taking power in 2019 for the first time in decades, passing automatic & same-day voter registration, an Election Day holiday, & much more. But that progress is threatened if the GOP wins today
Nov 2, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
North Carolina state House Republicans have passed their new state House gerrymander in committee. Voting rights advocates sued last week, & the 4-3 Dem state Supreme Court could block it like the state courts did with the GOP’s past gerrymanders in 2019 southerncoalition.org/breaking-civil… North Carolina Republicans are so blatantly dismantling Voting Rights Act-protected Black legislative districts that it seems they’re counting on SCOTUS killing off the rest of the VRA. With a more sensible judiciary, this map would get struck down in a heartbeat