Opinion | Is This the End of Close Elections?

So walk me through what’s likely to happen in, particularly, the Southern states in this post-Callais era. OK. There are some estimates that Republican-controlled legislatures across the South could target as many as 19 majority-minority districts, all held by Democrats. I don’t know, they may be a little cautious in some places, given that it’s not a great year for Republicans. But it’s basically eliminating a lot of majority-minority districts. – They’re going fast —— – Which means eliminating a huge amount of Black representation in Congress. – Yes. – So the term that Hakeem Jeffries has been using is “maximum warfare everywhere all the time.” What does that mean to have maximum gerrymandering warfare everywhere all the time. I mean, it basically means we’re turning the House into the Electoral College, which is that whichever party controls the state legislature and is the majority party in the state, no matter how narrow, they’re going to maximize the seats that they can get. And, I mean, that basically means we’ll have no competitive elections. I think the latest analysis suggests we’ll only have 15 meaningful toss-ups in this November election, out of 435. So —— What was that 20 years ago? 20 years ago. It was closer to 50. That’s amazing. So we’ve gone from House elections where routinely you’d have 50 competitive House elections in a cycle to you said 15. Fifteen. And some of that is gerrymandering. A lot of it is partisan sorting. You think of 20 years ago, 2006. I mean, you had Blue-Dog Democrats who were winning in a lot of districts that are now completely safe Republican districts. And so, there’s been this increasing nationalization of partisanship. I think I remember a book by a guy named Ezra Klein who wrote a book about this polarization thing – that has been happening to —— – Great book. – Great book. – Gets more relevant every day, unfortunately. Yes. So part of it is just the geography, that Democratic places have become more Democratic. Republican places have become more Republican. And because we have these place-based districts, that means just a lot of them are safe naturally. And then gerrymandering is another level on top of that.