Gerrymandering: The Political Game of Districts

0:00It's April 22nd. This is Durham News Today, AI-powered stories from your city. I'm Cory with the story. Jerry Mandering is the age-old trick in U.S. politics, where parties redraw voting districts to stack the deck in their favor. The term popped up over 200 years ago in Massachusetts, when Governor Elbridge Jerry approved a weirdly shaved district that looked like a... ...seller-mander, hence Jerry Mander. Both Republicans and Democrats do it by packing opponents voters into a few districts, or spreading them thin across many, so their side wins more. Seats Districts get redrawn every 10 years after the census, but some states let legislators tweak them more often if they control the governorship too. A few places use independent commissions or bipartisan groups to keep things fair and cut down on the rigging. The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal judges can't step in on partisan Jerry Mandering because there's no clear constitutional. Line for fairness. State courts can try under their own rules, but even some, like North Carolina's, say they

1:04can't touch it either. After the slim Republican House majority in the 2024 elections, President Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw districts for extra seats. California Democrats fired back with their own maps, approved by voters, and other states jumped in too. Republicans held more redistricting power post-2010 census, but Democrats matched it after 2020. Analysis show partisan tilts in about one-third of state's districts now, yet the overall House seats split pretty even with each party's vote share. Nationwide, with 2026 looming, expect more mad battles as parties fight to hold or grab that edge.