Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
Republicans won the US House of Representatives by 220-215 over Democrats at the November 2024 elections, but they currently hold a 219-212 margin owing to three Democratic deaths where the previous member has not yet been replaced at special elections. Two of these special elections occur in September, with the third in November. One Republican resigned after the “big beautiful bill” passed and will be replaced in December. All of the House will be up for election in November 2026 midterm elections.
At the 2024 election, Republicans won the 38 Texas House seats by 25-13 over Democrats on a popular vote of 58.4-40.4. States usually carry out redistributions of their federal seats early in each decade, based on the once a decade US Census. But at Donald Trump’s urging, Texas Republicans are proposing to grab five additional federal seats by a gerrymander, making the delegation 30-8 Republican.
Republicans hold the 150-seat Texas state House by 88-62, but two-thirds of members are required to be present for a “quorum” to be formed. Without quorum, no business can be conducted. The large majority of the 62 Democratic members fled Texas last week for the Democratic-friendly Illinois, preventing the House from reaching the 100 members needed for quorum, and at least temporarily stopping the gerrymander from passing.
Boundaries for California’s 52 House seats are currently set by an independent commission, but Democrats still had a lopsided 43-9 win over Republicans at the 2024 election from popular votes of 60.5-39.2. The commission was put in the Californian constitution by former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a referendum would be needed to scrap it.
If the Texas gerrymander passes, California Democrats are proposing such a referendum this November that would allow the state legislature to set boundaries for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. A Democratic internal poll gave “yes” to this proposal a 52-41 lead. New York is also proposing retaliation, but their constitutional amendment process is more cumbersome than California’s, so new New York maps won’t be in place until at least 2028.
Trump’s ratings and the generic ballot
In Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls, Trump’s net approval is currently -8.6, with 52.5% disapproving and 43.9% approving. His net approval has dropped two points in the last month, but improved from a low of -10.3 on July 22, after the Epstein files controversy. Trump’s net approval is ten points higher than it was at this point in his first term.
The generic ballot ascertains which party voters prefer nationally. G. Elliott Morris, the former head of FiveThirtyEight, now has a generic ballot aggregate. This has Democrats leading Republicans by 45.7-43.0 (49.8-47.2 to Republicans at the 2024 House election). The Democratic lead has increased recently, and they’ve been leading since April.
Despite a weak jobs report on August 1 leading to Trump firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Trump increasing US tariffs on Thursday to their highest level since 1934, stock markets are doing very well. The S&P 500 (the broadest measure of US market sentiment) surged 0.8% on Friday to close just below a record high set on July 28. I believe Trump’s ratings are likely to hold up about their current level unless the stock market and/or the broader US economy slump badly.
Japanese upper house election
Half of the Japanese upper house is elected every three years; these elections are not held concurrently with lower house elections. Of the 125 seats up at the July 20 election, 50 were elected by national proportional representation and the remaining 75 in single-member or multi-member electorates.
The conservative LDP and their Komeito allies won 47 of the 125 seats up (down 19 since the 2019 election) and hold a total of 122 of the 248 seats, just below the 125 needed for a majority. However, the centre-left Constitutional Democrats made no gains, holding their 22 seats and 38 total, with the gains instead going to two populist right-wing parties, which made 27 combined gains to win 31 seats at this election and 37 total. There was a similar outcome in the October 2024 lower house election.
Thank you mr Beaumont!
https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker, …
Question – has anyone modelled maps for all districts, estimating maximum possible gerrymandering for Republican vs Democrat friendly outcomes?
Assuming people fully stopped caring about “playing fair” – what are the max Dem or Rep seat outcomes?
Bizzcan @ #3 Saturday, August 9th, 2025 – 3:38 pm
I found this while searching (and failed) to find a more recent map.
https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/1836223/if_dems_could_redistrict_freely_in_every_state/
The one here is from the 2022-24 cycle.
Of course if the USA did the logical thing and expanded the House of Reps, which has been stuck at 435 since 1929, then that would reduce the potency of gerrymandering overall. A reasonable number would be 651 so they can have 1 seat more than the UK does, they like doing that.
But they probably won’t, since the Democrats are mostly cowards and the Republicans are mostly evil and quite comfortable with how things are at the moment.
Planet America had a report on the potential to Gerrymander.
Apparently it won’t help the Dems that much, whereas the Repugs can make a few gains.
Of course, why are we discussing gerrymander as if it is a viable tactic.
They desperately need: A Federal Electoral Commission, Compulsory enrolments, compulsory voting and preferential voting.
Donnie is making sure the election will be rigged next time, luckily he might not live that much longer.
WTF was he doing on the roof of the White House? Imagine if Biden had done that!
MABWM @ #6 Saturday, August 9th, 2025 – 6:16 pm
Probably Humpty Trumpty’s toddler brain being like “Nyah nyah, I’m the King of the Castle, and you’re a dirty rascal!” that most of us went through when we were 5 years old.
MABWM @ #6 Saturday, August 9th, 2025 – 5:46 pm
I dunno man. Imagine if Trump were held to even a fraction of the standard Biden was held to. And I am not talking about by their respective opposition either. I am talking about by so-called independent political commentators in the media. Read the rhetoric from some of those people last year over every time Biden so much as stumbled on a syllable or opened his eyes a little widely, versus the absolute dead silence when Trump goes on random unintelligible tangents, acts erratically and clearly has declining health.
Mind you, after the extremely blatant double standard both candidates from last years presidential election were held to, I think it’s obvious which side the bread is buttered on.
Kirsdarkesays:
Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 3:52 pm
Bizzcan @ #3 Saturday, August 9th, 2025 – 3:38 pm
Question – has anyone modelled maps for all districts, estimating maximum possible gerrymandering for Republican vs Democrat friendly outcomes?
Assuming people fully stopped caring about “playing fair” – what are the max Dem or Rep seat outcomes?
I found this while searching (and failed) to find a more recent map.
https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/1836223/if_dems_could_redistrict_freely_in_every_state/
The one here is from the 2022-24 cycle.
______________________
Thank, very much a curiosity for me.
So based off that, there is a conceivable ~350 to 100 seat split under a maximalist gerrymander scenario assuming no significant change in voting patterns.
Probably a larger margin for Republicans owing to voter suppression measures.
Hard to see what’s next – likely a race to split up existing states. I believe independent restricting can’t be imposed by the federal government top down?
**
On the Biden v Trump mental state, Peter Zeihan did a vid before the election describing the situation as “Delusional vs Demented”.
I finally saw the Trump-on-the-roof event from days ago and it was shocking. I don’t know how blunt foreign services brief their governments on Trump’s estimates mental state, but it seemed like he was “having an episode” amd both Xi and Putin must be laughing.
Interesting thing to consider though, how many world leaders are likely to have a close personal interactions with both Trump and Xi to ascertain their mental states?
Modi, Stammer and Macron are some likely candidates to have met both in the last 6-12 months – Putin (and Albo funnily enough) have probably had the closest Xi interactions but Trump is pending.
Kirsdarkesays:
Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 4:24 pm
Of course if the USA did the logical thing and expanded the House of Reps, which has been stuck at 435 since 1929, then that would reduce the potency of gerrymandering overall. A reasonable number would be 651 so they can have 1 seat more than the UK does, they like doing that.
But they probably won’t, since the Democrats are mostly cowards and the Republicans are mostly evil and quite comfortable with how things are at the moment.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
A more specific reason the Republicans wouldn’t run at this is that it would be seen to weaken them with regard to the Electoral College for Presidential elections. The electoral college is equivalent in size to the number of Congresscritters + Senators (435 + 100 + 3 for non-states). Congressional representation is broadly proportional to population (some caveats there), but small states still have two senators each, so they have a disproportionate importance. Winning 1 state with three congresspeople gets you 5 EC votes, but winning 3 states with 3 congresspeople (nominally the same population total) would get you 9 EC votes. eg:
New Mexico (Dem), pop 2.1 mill, 5 ECV compared to:
Wyoming + Alaska + North Dakota (Rep), total population 2.1 mill, 9 ECV.
But expanding the Congress by ~50% (435->651, as suggested) would dilute the power of small states. For example, California would get an additional 26 EC votes, but states like Wyoming, North Dakota and Alaska would not get any.
NB: While the point about “diluting the power of small states” is true, the idea that this would affect the outcome of an election is more perception than reality, I suspect. I roughly modelled the outcome of the 2016 and 2024 election using a House of 631 (total EC = 734) and found that Trump’s EC margin would have slightly *increased* from 56.9% of the EC vote to 57.1% (2016) and from 58% to 58.2% (2024) – for every Wyoming, there’s a Vermont…
While it appears it would have no overall effect on recent elections, I believe it is a widely held perception that such a move would harm the Republicans.
@DPR of CBR
Thanks for that explanation. Interesting that expanding the electoral college that way wouldn’t have affected Trump’s winning margins in 2016 or 24.
In other international election news, there’s 1 month to go until the Norwegian election on 8 September.
The latest polls show a narrow majority for the incumbent Centre-Left “Red” bloc over the opposition Centre-Right “Blue” bloc.
https://www-pollofpolls-no.translate.goog/?cmd=Maling&gallupid=5514&_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
This one is polling 91-78 Red vs. Blue, with 85 seats needed for a majority.
”WTF was he doing on the roof of the White House?”
Manipulated image? It’s easier than ever, especially with AI.
@Steve777
No he admits it. Took questions and everything. But offered no plausible explanation. It was truly bizarre.
Kirsdarkesays:
Sunday, August 10, 2025 at 2:40 pm
@DPR of CBR
Thanks for that explanation. Interesting that expanding the electoral college that way wouldn’t have affected Trump’s winning margins in 2016 or 24.
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Hey Kirsdarke, just looked over this and realised I screwed up the maths a bit – you’ll see I shifted from 651 in my second paragraph (which was your number) to 631 in my third. Brainfade.
I redid the numbers and different rounding for those extra 20 seats makes a difference. In fact, with 651 members there would have been a slight drift to the Dems, but still less than 1% of the EC votes for both elections – so still a difference that would have made no difference.
Just scrutineering my own count 🙂
FiveThirtyEight of blessed memory had a good suite on gerrymandering. While the present focus is on Republican action in Texas, some of the most obvious infringements are in Democrat-controlled states like Maryland and Illinois, while the chicanery in a few of the Republican boundary arrangements is only obvious once you dig into the population distribution. Anyone thinking the Democrats are ‘pure’ should have a look at Illinois13
https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/redistricting-tracker/ and https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/illinois-worst-democratic-gerrymander-country-fivethirtyeight-84544181
Hey Adrian, it’s probably worth mentioning that the Texas Democrats don’t appear to have any sense of irony. They fled to Illinois, which has some of the worst gerrymandering in the US. In 2024 the Illinois Democrats won a landslide seat majority of 13-4 despite only winning the vote 53-47.
Neither side are the good guys when it comes to gerrymandering in the US.
The reason the census is required is bcos the current census includes illegal aliens. While they cannot vote it increases the number of seats in major cities, the area where the Democrats win. This helps the Democrats cheat bcos they cant win honestly. It is much the same as the southern states (Democrats) wanted slaves included in the census pre the Civil war to increase the number of congressional seats in the south.
The reason the census is required is bcos the current census includes illegal aliens. While they cannot vote it increases the number of seats in major cities, the area where the Democrats win. This helps the Democrats cheat bcos they cant win honestly.
No, it is because of the U.S. Constitution.
The reason why everyone is counted (including “illegal aliens”) is because the 14th Amendment requires that representatives in the House of Representatives be apportioned based on the total number of persons in each state – not the number of citizens or number of voters.
It is much the same as the southern states (Democrats) wanted slaves included in the census pre the Civil war to increase the number of congressional seats in the south.
Slaves were included in the census? Shameful!
I’m honestly unsure that Democrats CAN counter-gerrymander for Texas. Democrats presently control the redistricting process for just 3 large States – CA, IL and NY.
In CA, it’s presently done by a nonpartisan commission IIRC. However, the Democrats’ votes (and campaign efforts) were very efficiently distributed, such that 60.5% of the votes won 43/52 House seats. Of the 9 GOP seats, exactly 2 are currently held on margins below 10% – CA-22 (6.8%) and CA-41 (2.6%). Even a whole-scale redrawing of the boundaries will probably only net the Democrats 1-2 seats at most in the midterms; it may even backfire and cost them some of their own marginals as voters reject the process.
IL – as noted by “Sneaky” above, IL is one of the worst offenders for gerrymandering already. 14-3 off a 52.8%-47% vote margin shows that the Democrats are already pushing the outer limits of what they can do with redistricting.
In NY, the Democrats could conceivably make significant gains – perhaps as many as 3 House seats, turning the current 19D-7R delegation into a 22D-4R delegation. That would be the reasonable limit of what they can do with their 57D/43R statewide vote. Not to mention, the redistricting process in NY is more cumbersome than in many other States.
In contrast, Texas – whose 58R-40D statewide vote mirrors New York’s – currently has a 25R-13D House delegation. Which is about what I’d expect from that kind of statewide vote (see: Australian Federal Election, 2025 – Labor won 94 seats to the Coalition’s 43 seats in May, off a 55ALP/45LNP nationwide TPP vote). If I were drawing the map to advantage Republicans, I can see them drawing up another 5 GOP House seats. It helps that every GOP-held seat in Texas is held with at least 55% of the vote, and all but one (TX-15, 57R/43D) are held with at least 60% of the vote. The resulting 30R-8D outcome would then more or less mirror NY’s (hypothetical) gerrymandered results.
Reference Chump on the roof. I saw a report somewhere that he got onto the roof to survey the site of his new gold plated ball room. While he has slashed support for the poor, he has already spent a fortune covering various bits of the whitehouse with gold leaf.
Paul James Baker says:
Monday, August 11, 2025 at 3:39 pm
The reason the census is required is bcos the current census includes illegal aliens
“Illegal aliens” tend not to engage with any sort of government activity so are unlikely to be counted at all.
Legal non citizens are counted because well they are in the country legally even if they aren’t citizens.
The proposed extra census isn’t required but merely a Trump demand. Just as he thinks he “deserves” 5 extra GOP seats in Texas.
I saw a Republican complaining about a Dem gerrymander in Maryland basically ignoring the fact that the seat was created so that the GOP would have at least one seat from Maryland in Congress. It’s highly unlikely an ungerrymandered Maryland would have one GOP seat because of the way GOP voters are dispersed.
ChrisC
Excellent observation regarding Maryland. Utah does the opposite: the GOP has drawn the boundaries of the state’s four districts to deny the Democrats a seat at all, by carving up Salt Lake City.
A slave was counted as three fifths (60%) of a person as a result of a compromise in 1787.
no further information, sorry
ChrisC, what am I missing? The only Congressional district that the Republicans hold is the 1st District which was created in 1789 and has been held by the Republicans for 33 of the last 35 years!
They used to also hold the 6th District but lost that in 2012 after some pretty blatant Gerrymandering. There were Supreme Court challenges but in the end the court said it was a state issue and both parties have been free to screw with the democratic process ever since.
No, it is because of the U.S. Constitution.
The reason why everyone is counted (including “illegal aliens”) is because the 14th Amendment requires that representatives in the House of Representatives be apportioned based on the total number of persons in each state – not the number of citizens or number of voters.
Wrong. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, is a crucial part of the U.S. Constitution. It primarily grants citizenship to anyone BORN IN THE U.S.A., including formerly enslaved people, and ensures equal protection and due process under the law.
Slaves were included in the census? Shameful!
The reason they were included so the democrats would have more congressional seats. Do u believe if was bcos slave owners cared about the slaves.
The way the congressional seats are apportioned is so the Democrats can cheat. Not sure why this is a controversial statement.
The way the congressional seats are apportioned is so the Democrats can cheat. Not sure why this is a controversial statement.
I would say that statement is more than controversial. It is total horseshit.
@Paul James Baker: Hogwash. Per the Constitution of the United States, Amendment XIV:
Section 2) Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.
Immigrant, citizen, undocumented immigrant – for the purpose of apportioning (allocating) US House seats, the US Constitution does not care. They’re counted for apportionment purposes, as they must be while ever the 14th Amendment remains in force. End of story.
Some fairly detailed polling data here from YouGov, partly relating to the gerrymandering issue.
Link: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52753-donald-trump-approval-gerrymandering-texas-redistricting-jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwell-inflation-economy-unemployment-august-9-11-2025-economist-yougov-poll
reminds me of my own duels with pied piper:
Just on these redistributions, I know the point of the redistributions are to even up the voters in each seat, but is there also any goal to change boundaries to move the actual overall seat split to more closely match the popular vote?
I realise this would be a sisyphean task as the votes change each election, but even in Australia, the 2PP is not very representative of the final seat split, which is surely undesirable to some degree?