Opinion: Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin seems to have picked the lock on split-ticket voters

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Photo by Elizabeth Frantz, The Washington Post)

Democrats have longed for a way to recapture rural voters. Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post looks at how U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin is winning over some of the state's swing voters and setting an example for fellow party members.

"One of the most progressive members in the Senate, has figured out how to turn her narrowly divided state into a place where, with the right message, Democrats can notch a big win," Rubin writes, relaying an anecdote shared by Baldwin: "At a roundtable at a dairy farm, she met with a crowd that doesn't frequently vote for Democrats. One voter needled her a bit. 'Is that your truck out there?' she asked. 'Well, I have one just like it.' Touting her support for rural development and infrastructure, she said, 'Potholes aren't red or blue.' Asked after the event if he would vote Republican, the voter said no. 'Did you listen to her? She's working on my issues.'"

That is the point: Baldwin goes where too few Democrats go, engages with persuadable voters, and her responses are relatable. "On a given issue, she shows an issue can 'break through.' And for her, those issues mean keeping the interests of the dairy industry and, more generally, rural America front and center," Rubin writes. "She pointed out that there are about 170,000 lead water lines in Wisconsin. To eliminate 'that grave danger for children whose brains are developing' would cost a rural community tens of millions of dollars, sending utility prices skyrocketing. Instead, the bipartisan infrastructure bill will help fund those repairs — and bring broadband to rural areas and repair roads and bridges."

On social issues, which have turned many Democrats into Republicans, "Baldwin is unapologetic," Rubin reports. Baldwin cited Wisconsin's recent state Supreme Court race, an example of how "freedom of choice is an issue that unites people across party lines," Rubin writes. "On guns, she pointed out that in a very gerrymandered state, you 'see a difference between the state legislature and the average voter.' Republicans are trying to make gun access even easier. 'I don't think the Wisconsin public or even gun-owning public is in line with that,' she said."

Baldwin's approach combines standing firm on issues but always listening to, and sometimes educating, Wisconsin voters. One example: court decisions on redistricting should influence voters' choices in "selecting presidents and senators," Rubin writes. "Her success is proof of some basic political nostrums. If you work incredibly hard, pay close attention to your state and solve people's daily problems, partisan labels mean less. . . . Moreover, framing social issues as matters of 'rights and freedoms' allows her to reach voters who don't normally consider themselves to be 'progressive.'. . . Baldwin's reelection prospects will be greatly affected by the presidential race. However, don't be surprised if she runs far ahead of the top of the ticket. She's done it before and knows precisely how to extend her winning streak."

One-party control, urban-rural divides, gerrymandering, lack of competition make state legislatures less representative

"One-party control of state legislatures, compounded by hyper-partisan politics, widespread gerrymandering, an urban-rural divide and uncompetitive races," has made many of them dysfunctional, writes Michael Wines of The New York Times, or less representative of their states than they should be, writes Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post.

Wines's object example is Tennessee, where 60 of the 99 House members had no opposition in last year's general election. (The national rate is about 40 percent.) "Of the remaining House races, almost none were competitive. Not a single seat flipped from one party to the other. . . . The lack of competition means incumbent lawmakers face few consequences for their conduct. And their legislative actions are driven in large part by the fraction of partisans who determine their fates in primary elections, the only political contests where they face serious opposition."

“We’re just not in a normal political system,” Kent Syler, a political science professor and expert on state politics at Middle Tennessee State University, told Wines. “In a normal two-party system, if one party goes too far, usually the other party stops them. They put the brakes on.”

Such forces have been "intensified by the Supreme Court’s open door for gerrymandering and the geographic sorting of Democrats into urban areas and Republicans into rural ones," Wines reports. One-party control "has enabled both parties to enact legislation advancing their policy agendas . . . but it is Republican-run states, many experts say, that are taking extreme positions on limiting voting and bending or breaking other democratic norms, as Tennessee did in expelling two lawmakers last week."

Another factor is that national politics now trump state issues, said Steven Rogers, a Saint Louis University political scientist who has studied the issue. He told Wines, “It’s pretty much what a voter thinks of the president that is going to dictate how a voter casts their ballot in a state legislative election. What legislators do themselves doesn’t really matter that much anymore.”

In an opinion piece for the Post, Tumulty writes, "It should come as no surprise that, as the balance of power in state capitols is becoming more lopsided, we are seeing more extreme measures coming out of them, particularly those where Republicans have control." She quotes Wendy R. Weiser, who runs the democracy program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice: “State legislatures are not only crossing lines and abusing authority but are increasingly misaligned with the will of the voting public.”

Wis. puts on top court a judge who broke norms by taking positions on big issues; some rural counties shifted her way

Janet Protasiewicz, center, celebrates her victory.
(Photo by Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

In the latest twist on Wisconsin politics, "Voters on Tuesday chose to upend the political direction of their state by electing a liberal candidate to the State Supreme Court, flipping majority control from conservatives, reports The Associated Press. Thus, the court is likely to reverse the state's 1849 abortion ban and "end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps drawn by Republicans," reports Reid J. Epstein of The New York Times. "Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, overwhelmingly defeated Daniel Kelly, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who sought a return to the bench."

The race was officially nonpartisan but Democrats lined up for Protasiewicz and Republicans for Kelly. Some rural communities that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then twice for Donald Trump returned to the "Democratic" column. Abortion-rights supporters credited the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, which reactivated the state's old abortion law, for the shift. "Rural voters moved 5 points toward the Democratic candidate compared to the 2020 presidential and 2022 U.S. Senate elections," The Daily Yonder reports. But that was not as much a shift as was seen in metropolitan areas.

"Judge Protasiewicz, 60, shattered long-held notions of how judicial candidates should conduct themselves by making her political priorities central to her campaign," Epstein writes. "She made explicit her support for abortion rights and called the maps, which gave Republicans near-supermajority control of the Legislature, 'rigged' and 'unfair.'. . . The contest, which featured over $40 million in spending, was the most expensive judicial election in American history. Early on, Democrats recognized the importance of the race for a swing seat on the top court in one of the country's perennial political battlegrounds."

"Justice Kelly, 59, evinced the bitterness of the campaign with a testy concession speech that acknowledged his defeat and portended doom for the state," and said Protasiewicz was "not a worthy opponent," Epstein reports. "In an interview at her home before the results were known, Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz) attributed her success on the campaign trail to the decision to inform voters of what she called 'my values,' as opposed to Justice Kelly, who used fewer specifics about his positions."

Democrat wins U.S. House seat in largely rural N.Y. district; Republican wins the other, but Dems seem more motivated

Democrat Pat Ryan won a special House election in a largely rural district in New York Tuesday, suggesting that the midterm elections will not be a disaster for his party after all.

Ryan, the executive of Ulster County and a combat veteran, defeated Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro by 1.8 percentage points in the 19th District, which President Biden won by 2 points in 2020 and Donald Trump won by 7 in 2016.

"This is not the result that you would expect to see in a strongly Republican political climate," NBC News analyst Steve Kornacki said on MSNBC as the race was called. "For Democrats you could not get more encouraging signs in a political landscape that looked terrible for them a few months ago." He called the 19th "a truly bellwether district."

Wikipedia maps, adapted

In a somewhat less rural New York district that is more Republican, the southwestern 23rd, GOP nominee Joe Sempolinski got just over 53% of the vote Democrat Max Della Pia in another special election, Jeff Smith of the Elmira Star-Gazette reports.

Denis Slattery and Dave Goldiner of the New York Daily News write, "Special elections tend to be an accurate assessment of the overall political climate because they attract the most engaged voters from each party, political data crunchers say."

Ryan campaigned hard against the Supreme Court's reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights. "Molinaro, meanwhile, tried to focus on other issues," reports Amy Wang of The Washington Post. "The special election was closely watched as a possible bellwether for other midterm races around the country, as Democrats attempt to channel voters’ anger over the Supreme Court decision, as well as other abortion restrictions that Republican-led state legislatures have imposed since."

Grace Ashford of The New York Times looks ahead: "Mr. Ryan will be seeking a full term in Congress in November, but — in a confusing redistricting-year twist — it will not be in the 19th District. His home lies within the new boundaries of the 18th District, where he is running in November. His Republican opponent in that race will be Assemblyman Colin Schmitt of New Windsor. Despite Mr. Molinaro’s loss in the 19th District, he, too, will be seeking a full term in Congress in November — in the district’s new contours."

Based on Ryan's "impressive" win, political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia changed his ratings on the two districts, based on Ryan's win. The new 18th went from tossup to leans Democratic and the 19th went from leans Republican to tossup. "Higher Democratic voter enthusiasm likely explains Ryan’s victory," wrote Kyle Kondik, editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball.

Migration of rural Democrats into the Republican Party has made congressional districts less competitive, experts say

"While gerrymandering is a factor that receives an abundance of attention, experts say that the grand political realignment of working-class rural voters abandoning the Democratic Party is a much more salient cause, particularly throughout Appalachia and into the South," reports David Catanese of McClatchy Newspapers.

Catanese's object example is Central Kentucky's 6th District, a once-competitive district that was already trending Republican before the state legislature made it even more so in this year's redistricting. It was held from 2004 to 2012 by Democrat Ben Chandler. He told Catanese that he had to practice the “politics of confusion” in order to survive in a district where most voters identified as conservative: “I had to confuse my constituents so they couldn’t tell whether I was a liberal or a conservative or a moderate.”

That became harder "as data showed him that an increasing amount of his constituents were primarily depending on conservative media outlets like Fox News, which blared narratives that tarred his entire party with the same broad brush," Catanese reports. "More frequently, media of all stripes increasingly seek representatives’ reactions to the latest national controversy, rather than probe their proposed legislation or committee work."

Chandler said, “All politics is national now, and it’s very simple. Everybody gets the same sort of news nationally and they don’t get nearly as much local news as they get national and international news. That’s been a big change. Because of the stances the national Democratic Party takes, it’s easy for the state Republican Party to brand all of the Democrats in the state with that national brand, which is very definitely an unpopular brand statewide and in most of the districts.”

Catanese offers another view: "Scott Jennings, a well-known and well-wired Republican operative, said the reason the seat isn’t competitive anymore is because Kentucky Democrats won’t nominate a Chandler-like moderate." Jennings said, “It would take a Democrat who isn’t completely totally beholden to the progressive left. You’d have to be non-orthodox on abortion, guns, education, some economic issues…If you popped yourself out of the ditch and said, ‘I’m a pro-gun Democrat’, you’d immediately get a primary and parts of the party would swarm you.”

Redistricting could reshape House Agriculture Committee

"At least six members of the House Agriculture Committee face tough reelections under new Ccongressional maps approved by 26 states, while four have plans to leave the House and several more depend on maps that have not yet been approved," Noah Wicks reports for Agri-Pulse. "Under the newly drawn districts, two Illinois Republicans — Mary Miller and Rodney Davis — will battle for control of a seat; Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger must navigate her way through a largely unfamiliar district; and Arizona Democrat Tom O'Halleran will need to win the votes of a Republican-leaning constituency. Iowa Democrat Cindy Axne and Nebraska Republican Don Bacon will continue to sit in highly competitive swing districts."

Congressional districts are redrawn after each census to equalize their population. A few states create new maps through independent commissions, but most leave it to state legislatures. "Republicans are counting on redistricting to help them wrest control of the House, which would put [Pennsylvania Rep. Glenn] Thompson in line to become the committee's chairman," Wicks reports. "Democrats currently control the House 221-212, with two vacancies." Agri-Pulse takes a deep dive into how redistricting is playing out for each Agriculture Committee member. Read more here.

Meaning of census findings on race for policymakers to be discussed in free webinar at 2 p.m. ET Friday

The Census Bureau changed how it gathered information on race and ethnicity in the 2020 decennial census, and that could make a difference in redistricting, research and policymaking. A National Conference of State Legislatures webinar at 2 p.m. ET Friday, Nov. 19, will explore the issue.

From the website: "Between 2010 and 2020 ... the U.S. became more diverse than ever, and Americans began to see their race and ethnicity differently as well. The result: more people than ever identify as 'some other race' and as 'more than one race'." Click here to register or for more information.

Referendum roundup: New York state rejects looser voting rules; Maine adopts vague 'right to food' amendment

Off-year elections are usually pretty quiet, but voters are often asked to decide questions large and small. This week there were 24 statewide refernda in six states. Here are a few with rural resonance:

In Maine, by share of population the most rural state, two-thirds of voters approved a first-in-the-nation constitutional amendment establishing a "right to food," even though there's considerable confusion over what it means. "Described as an outgrowth of the food sovereignty movement, the amendment says Mainers have a right to grow and consume food of their choosing," Chuck Abbott reports for the Food and Environment Reporting Network. That extends to popular issues such as raw milk and the right to save and exchange seeds as long as it doesn't violate laws or exploit natural resources.

"Supporters used the campaign to make the case the amendment would ensure the right to grow vegetables and raise livestock in an era when corporatization threatens local ownership of the food supply," Patrick Whittle reports for The Associated Press. "They positioned the amendment as a chance for Mainers to wrestle control of the food supply back from large landowners and giant retailers with little connection to the community."

Abbott reports, "Opponents said the amendment was so broadly written that it could override animal cruelty laws or open the gate to domestic livestock in urban backyards. The Bangor Daily News said the ambiguous wording would put judges in charge of interpreting what the amendment means at the practical level." The paper also noted that the amendment doesn't expressly mention hunger.

In Colorado, 54 percent of voters rejected a measure that would have raised $150 million to partially fund private, out-of-school learning for children by raising the marijuana tax five percentage points to 20%, Jenny Brundin and Bente Birkeland report for Colorado Public Radio.

Proposition 119 aimed to help children falling behind because of the pandemic by providing tutoring, enrichment opportunities in the arts, career and technical training, physical therapy, mental health services, support for students with special needs, and mentoring. However, "opponents of the measure said it would have taken dollars away from public education and would have instead funded private companies to provide services," Brundin and Birkeland report.

In Texas, voters approved two constitutional amendments by broad margins. "Proposition 3, which was approved 63% to 37%, bars governments from taking any action that "prohibits or limits religious services," Asher Price reports for Axios Austin. "The proposition is part of a much broader national Covid-19 debate that pits public health officials bent on stymieing the disease's spread against pastors who say they were protecting their practice of religion."

And Proposition 6, approved by nearly 88% of Texas voters, "gives residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities the right to designate an 'essential caregiver' who could not, under most circumstances, be barred from in-person visits," Price reports. "The proposition comes after stories of elderly people enduring months of isolation as part of the fight against Covid-19." It's unclear whether nursing homes could bar essential caregivers who are unvaccinated or unmasked. Since nursing home workers must be vaccinated, it stands to reason that visitors would be more likely to infect residents. That could be particularly deadly, since nursing home residents are far more likely to die from Covid-19 than others.

Voters in New York rejected three amendments that would have broadened voting access by allowing same-day registration without proof of residency, let voters get absentee ballots without needing an excuse, and requiring that incarcerated New Yorkers be counted as living at their last place of residence in redistricting, Dana Rubinstein reports for The New York Times. Broadened voting access measures tend to benefit urban—and therefore more liberal—voters. And rural areas generally gain more political clout when prisoners are counted as local residents in redistricting.

Analysts say the measures were defeated because the language on the ballot was hard to understand, and because the Democratic party made little effort to boost the propositions, while the state Republican party used the ballot issues as lightning rods to turn out their base in an otherwise quiet election cycle, Rubinstein reports.

Today's census numbers show that rural America will have to fight to keep political influence in states and U.S. House

Today the Census Bureau is releasing population data for congressional and legislative redistricting which will show rural areas (which are disproportionately white and conservative) have lost people overall in the past decade, and are in line to lose power in statehouses and the U.S. House. 

"An analysis of recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates shows that "rural areas lost 226,000 people, a decline of about 0.5 percent, between 2010 and 2020, while cities and suburbs grew by about 21 million people, or 8%," Tim Henderson reports for Stateline. "Republican state legislatures will try to draw districts that preserve the political power of mostly conservative rural voters, but that task will become increasingly difficult as the population balance shifts toward cities."

Rural interests in some states have organized keep as much representation as they can, Henderson reports: "Pro 15, a group that advocates for largely rural northeastern Colorado, asked the state redistricting commission not to dilute the power of rural counties by dividing those voters into districts dominated by urban voters. Colorado’s rural counties grew 4%, a fraction of the state’s 17% urban growth, according to the census estimates."

The Census Bureau is holding a news conference at 1 p.m. ET today to discuss the first local-level results from the 2020 census, which states use to redraw federal and state legislative districts. After the presser on the Census Live page, credentialed news media can participate in a Q&A session with presenters. Click here to register for the press conference and access. The new data will be released today on the Census Bureau's FTP site, and will be released in easier-to-use formats by Sept. 30.

Detailed census data needed for redistricting won't be ready until late Sept., causing 'chain reaction in the political world'

The Bureau of the Census said Friday that due to the pandemic, it won't provide data needed for redistricting until late September, causing "headaches for state lawmakers and redistricting commissions facing deadlines to redraw districts this year," writes Mike Schneider of The Associated Press.

The bureau "had previously said the redistricting data would be available no earlier than the end of July because of delays caused by the virus," Schneider notes. "Before the pandemic, the deadline for finishing the redistricting data had been March 31." Departing from past practice, the bureau will issue all the data at once, rather than releasing it state by state.

"The delayed release creates a chain reaction in the political world," Schneider writes. "Several states will not get the data until after their legal deadlines for drawing new districts, requiring them to either rewrite laws or ask courts to allow them a free pass due to the delay. Candidates may not know yet whether they will live in the district they want to run in by the filing deadline. In some cases, if fights over new maps drag into the New Year, primaries may have to be delayed. . . . The biggest impact will be to compress the window during which lawyers can challenge bad maps in court."

Eric Holder, who was attorney general in the Obama administration and chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said the delay shouldn’t be “a pretext to hold 2022 elections on old maps” for political advantage, "or to draw maps without significant public input, using the compressed timetable as an excuse," Schneider reports.

States begin once-a-decade redistricting fight after census; local officials have received preliminary figures

With the 2020 census completed except for final figures (many local officials have received preliminary figures for their jurisdictions), statehouses across the nation are about to begin the once-a-decade fight to redraw voting-district lines. "Redistricting debates will heat up in many states as Democrats try to stop Republicans, who control most statehouses, from drawing district lines that would solidify their political power for another decade," Tim Henderson reports for Stateline.

Republican control will likely result in rural areas gaining more electoral power. "In states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas that have conservative legislatures and liberal cities, Republicans will try to preserve their majorities by drawing congressional and state legislative districts that favor GOP incumbents and dilute Democratic voting strength," Henderson reports. 

This is likely to be true especially in Southern states, according to Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. "After the red wave in 2011, you had some really aggressive line-drawing in places like Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania," Li said at a recent seminar. "Now I think the hot spots are going to be in the South—North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Texas."

Though federal courts in the past decade have ruled against Republicans in gerrymandering cases, state courts are now the last word, because of a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Henderson reports.

Spurred by endless litigation and partisan battles, an increasing number of states are turning toward independent commissions to determine districts fairly. "A total of 19 states now have commissions with input on redistricting, and another five use commissions as a backup if the legislature can’t agree or overcome a veto," Henderson reports.

Quick hits: Peabody Energy to eliminate retired miner benefits; USDA launches new customer-service portal

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Americans flock to chicken, the nation's number one quarantine meat. Read more here.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched a new customer-service interface. Read more here.

Peabody Energy to eliminate a health-care benefit program for retired miners. Read more here.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in President Trump's case attempting to exclude undocumented immigrants from Congressional redistricting numbers. Read more here.

Teachers say election conspiracy theories rampant among youngsters in areas where Trump is popular, and say distance learning makes it harder to guide children through misinformation. Read more here.

A novel way of mitigating climate change: feeding cows red seaweed could help them burp less methane. Read more here.

U.S. shale operators looking for signs of optimism despite a year of bankruptcies and job losses. Read more here.

Trump administration moves to overhaul the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, relax rules on killing birds. Read more here.

Parler is bringing together mainstream conservatives with anti-Semites and white supremacists. Read more here.

A fact-check: a Danish study has been rumored to prove that face masks are useless in protecting against the coronavirus. That's false. Read more here.

Rural Texas clinic can't offer telehealth because they don't have broadband or enough staff. Read more here.

Federal government to allow private flood insurance for millions. Read more here.

Ballot measure roundup: Coloradans approve restoration of gray wolves, paid family and medical leave

Colorado voters approved the restoration of gray wolves and mandated paid family and medical leave Tuesday, the first time any state has done such things in a referendum, on Tuesday.

Those were just two of 184 statewide ballot measures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Here are a few others, courtesy of NCSL:

• Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota approved efforts to legalize recreational marijuana, while voters in South Dakota and Mississippi approved medical marijuana programs.
• Oregonians decriminalized small amounts of certain controlled substances, such as heroin and cocaine, and the Beaver State also legalized psilocybin—become the first state ever to do so. The drug comes from mushrooms and is used in rituals by some Native American tribes.
• Ranked-choice voting, which was adopted in Maine recently, failed in Massachusetts and looks likely to fail in Alaska.
• Virginia voters adopted a redistricting commission, and that change means most states will now have a commission of some kind, though some are merely advisory, or only come into being if the legislature fails to pass maps.
• Voters approved taxes on tobacco and electronic-cigarette products in Colorado and Oregon. Washington will require public schools to provide comprehensive sex education beginning in 2022. 
• California voters rejected stricter parole and sentencing policies and stopped the legislature’s efforts to replace cash bail with pretrial risk assessments.
• Kentucky passed Marsy’s law, the crime victims’ bill of rights.
• Florida voters raised the minimum wage.
• An effort to overturn California’s affirmative action ban failed.
• Two “Stand Your Ground” Rights measures pass in Alabama.
• Mississippians approved the state’s new magnolia flag design, which was put before voters after the legislature decided to replace the previous flag feature the confederate battle emblem.

Updates are at NCSL’s State Elections 2020 webpage and statewide ballot measures database.

Upcoming reapportionment and redistricting make statehouse races even more important this year

The nation's attention is focused largely on the presidential and Senate races, but more than 5,000 state legislative races are arguably as important, collectively, Sabrina Tavernise writes for The New York Times. For one thing, this is a census year. In most states, that means that whoever wins control of a state's legislature in this election will be in charge of "redrawing state and national electoral maps next year, an exercise that can give one political party a deep and enduring advantage in lawmaking for years." 

After their electoral gains in 2010, Republicans used their power in statehouses to disproportionately empower rural voters in redistricting. Before legislatures redistrict, the census will determine how many seats in the U.S. House each state will get.

Tavernise notes that state legislatures will also decide critical issues relating to abortion, guns, police funding and accountability, schools, health care, and the pandemic.

Supreme Court vacancy spotlights America's red-blue, rural-urban, political-cultural divide, and rural voters' greater heft

The issues swirling in the battle over a vacant Supreme Court seat “encompass the broader culture war that divides red and blue America, from abortion to marriage equality to health care to the very structure of government,” writes Dan Balz, chief correspondent for The Washington Post. “The battle could easily expand to an even more charged debate over whether the high court speaks for and represents the views of a majority of Americans, or even whether the democratic system of government more broadly has become undemocratic,” through Republican gerrymandering and the Senate’s built-in bias in favor of rural states, at a time when rural voters are more Republican than ever.

Republicans control the Senate, but "their members represent fewer than half the nation’s population," Balz notes. "Republicans in the House have routinely won more seats than their share of the vote, thanks to the makeup of congressional districts." He notes The Economist magazine's cover story of July 2018, "American democracy's built-in bias toward rural Republicans," which spotlighted "the consequences of a nation with an expanding urban-rural split as wide as it is now in the United States."

The Economist said, "The electoral system the Founders devised, and which their successors elaborated, gives rural voters more clout than urban ones. When the parties stood for both city and country that bias affected them both. But the Republican Party has become disproportionately rural and the Democratic Party disproportionately urban. That means a red vote is worth more than a blue one. . . . The 13 states where people live closest together have 121 Democratic House members and 73 Republican ones, whereas the rest have 163 Republicans and just 72 Democrats. America has one party built on territory and another built on people. . . . Rancorous political disputes—over guns, abortion and climate change—split so neatly along urban-rural lines that parties and voters increasingly sort themselves into urban-rural tribes. Gerrymandering and party primaries reward extremists, and ensure that, once elected, they seldom need fear for their jobs. The incentives to take extreme positions are very powerful." Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has a more detailed examination of "The Senate's Rural Skew."

Balz notes, "Former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said in August that if Trump were reelected a second time without winning the popular vote, it could force an examination 'of what’s become of our democratic system.' In recent years, ideas that have been put forth by those who believe it is time for such an examination. They include adding more justices to the high court (as Buttigieg recommended during his presidential campaign) and amending the Constitution to eliminate the electoral college and elect presidents by popular vote. More provocative have been suggestions that Democrats should push to bring D.C. and Puerto Rico into the union to affect the balance of power in the Senate. Up to now, this has been a discussion that animates many on the left, but it’s not one that has gained a wider audience. Nor is it in the current capability of Democrats to effect such changes. But if Republicans exercise their power brazenly in an attempt to install a new justice in the face of a Biden victory in November, who can say where this fight could go?"

Texas GOP to launch fake campaign sites targeting Dems

"Texas Republicans plan to use a disinformation campaign to help them win back a dozen state House races in 2020, buying up website domains that look like they belong to Democratic candidates and loading the sites with negative information, according to a leaked document from the party," Andrea Zelinski reports for the Houston Chronicle. "Republicans are seeking to maintain control of the Texas House after a bruising 2018 election cycle. If Republicans lose nine seats in the 2020 elections, Democrats would take control of the chamber and have a leading role in drawing new congressional and legislative district boundaries after next year’s census."

The plan to spread misinformation through fake campaign sites is akin to recent partisan efforts to spread biased content through websites masquerading as local news sites.

Texas Republican Party Chairman James Dickey confirmed that the document was authentic, and told the Chronicle he wasn't sure why it's news that "we’re aggressively working to earn the support of all Texas voters for all our candidates," and said that the draft discusses just one of the strategies they plan to use to increase GOP voter turnout, Zelinski reports. Other strategies in the document include publishing videos that highlight diversity within the Republican party and finding ways to combat President Trump's "polarizing nature."

Population and thus political power have shifted to the South and Southwest, and the trend seems likely to continue

Wall Street Journal chart based on Census data

Newly released Census Bureau data shows that population is continuing to shift from the North and Midwest to the South and Southwest; since a higher population means more seats in the House of Representatives, that could increase political clout in such areas, Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg report for The Wall Street Journal.

The bureau estimated state populations as of July 1, 2019. Since the date of the decennial census is April 1, 2020, the figures are a decent predictor of which states will gain and lose congressional seats and electoral votes based on the count, Adamy and Overberg report.

"Texas is poised to gain two congressional seats, while Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon are each expected to gain one," Adamy and Overberg report. "Eight states are likely to lose one seat: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia and California. It would be California’s first such loss since it became a state in 1850."

The shift could help the Republican Party, since the losses come mainly from Democratic and swing states and the gains mostly go to Republican or swing states, according to Kimball Brace, president of the bipartisan political consulting firm Election Data Services. However, "Democrats have said in Texas and Arizona, the growth of the Latino populations and new residents from other states could eventually turn them blue," Adamy and Overberg report. "Democrats noted how population movements in recent years have moved the partisan makeup of some states in their favor, including Virginia and Colorado."

The power shift will also depend on which party controls each state's legislature after the November elections, since legislators redraw districts, Adamy and Overberg report. Political power also depends on whether voters are moving to urban areas, which tend to be more liberal; or rural areas, which tend to be more conservative. A decades-long trend of Americans moving to larger cities will likely result in Democrats benefitting from the new Census, Reid Wilson reports for The Hill.

Speaker of Nebraska Legislature proposes increasing number of state senators to help rural districts

Jim Scheer, the Speaker of the Nebraska Legislature, has proposed increasing the number of senators in the state's unique, unicameral body, Paul Hammel reports for the Omaha World-Herald.

The state legislature now has 49 senators, the smallest number of such representatives in the nation. Scheer "said that allowing the body to expand to up to 55 senators would not only ease the process of redistricting after the 2020 Census but would also ensure that some rural districts don’t grow so large geographically as populations shift that constituents lose contact with their state senator," Hammel reports.

The state constitution requires districts to be evenly divided by population and calls for counties to be left as whole as possible, which can make for huge rural legislative districts that sometimes dip into suburban or urban areas. Scheer said some legislative districts in the central and western parts of the state spread over hundreds of miles, and that the problem is expected to worsen when the Legislature draws up new districts in 2021, Hammel reports.

While increasing the number of senators would not necessarily preserve rural influence, the mere fact that more individuals are in the Legislature could avoid a possible reduction of rural voices. 

Supreme Court punts on gerrymandering cases but leaves door open to proposed formula measuring partisanship

The U.S. Supreme Court punted Monday on two potentially landmark gerrymandering cases, sending both back to lower courts for further consideration on procedural grounds. "The justices left the door open for future challenges to partisan gerrymanders. But as a result of Monday’s technical resolutions, both states’ maps will be intact for the 2018 elections, and the status quo remains," Robert Barnes reports for The Washington Post.

In the Maryland case, Democrats had redrawn congressional districts in an effort to regain two traditionally Republican districts. "The difficulty with the Maryland case, the court said in the unsigned opinion, is that it concerned a request from challengers that courts step in now to keep 2018 elections from being held in districts that have been in place since 2011," Barnes reports. "There was no reason to do that before a trial has taken place." The court voted 7-2 to send it back.

The second case, centered on the Republican-controlled Wisconsin state legislature's 2011 redrawing of congressional districts, is potentially more significant. The lower court concluded that the redrawn map favored Republicans and couldn't be explained by nonpartisan reasons, and cited a formula that the plaintiffs offered to measure the partisanship of redistricting,

But the formula looked at the statewide impact, and Chief Justice John Roberts said the plaintiffs hadn't shown that they were hurt individually, which he said was necessary before they had standing to sue. He said the Wisconsin plaintiffs should have another chance to show a lower court they had been individually harmed. He also wrote that the problem with the proposed formula is that it measures the effect gerrymandering has on political parties, not individual voters. 

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a concurring opinion in the case that "laid out a road map for future challenges, including under a test [Justice Anthony] Kennedy has proposed: that partisan redistricting schemes might be judged as punishment for voters because of their past political allegiances, which would violate the First Amendment," Barnes reports. Kennedy "has expressed a willingness to strike down partisan gerrymanders but has yet to accept a rationale for it," Michael Wines reported for The New York Times in 2016.

High-court case on redistricting could set new standard to limit partisan mapping, force changes

One-third of all modern redistricting maps passed by state legislatures failed the standard that reformers want the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt in a case that will be argued Tuesday, the Republican solicitor general of Wisconsin wrote in defending the state's maps in the case.

Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin also argued that the standard suggested by the plaintiffs "is unreliable and favors Democrats," writes Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "But attorneys for the Wisconsin Democrats said just 10 percent to 20 percent of past maps could have faced challenges under their test — and a majority of those questionable maps helped Democrats."

Both sides' calculations went back to 1972, the first major round of legislative and congressional redistricting under "one person, one vote" rules that the Supreme Court established in the 1960s, reducing rural influence in state legislatures and, to a lesser degree, in the U.S. House. The Senate, with two senators from every state regardless of size, retains much rural influence.

"The Wisconsin Democrats proposed a new test to determine whether maps were unfairly one-sided. Their test counts 'wasted votes' — that is, any votes beyond those needed to elect a candidate — to determine the 'efficiency gap' of a map," Marley explains. "Maps have large efficiency gaps when they spread one party’s voters into districts in a way that creates a significant number of wasted votes for them."

The U.S. Court of Appeals "cited the efficiency-gap test as evidence that Wisconsin’s maps were unconstitutional, but did not entirely rely on the test for its decision," Marley reports. "Attorneys for Wisconsin have told the Supreme Court the test is biased against Republicans because Democrats tend to cluster in cities such as Madison and Milwaukee."

The Supreme Court "has found maps can be so heavily skewed to favor one party as to violate the U.S. Constitution," Marley notes. "But the justices have never struck down a map on those grounds and have disagreed on whether courts can measure when that happens. Both sides see Justice Anthony Kennedy as the key vote in the Wisconsin case."

Tseytlin, a native of Russia, was a law clerk for Kennedy. Thirteen years ago, Kennedy asked for suggestions for standards by which partisan redistricting could be judged. "If workable standards do emerge to measure these burdens . . . courts should be prepared to order relief," Kennedy wrote.