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Despite the victory lap the GOP seems to be doing over the 2020 elections, here’s a fact: Democrats are winning the fight for fair maps. Stick with me here...
Down-ballot Dems didn’t do great the other week, but in the context of redistricting, we’ve made HUGE progress in recent years. Our influence is much greater than it was a decade ago, & many voters will get fair, un-rigged districts for the 1st time in generations. Some examples:
Last time around, the GOP held power in New Mexico, Nevada, Maine & Oregon--four states where Dems will now have total control to draw fair maps. And we’ll have new independent commissions to draw fair maps in places like Colorado and Virginia.
In states like Kentucky where we don’t hold legislative majorities, Dems will still have a say over the maps because we flipped governorships blue (thank you @DemGovs). And because we broke the GOP supermajority in Pennsylvania, Dem Governor Wolf can veto rigged maps.
We also blocked the GOP from getting supermajorities in Wisconsin & Louisiana, which will force Republicans to work with the Dem governors on redistricting and prevent them from ramming through rigged, partisan maps.
Michigan’s old maps were so undemocratic, they got thrown out by a federal court. But next year, an independent redistricting commission will draw fair maps, giving Dems our first real chance at winning the state House & Senate in decades.
So, no, we didn’t flip every chamber we wanted to. But Dems are far better prepared to fight for fair maps than we were a decade ago. As a result, tens of millions of Americans, mostly people of color, won’t be disenfranchised by rigged maps engineered to marginalize their votes.
Overcoming and then changing a system that was LITERALLY designed to prevent Dems from winning has been hard--particularly with Trump at the top of the ticket. So, no we didn’t flip every chamber we wanted to on Republican gerrymandered maps. But the work must continue.
What lessons have we learned this year? Blank checks the month before the election aren't enough to win close races. Neither are last-minute pledges from fancy SuperPACs. It takes years of unglamorous, grinding work building state infrastructure & training inspiring candidates.
We will win in 2022 because of the investments made in the next 6 months, not those made at the end of the cycle--investments in party infrastructure that won’t be washed away after one election. That’s how we made the progress we have today & how we’ll go even further.
