The Real Threat to Democrats Isn’t Redistricting

It’s themselves.

By Ruy Teixeira

08.20.25 — U.S. Politics

The redistricting wars are in full swing. Texas Republicans say the new map they’re pushing through the state legislature could get the GOP an additional five seats in the House of Representatives. In response, Democrats in California have unveiled their own plan to redraw the Golden State’s maps and give them the upper hand. Similar battles are breaking out in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois.

But Democrats just have fewer places than the GOP to pull off these maneuvers and, even where they are in control of state government, are more likely to face institutional obstacles like nonpartisan commissions specifically designed to prevent gerrymandering, the practice of deliberately drawing district lines to favor one party over the other. Therefore, the net results of these moves and countermoves are likely to favor the GOP.

How badly could all this hurt the Democrats in 2026? In all likelihood, not very. As The New York Times’ Nate Cohn has pointed out, other factors that make the midterm environment favorable to the Democrats will likely swamp the effects of any pro-GOP redistricting. As he notes, even with a Texas redistricting, the 2026 midterm map favors Democrats even more than the 2018 map, when the party won over 40 House seats in a major repudiation of Trump and the GOP.

But Democrats shouldn’t be panicking about this—yet. Their problems lie far deeper and go way beyond the marginal House seat in the 2026 election. Indeed, the garment-rending about the GOP’s redistricting efforts misses the harm done to Democrats by the continuing concentration of their partisans in ever-less competitive districts.

What I mean by that is that most Democrats in the House don’t have to worry about Republicans ever taking their jobs. Truly competitive swing districts are going extinct, thanks in large part to Democrats and Republicans moving away from each other, or what political scientists call “self-sorting.”

If anything, incumbent Democratic lawmakers only have to worry about challenges from other Democrats coming at them from the left. This is a problem for a number of reasons, not least of which is that there’s very little motivation for most of them to appear at all moderate.

This dynamic is terrible for the party’s reputation and its long-term electoral prospects and poses a far graver danger to Democrats than aggressive Republican gerrymandering in red states.

The significance of this dynamic is reinforced by ideological trends among Democrats. The simple fact is that today’s Democrats, both lawmakers and voters alike, are remarkably different from the Democrats of yesteryear: they are far more liberal.

Few people know today or would believe that moderates and conservatives used to far outnumber liberals among Democratic identifiers. As recently as 2008, moderates and liberals were evenly balanced among Democrats and conservatives were still over a fifth of the total. But today, those saying they are liberal or very liberal are by far the largest group among Democrats (55 percent to 34 percent for moderates). And conservatives have become an endangered species in the Democratic Party, with fewer than 1 in 10 Democrats identifying as such.

Put all this together and the incentive structure for today’s Democratic politicians comes into focus. They are far more likely to be rewarded by their voters for no-holds-barred progressivism than to be punished for their lack of moderation or willingness to compromise. This has left the Democrats in poor shape to course-correct against the loss of moderate-to-conservative working-class voters in the age of Trump.

Even if individual Democratic politicians wish to do so, the pressures to stay within the bounds of Democratic orthodoxy are enormous. Sticking with the true faith generates adulation from activists, favorable media coverage, and gushers of donations. Breaking ranks risks unhinged attacks on social media and accusations of helping the right and undermining “democracy.” Not too many Democratic politicians want to take that risk.

Consider how little Democrats have changed since having their hat handed to them in the 2024 election. After a brief flirtation with the idea that the Democratic brand must be profoundly transformed and moved dramatically to the center, Trump’s over-the-top actions and rhetoric have inflamed Democratic partisans against any change in Democratic commitments. Democratic politicians, dependent as they are on these partisans, have duly responded and the momentum is now clearly on the side of those in the party who reject compromise of any kind.

Take immigration. Trump successfully shut down the border but has also been very aggressive in using Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportations within the country, some of them with questionable justification. Democrats have responded with fury and denunciations of the Trump administration for turning America into a police state.

In the process, any attempt by Democrats to portray themselves as having a new, tougher (but fair!) policy on immigration has been completely submerged. Aside from being against Trump’s deportations, is the Democrats’ current immigration policy at all different from what they stood for before? Most voters would have no idea.

Or consider transgender issues. The Trump administration has taken decisive action to get biological males out of female sports and to shut down pediatric medicalization for gender dysphoria. The abrupt nature of these changes has triggered Democrats into intransigent opposition, despite how lopsided public support tends to be for these changes and how much rigid support for the trans activist agenda cost the Democrats in 2024. And despite the fact that, ignoring liberal hectoring, Americans have become less supportive of trans rights in recent years, especially when it comes to sports and “gender-affirming care” for minors.

Democratic politicians, in thrall to their liberal partisan supporters who want no change whatsoever, have been powerless to change the party’s image in this area. Very few have even tried.

Finally, consider the Democrats’ energy and climate policy commitments, which defined their approach to economic policy under the Biden administration. Trump has taken a meat axe to the Democrats’ “green” agenda, gutting the renewable energy and electric vehicle subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act and, through a flurry of executive orders and other actions, firmly committing the U.S. to using its massive endowment of fossil fuels to achieve energy dominance.

This is fully in tune with public opinion, but outrage among progressives has prevented Democratic politicians from recalibrating their approach and admitting some of this needed to happen.

This is the fundamental problem for Democrats, not GOP gerrymandering. Because structural trends, including but not limited to ongoing redistricting, have made Democratic politicians ever more insulated from the median voter, the more radical forces in the party now hold the whip hand. They are determined to prevent the Democrats from pursuing an effective reform course that could make the party dominant once again. And, by and large, they are succeeding.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5769082&forum_id=2Ã#49231770)