共和党有望在今年的重划选区战争中以领先民主党10个席位的优势收官


2026-05-28T09:00:08.283Z / 美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)

这场旨在通过党派性操纵选区划分在11月选举中占据优势的跨全国战役正接近尾声——仅通过重划选区一项,共和党就有望以领先民主党多达10个席位的结果收官。

共和党去年在得克萨斯州打响了这场战役,重新调整了美国众议院选区的边界,以期提高本党在今年秋季应对蓝色浪潮的胜算,民主党随即展开反击。美国最高法院上月作出的重磅裁决削弱了1965年《选举权法案》仅剩的核心支柱之一,进一步加剧了美国南部的重划选区行动,促使多个由共和党掌控的州推迟选举日期并取消黑人人口占比可观的选区。

这些举措可能会成为帮助众议院议长迈克·约翰逊在中期选举前保住微弱多数席位的重大利好。但无论11月的选举结果如何,此次中期重划选区战役可能已经永久改变了美国政治——人们越来越倾向于在每一次选举周期都为党派利益重新划分选区边界,而非像传统那样在每十年人口普查结束后才进行一次。

“已经没有所谓的常态了,”洛约拉马利蒙特大学法学院教授贾斯汀·莱维特说道,他运营着“重划选区全解析”网站。他指出,最高法院近年来一系列与选举相关的裁决,包括2019年宣布联邦法院无权监管党派性选区操纵的判决,为如今这些极端行动的蔓延铺平了道路。

“最高法院实际上已经宣告,成年人已经离开房间,”他说,“你现在看到的就是纵容不良行为所带来的后果——而这只会催生更多不良行为。”

随着全国范围内的初选如火如荼地进行,两党今年已经没有新的战场可以发动重划选区之争。但他们都在为2028年选举周期准备更具侵略性的选区操纵行动。

以下是重划选区战役的最新进展:

共和党目前在美国众议院占据微弱多数席位,为218票对212票,其中包括新近脱离共和党、但仍与共和党团聚会的加利福尼亚州众议员凯文·凯利——他在重划选区后面临艰难的连任竞选。考虑到在野党通常会在中期选举中失去席位,共和党在11月选举后保住众议院控制权的道路并不平坦。

面对这一历史规律,得克萨斯州共和党人去年在唐纳德·特朗普总统的授意下启动了中期重划选区行动。大约10个月后,共和党已经在6个州调整了选区边界,目标直指14个由民主党掌控的选区。

路易斯安那州由共和党控制的议会仍在制定一份瞄准民主党选区的新地图,但预计将获得议员和该州共和党州长杰夫·兰德里的批准。兰德里采取了非同寻常的步骤,推迟了该州众议院的初选,以回应最高法院推翻该州国会选区地图的裁决。

阿拉巴马州的共和党官员也调整了选举日程,将4个美国众议院席位的特别初选定于8月11日举行,以期在该州7人众议院代表团中拿下两名民主党议员之一。

(周二的一项法院裁决叫停了阿拉巴马州的新地图。但州政府官员已向美国最高法院提起紧急上诉,请求法院恢复该计划。)

如果他们能在路易斯安那州和阿拉巴马州都取得成功,共和党通过重划选区获得的倾向本党的席位将比民主党多出10个。

尽管在选区操纵战役中占据优势,但仅靠重划选区可能不足以挽救共和党在众议院岌岌可危的微弱多数席位。特朗普在CNN的民调汇总中支持率仅为36%,是其从政生涯以来的最低水平之一——这进一步加剧了其政党面临的不利形势。

“共和党新增了大约10个席位,这将使中位选区的立场更加右倾,”全国共和党重划选区信托基金主席亚当·金凯德说道,该基金是本次选区划分进程中的关键参与者。“这无疑将有助于本党在秋季保住多数席位。”

共和党民调专家帕特里克·鲁菲尼表示,重划选区行动已经证明是值得的,因为它帮助减少了共和党在11月必须全力捍卫的竞争性选区数量。

“即便民主党仍有望获胜,”他说,“席位差距也会非常微小。”

一些州级共和党人抵制了全国层面要求调整选区边界的压力。

周二,就在该州初选提前投票开始之际,深红州南卡罗来纳州由共和党控制的州参议院违背了特朗普的意愿,否决了一份旨在瞄准该州代表团中唯一民主党人、任职17届的众议员吉姆·克莱伯恩的地图——克莱伯恩是美国政坛的 influential 人物。

一些共和党议员表示,鉴于当天早上已有超过2.5万名南卡罗来纳州选民完成投票,此时调整选区已经为时过晚。

“无论是我的良知还是常识,都不允许我叫停已经开始的选举,”共和党州参议员理查德·卡什说道,他此前曾支持该计划。

不过,南卡罗来纳州共和党人的抵制情绪已经酝酿了数周。本月早些时候,共和党州参议院多数党领袖沙恩·梅西在一场激动人心的 floor 演讲中警告称,试图彻底拿下该州7个国会席位可能会让共和党现任议员陷入险境,因为这会在他们的选区中加入过多新增的民主党选民。

梅西表示,他接到了特朗普要求制定新地图的电话,他还认为南卡罗来纳州在华盛顿至少拥有一名民主党议员是有益的。“无论总统是谁,无论谁执掌政权,南卡罗来纳州都必须有人能够拨通电话,并且白宫有人会接听,”他说。

南卡罗来纳州的这场风波呼应了去年印第安纳州的戏剧性结局:该州州参议院否决了特朗普要求增设两个对共和党友好的众议院席位的要求。

特朗普在本月的共和党初选中进行了报复,击败了5名违抗他命令的印第安纳州州参议员。但华盛顿共和党人若想报复南卡罗来纳州参议院的反叛者,可能只能等待漫长的时机。该州参议员要到2028年才会面临连任选举。

总体而言,重划选区仅为民主党新增了6个友好席位。

但这并非因为民主党没有尽力。

作为对得克萨斯州行动的回应,加利福尼亚州的民主党人说服选民放弃了独立重划选区程序,并通过了一份新增5个对民主党友好的选区的地图。与此同时,犹他州的一项法院裁决为盐湖城出现一个对民主党友好的选区铺平了道路。

但民主党在弗吉尼亚州耗资数百万美元、代价惨重的夺席行动以失败告终。今年早些时候,选民支持了一项旨在帮助民主党从该州额外赢得4个众议院席位的提案,但州最高法院随后否决了该提案。

不过,布鲁金斯学会高级研究员、民主党全国委员会长期成员伊莱恩·卡马克认为,共和党在某些地区的重划选区行动可能过于激进,比如得克萨斯州的拉丁裔聚居区。

特朗普“在2024年确实在拉美裔选民中表现不错”,但那是在其政府采取激进的驱逐行动之前,她说。“民调显示,拉美裔选民如今对特朗普已经没那么狂热了。”

即便影响11月中期选举的进一步调整行动窗口即将关闭,两党都在准备积极调整选区地图,以塑造未来的选举格局。

下个月,佐治亚州共和党人将召开立法会议,为2028年选举争取更多众议院席位。

在密西西比州,共和党州长塔特·里夫斯已承诺瞄准该州唯一的民主党众议员本尼·汤普森。汤普森已在众议院任职超过30年,因其担任众议院特别委员会主席、调查2021年1月6日国会山袭击事件而获得全国关注,并招致特朗普的敌意。

民主党也计划发起自己的攻势——尽管这需要他们在部分掌控的州拆除独立的重划选区制度。

众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯近日告诉CNN,他在纽约、新泽西、华盛顿州、科罗拉多州、俄勒冈州、马里兰州和伊利诺伊州的民主党同僚必须“积极行动”,以应对共和党的选区操纵行动。此外,如果民主党能在今年11月赢得关键州的选举,还有另外6个州可能被纳入行动范围。

在民主党占绝对优势的马里兰州,州参议院议长比尔·弗格森最近改变了此前的反对立场,不再抵制一份旨在瞄准该州国会代表团中唯一共和党议员的地图。

弗格森表示,他正在考虑在该州6月23日初选结束后召开特别立法会议,制定一项关于重划选区的投票提案,以回应最高法院进一步削弱《选举权法案》的裁决。该投票提案将在11月提交选民表决。“随着形势变化,马里兰州必须做出回应,”他在一份声明中说道。

民主党还表示,如果能保住加利福尼亚州州长职位,他们愿意在今年已经完成新选区划分的州(包括加利福尼亚州)发起重划选区运动。

“没有联邦法律要求国会选区必须连成一片,”莱维特指出。“如果加利福尼亚州愿意,它可以把深红的圣贝纳迪诺县的飞地划入旧金山,或者把深红的北门多西诺县划入西好莱坞。”

在党派性选区操纵方面,“还有更多空间会让情况变得更糟,”他说。

Republicans are poised to finish this year’s redistricting war 10 seats ahead of Democrats

2026-05-28T09:00:08.283Z / CNN

The coast-to-coast battle to gain an edge in November’s elections through partisan gerrymandering is racing to its conclusion – with Republicans poised to finish with as many as 10 seats ahead of Democrats through redistricting alone.

The GOP kicked off the fight last year in Texas, changing boundaries for US House districts in the hopes of improving the party’s chances of surviving a blue wave this fall, with Democrats responding in turn. The US Supreme Court’s blockbuster decision last month to gut one of the remaining pillars of the 1965 Voting Rights Act further supercharged redistricting efforts across the South, prompting several Republican-controlled states to move election dates and eliminate districts with sizable Black populations.

The moves could be a major boon in efforts to protect House Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor-thin majority ahead of the midterm elections. But regardless of the outcome in November, the mid-decade redistricting battle has likely altered American politics permanently – fueling a growing appetite to redraw lines for partisan advantage every election cycle, rather than every decade after the census, as is traditional.

“There is no normal,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Marymount’s law school who runs the “All About Redistricting” website. He pointed to the high court’s string of election-related rulings in recent years, including a 2019 opinion declaring that federal courts could not police partisan gerrymanders, as helping pave the way for the extreme actions now taking hold.

“The Supreme Court has effectively announced that the adults have left the room,” he said. “What you see is what you get when you reward bad behavior, which is a lot more bad behavior.”

With primaries well underway around the country, both parties now have run out of battlegrounds on which to wage new redistricting fights this year. But they are gearing up for even more aggressive gerrymanders in the 2028 election cycle.

Here’s a look at where the redistricting battle stands:

Republicans have a slim majority in the US House, 218-212, counting newly independent California Rep. Kevin Kiley, who still caucuses with the GOP despite leaving the party amid a tough reelection race in the wake of redistricting. The party faces a difficult path in retaining its hold on the chamber after November’s elections, given that the president’s party typically loses power in the midterms.

Facing that history, Texas Republicans kicked off the mid-decade redistricting campaign last year at President Donald Trump’s behest. Roughly 10 months later, Republicans have changed boundaries in six states that target 14 Democratic-held districts.

Louisiana’s GOP-controlled legislature is still at work on a map that takes aim at a Democratic district, but it is expected to win the approval of lawmakers and its Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. Landry took the extraordinary step of postponing the state’s primary elections for the House to respond to the US Supreme Court’s ruling, which struck down the state’s congressional map.

Republican officials in Alabama also changed their election calendar, setting a new special primary election for four US House seats on August 11 in their quest to target one of two Democrats in the state’s seven-member House delegation.

(A court ruling Tuesday blocked Alabama’s new map. But state officials have filed an emergency appeal with the US Supreme Court, asking the justices to revive their plan.)

Should they succeed both in Louisiana and Alabama, Republicans would end up with 10 more seats that favor their party through redistricting than Democrats have drawn.

Despite their edge in the gerrymandering battles, redistricting alone might not save the GOP paper-thin majority in the House. Trump’s approval rating in CNN’s Poll of Polls stands at just 36%, among the lowest of his career – adding to the headwinds his party faces.

“Republicans have added about 10 seats that will have moved the median district even further to the right,” said Adam Kincaid, president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, a key player in this cycle’s map-drawing. “It certainly will help hold the majority in the fall.”

Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini said the redistricting push has proved worthwhile by helping to reduce the number of competitive districts the GOP must aggressively defend in November.

“Even if Democrats are still favored to win,” he said, “it’ll be a very narrow seat margin.”

Some state-level Republicans have balked at the national pressure to change their boundaries.

On Tuesday – as early voting in the state’s primary election got underway – the GOP-controlled state Senate in deep-red South Carolina bucked Trump and refused to approve a map that would have targeted the sole Democrat in the state’s delegation, 17-term Rep. Jim Clyburn, an influential figure in national politics.

Some Republican lawmakers said it was just too late to act, given that more than 25,000 South Carolinians already had cast ballots that morning.

“Neither my conscience nor common sense will allow me to stop an election that has already begun,” said GOP state Sen. Richard Cash, reversing his earlier support for the plan.

The resistance among some South Carolina Republicans, however, had brewed for weeks. In an impassioned floor speech earlier this month, Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey warned that seeking a clean GOP sweep of the state’s seven seats would put Republican incumbents at risk by adding too many additional Democratic voters to their districts.

Massey, who said he fielded calls from Trump seeking a new map, also argued there was a benefit to South Carolina having at least one Democrat in Washington. “Regardless of who the president is, regardless of who’s in charge, there has to be somebody in South Carolina who can make a phone call and somebody at the White House will answer it,” he said.

The saga in South Carolina echoed last year’s dramatic outcome in Indiana, where Republicans in the state Senate rejected Trump’s demands to produce two more US House seats friendly to the GOP.

The president scored payback in this month’s Republican primary election, toppling five Indiana state senators who defied him. But any revenge that Washington Republicans might seek against those who rebelled in the South Carolina Senate might have to be served cold. Senators in the Palmetto State are not for up reelection until 2028.

Overall, redistricting has yielded just six more seats friendly to Democrats.

But it’s not for lack of trying.

In response to Texas, Democrats in California persuaded voters to set aside an independent redistricting process and approve a map with five additional Democratic-friendly districts. A court ruling in Utah, meanwhile, paved the way for a Democratic-friendly district in Salt Lake City.

But the party’s bruising, multimillion-dollar effort to gain seats in Virginia failed. Voters backed an initiative earlier this year aimed at helping Democrats win four additional US House seats from the state, only to have the state Supreme Court block it.

However, Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and longtime Democratic National Committee member, argues that Republicans may have overreached in their redistricting push in some places, such as heavily Latino districts in Texas.

Trump “did do well among Hispanics in 2024,” but that was before his administration’s aggressive deportation actions, she said. “The polling shows Hispanics are not crazy about Trump anymore.”

Even as the window closes on further action that could affect November’s midterms, both parties are preparing to move aggressively on maps that will shape future elections.

Next month, Georgia Republicans will hold a legislative session to seek additional House seats in the 2028 election.

And in Mississippi, GOP Gov. Tate Reeves has pledged to target the state’s sole Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson. Thompson, who has served more than three decades in the House, gained national attention and Trump’s enmity as chairman of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Democrats also plan their own blitz – although it will require them to dismantle independent redistricting systems in some of the states they control.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently told CNN that his fellow Democrats in New York, New Jersey, Washington state, Colorado, Oregon, Maryland and Illinois must act “aggressively” to respond to the GOP’s gerrymandering campaign. Additionally, half a dozen more states could be on the table if Democrats can win key state races this November.

In heavily Democratic Maryland, the state Senate President Bill Ferguson recently reversed his earlier resistance to a map that would target the sole Republican in the state’s congressional delegation.

Ferguson said he now is weighing a special legislative session after the state’s June 23 primary election to craft a ballot initiative on redistricting, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision further weakening the Voting Rights Act. The ballot measure would be put before voters in November. “Maryland must respond as the ground shifts under us,” he said in a statement.

And Democrats have indicated a willingness to pursue redistricting campaigns in states that already have drawn new lines this year, including California, if the party retains its hold on the governorship there.

“There is no federal law that requires congressional districts to be contiguous,” Levitt noted. “If California wanted to, it could put pockets of deep-red San Bernadino County in with San Franciso or deep-red northern Mendocino County in with West Hollywood.”

When it comes to partisan gerrymanders, “there’s a lot more room for things to get worse,” he said.

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