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You don't need to hypothesize. Look at Wisconsin. A bunch of fairly Republican districts and a few heavily Democratic districts means that it's quite easy to pr

You don't need to hypothesize. Look at Wisconsin. A bunch of fairly Republican districts and a few heavily Democratic districts means that it's quite easy to produce an overwhelming R majority in the State House. The fairly R districts are not sure wins, but they don't have to be. > Republicans won 57 percent of the vote in contested races in 2016 and won 43 of 50 seats. In 2018, Republicans won the same percentage of the vote in contested races — but won 56 of 63 seats. > That’s how gerrymandering works. Even the fact that so many more Democratic seats are uncontested is by design: By making certain districts heavily Democratic, many others can be more easily made slightly Republican. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/04/several-layers-republican-power-grabbing-wisconsin/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/04/several-l... This stuff works, it's easy to see the effects in heavily gerrymandered states.

ars 6y ago
> A bunch of fairly Republican districts and a few heavily Democratic districts Something I just realized is that it will always be that way! Democrats do better in cities (in general heavily democratic), while Republicans do better in rural areas (typicaly Republican, but not in a dense way like a city would be). So if you divide districts naturally by geography they will always appear gerrymandered in Republicans favor.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. This was actually a deliberate choice in order to skew the electoral advantage into landed men.
  - ars 6y ago
    > That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. That's kind of my point: No it is not. Districts are meant to be contiguous geographical areas. Even if you adjust the geographical size of each district to have similar population sizes (which was your point), my point still stands: Because of the geographical nature of districts, cities will always have a larger Democratic percentage, and it will always look like Republicans have gerrymandered things.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      .... Which is why most democracies have multiple districts per city. It won't look like Republicans gerrymandered it to their advantage, because they won't have the advantage.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  The rural vs urban partisan divide is not some exogenous thing. It's only existed in the last couple of political alignments in the US, basically since FDR. It's entirely possible things realign.
  - edgyquant 6y ago
    The rural/urban divide has existed since the birth of the US. See Jeffersonian v Hamiltonian economies.
    - hamolton 6y ago
      Yes, but the partisan divide based on political parties historically has been far more along the North/South divide than the rural/urban divide.
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      The rural/urban divide may have existed since the birth of the U.S but the division has not aligned with the same political parties all the time, which would be anyway impossible as some parties no longer exist.
- watwut 6y ago
  Have you seen those maps? They quite clearly are not geographic city vs rural. Nor geographic anything, they sometimes even ressemble abstract drawings of four legged animals.

ars 6y ago

> A bunch of fairly Republican districts and a few heavily Democratic districts Something I just realized is that it will always be that way! Democrats do better in cities (in general heavily democratic), while Republicans do better in rural areas (typicaly Republican, but not in a dense way like a city would be). So if you divide districts naturally by geography they will always appear gerrymandered in Republicans favor.

sudosysgen 6y ago
That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. This was actually a deliberate choice in order to skew the electoral advantage into landed men.
- ars 6y ago
  > That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. That's kind of my point: No it is not. Districts are meant to be contiguous geographical areas. Even if you adjust the geographical size of each district to have similar population sizes (which was your point), my point still stands: Because of the geographical nature of districts, cities will always have a larger Democratic percentage, and it will always look like Republicans have gerrymandered things.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    .... Which is why most democracies have multiple districts per city. It won't look like Republicans gerrymandered it to their advantage, because they won't have the advantage.
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
The rural vs urban partisan divide is not some exogenous thing. It's only existed in the last couple of political alignments in the US, basically since FDR. It's entirely possible things realign.
- edgyquant 6y ago
  The rural/urban divide has existed since the birth of the US. See Jeffersonian v Hamiltonian economies.
  - hamolton 6y ago
    Yes, but the partisan divide based on political parties historically has been far more along the North/South divide than the rural/urban divide.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    The rural/urban divide may have existed since the birth of the U.S but the division has not aligned with the same political parties all the time, which would be anyway impossible as some parties no longer exist.
watwut 6y ago
Have you seen those maps? They quite clearly are not geographic city vs rural. Nor geographic anything, they sometimes even ressemble abstract drawings of four legged animals.