With state and congressional redistricting underway in Harrisburg, many politicians have blamed “partisan gerrymandering” for past election losses. But this is another instance when the conventional wisdom gets it wrong. Redistricting-watchers fearing an electoral apocalypse and those hoping for a clear path to victory need a healthy dose of reality.
Voters care little about district lines — what they do care about is how public policy impacts their lives. The truth is, redistricting explains little in terms of electoral results, and many of the controversies surrounding the process are blown out of proportion.
Maps can’t bridge urban, rural divide
The Pennsylvania Constitution requires that legislative districts be equal in population, contiguous, and keep communities intact as much as possible. Many politicos also want every district to have a similar partisan split as the state writ large — but this is neither legally required nor practical, since many regions of Pennsylvania have high concentrations of partisan voters.
While the last few statewide elections have been roughly 50–50, Democratic candidates received more than 80% of the vote in Philadelphia and 70% in Pittsburgh. In the middle of the state, Republicans won more than 70% of the vote in several counties. Drawing a perfect map without “safe seats” for one party is nearly impossible in these areas. But in other regions, district lines hardly make an election a foregone conclusion. Candidates and their policies matter more, and Pennsylvanians’ penchant for split-ticket voting makes this clear.
Proof candidates matter
In 2020, 20 state House districts split their vote: 12 Republicans won in districts carried by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and eight Democrats won in districts carried by Republican Donald Trump. Some years have seen even greater splits. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, won the 2018 gubernatorial election, but 36 state House Republicans won districts Wolf carried that year.
For another example of how much candidates matter, consider that in 2020, 107 GOP state legislative candidates outperformed Trump in their districts. Two years earlier, 144 GOP candidates outperformed Republican gubernatorial hopeful Scott Wagner.
Though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s redrawing of congressional district lines in 2018 gets the blame for a large shift in the party split that year, the political climate already favored Democrats. In fact, Democrats picked up three seats (won by U.S. representatives Conor Lamb, Susan Wild and Mary Jane Scanlon) before the new maps went into effect.
In other words, candidates matter more than the redistricting and often more than party affiliation.
Election cycles have biggest impact
While redistricting’s impact on elections is overrated, election cycles — and especially wave elections — are underappreciated.
Wave elections — including 1994, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2018 — saw dramatically more legislative seats swing from one party to the other than any post-redistricting election. At the congressional level, Democrats gained 41 seats in 2018, and in 2006 and 2008, they picked up a combined 56 seats. Republicans flipped 64 seats in 2010 and 54 in 1994.
Compare those massive swings to the last three post-redistricting elections, which saw just seven, eight, and nine seats flip, respectively.
Issues paramount in 2022
Historically, mid-term elections are challenging for the president’s party. Already, the recent off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey showed massive electoral swings that favored Republicans — around seven percentage points in each state from 2020 to 2021 statewide races.
According to recent polling, Republicans have a 10-point advantage in the “generic congressional vote.” Going into November 2020, Democrats averaged a 6.8-point advantage on this metric. That’s a 17-point swing in Republicans’ favor in just two years.
Swings like this often come with explanations on policy concerns. So, what matters most to these voters? Top issues right now are inflation, parental control of education, the economy and jobs, and crime rates. Note that redistricting is not among them.
Inflation has only recently emerged as a top issue. Educational choice and parental control of schooling played a major role in Virginia, explaining an unexpected victory for Republicans there. In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, there is strong bipartisan support (73% of voters) for educational choice.
National polling shows that voters have shifted towards preferring smaller government and less spending. They continue to prefer capitalism and the free market to socialism and the federal government. These issues poll well across party lines and across regions of the state.
Here’s the lesson: Good policy is good politics. In the vast majority of cases, candidates who run effective campaigns focused on policies voters support are still likely to win—no matter what the latest district maps say.
(Nathan Benefield is senior vice president for the Commonwealth Foundation — CommonwealthFoundation.org — Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank.)
