Author David Daley on the latest disturbing developments in the world of political gerrymandering
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David Daley (Courtesy photo)
Gerrymandering. Most Americans have come to be familiar with this phenomenon in which politicians rig electoral maps and elections for partisan purposes, but unless you’re a serious political observer, you may not be up to speed on just how far out of control this destructive practice has gotten of late or, indeed, how unless something is done soon, it might well spiral out of control.
Fortunately, a handful of experts have been monitoring and chronicling the gerrymandering mess for some time and one of the most knowledgeable is author Dave Daley. Daley — a senior fellow at the nonprofit FairVote — is author of the books “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count” and “Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections,” and recently he penned an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he noted that the 2026 midterms might not be decided by tariffs or President Trump’s approval ratings, but by gerrymandering. And NC Newsline recently caught up with him to learn the details.
In Part One of our extended conversation, we explored the sobering current reality of how Republican state-level politicians – most notably right now in Texas — are, at the urging of President Trump, attempting to rig the 2026 midterm elections by gerrymandering their state congressional maps in unprecedented ways.
In Part Two of our conversation, we looked into the ways in which the gerrymandering wars could spin out of control, how the only realistic solution to the problem lies in congressional action, how President Trump’s effort to initiate a mid-decade census is fraught with problems, and how yet another case to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this fall could further fuel the fires that threaten American democracy.
Click here to listen to the full interview with gerrymandering expert and author David Daley.
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