• Gerrymandering

Project REDMAP

Design: Reed Dudley, © National Democratic Redistricting Committee

How Republicans Stole Our Democracy

In 2010, the Republican Party began executing a coordinated redistricting strategy to fundamentally change the landscape of American politics: Project REDMAP (Redistricting Majority Project). 

Republicans strategically invested in state legislative races and other key elections in swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and Michigan so they could control the map-drawing process after the 2010 census. This was the core of Project REDMAP. 

In the 2010 midterm elections, during President Barack Obama’s first term, Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and many state legislatures across the country. It was the largest swing in a midterm election since 1948. By winning these statehouses, Republicans positioned themselves to dominate redistricting behind closed doors. 

Once in power, they surgically manipulated both state legislative and congressional maps across the country—cracking apart communities, packing Democratic voters into as few districts as possible, and engineering huge partisan advantages that lasted for an entire decade.

Republicans had total control over the drawing of 213 Congressional seats, while Democrats controlled the drawing of just 44. In state after state, Republican legislatures and governors drew and approved maps that divided communities and benefitted Republicans at the ballot box.

The consequences were disastrous. 

In the 2012 midterms, 1.4 million more Americans cast their ballots for Democratic candidates for the U.S. House, yet Republicans won a 33-seat majority. 

In 2014, Republican candidates for the House received 52 percent of the votes, but won 57 percent of the seats.

In 2016, Republicans won 49 percent of the House votes, yet controlled 55 percent of the House seats. 

That firewall has continued to shape state politics. By 2017, Republicans held trifectas — control of the state house, state senate, and governorship — in 25 states. Following the 2020 Census, the 2021 redistricting cycle presented an opportunity to cement that structural advantage for another decade.

Project REDMAP has led to disastrous policy consequences.

In Congress, gerrymandered Republican seats emboldened the fringes of the Republican Party, leading to the government shutdown. In states across the country, huge Republican majorities passed aggressive pro-life policies, right-to-work laws, anti-public school laws, anti-climate laws, voter suppression laws, and laws attacking the LGBT community.

Rather than earn the vote of the American people and be responsive to their constituents, Republicans would rather manipulate the electoral boundaries to secure unearned power.