Democrats Tell Pollsters They’d Happily Ditch Black Districts To Get More Power

Unsurprisingly, Democrats are willing to eliminate black-majority congressional districts through redistricting in order to gain more political power, a new poll finds. Democrat politicians and pundits have long claimed that any proposed shift away from race-based gerrymandering is racist, repeatedly weaponizing the issue to smear Republicans.

The Politico poll, conducted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision on the Voting Rights Act, shows “a lot of Democrats are willing to sacrifice Black voting power to beat the GOP.” At face value, respondents — who were Kamala Harris voters — said discriminatory gerrymandering to carve out special districts for black voters and other minorities is more important “even if it means Democrats draw fewer seats.”

“But that number changes significantly when the question is asked in the context of the Supreme Court ruling and Republican gerrymandering — and a 45 percent plurality instead say that Democrats must counter GOP efforts, ‘even if it means reducing the number of majority-minority districts,’” Politico’s Erin Doherty, Andrew Howard, and Riley Rogerson wrote.

The Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act clarified that Section 2 is meant to enforce the Constitution’s prohibition on intentional racial discrimination, not force “States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.” In the wake of the decision, several states have hinted they may redistrict, while Louisiana (the state at the center of the case) is set to redraw its maps, and Tennessee and Florida have also redistricted.

At the same time, Democrats suffered a setback when the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a proposal that would have shifted the state from a six Democrat seats and five Republican seats to 10 Democrat seats and one Republican seat. Virginia violated its own constitution in trying to ram through the new map, the court ruled.

Now Democrats say they are willing to do the thing they claim is racist if Republicans do it: eliminate districts specifically created based on skin color to be “majority-minority” districts. As Politico noted, this could look like redrawing maps in the already heavily gerrymandered blue states of New York and Illinois by drawing district lines to pack “large numbers of Black voters into red-leaning areas in order to make them bluer.”

This stands in stark contrast to what Democrat politicians have been publicly saying about black voters’ representation.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling, alleging it “opens the floodgates for states across the south to redraw their Congressional districts and make voters of color essentially invisible in our democracy.” Schumer added that the decision is “another step towards resurrecting the Jim Crow south.”

Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter said, “Without the protections of the Voting Rights Act, there is no evidence to suggest that Black voters in our state will be able to elect candidates of their choice.”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris said the decision “stripped away” protection for “Black and brown voters against maps deliberately drawn to dilute their political power.”

Just as the Democrat poll respondents made clear their concern is not really the elimination of race-based districts but whether that change helps or hurts Democrats politically, Democrat leaders are motivated by the same goal — preserving their party’s power. The difference is that rather than openly admit the fight is about partisan advantage, Democrat leaders are framing Republican redistricting efforts as racist in hopes of guilt-tripping squishy Republicans into backing down.

Either way, the goal of Democrat voters and politicians is the same: retain power for the party.

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Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2