I love former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttiegieg, but his interpretation of the failed Indiana redistricting ploy is wrong. The battle over redistricting in Indiana isn’t a fight between MAGA sycophants and Republicans turning against a weakened Donald J. Trump. I wish that were true!
No, it was a battle between Republicans who can do math and those who cannot.
Twenty-one Republican state senators joined all 10 Democrats to vote down an extreme-gerrymander proposal that, on paper at least, would have added two more Republican seats to the GOP supermajority.
And that’s the crux of this battle: on paper.
Because that’s not how things have been going in real life. Extreme gerrymandering means that, yes, you’re adding additional Republican-leaning districts, but it’s at the cost of watering down Republican support in all the other districts. And how has that been working out?
The City of Miami hasn’t elected a Democratic mayor since Bill Clinton was president. That all changed Dec. 9 when an Anglo Democrat, Eileen Higgins, became mayor by defeating her Republican, Cuban-born, Trump-endorsed opponent by 19 points. Let me repeat that: 19 points. (Higgins is Spanish speaking and represented Little Havana on the Miami-Dade County Commission, but still.) Trump won Miami-Dade County by 11 points in 2024, although Trump’s margin was smaller in the City of Miami. I’ll let you do that math.
On that same night, Democrat Eric Gisler won a state House seat near Athens in northeast Georgia. Gisler had lost that same seat in 2024 by a 39–61 margin.
To give you an idea of how astounding Gisler’s win is, Georgia House District 121 lies inside the Tenth Congressional District, represented by Mike Collins. He’s basically Marjorie Taylor Greene, but not quite as smart. Collins is so MAGA that The Wall Street Journal — yes, the publication owned by Rupert Murdoch — called him “the village idiot.” What incurred The Journal’s ire was Collin saying, without any evidence, that President Joe Biden had ordered the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt of Donald Trump, something too stupid even for most MAGA.
Thus far, Collins refuses to hold a town hall, but at some telephone conference call with constituents earlier this year Collins literally called federal employees stupid and lazy and trashed immigrants in typical MAGA fashion, pretending that undocumented immigrants are illegally soaking up government benefits.
Yes, this is where Gisler won.
Earlier, Democrats cruised to victory in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, greatly improving on Kamala Harris’ 2024 numbers.
Just a few weeks ago in Tennessee, state Representative Aftyn Behn — a Democrat who literally campaigned with the far right’s bogeywoman, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortes — came within eight points of winning the reddest, Trumpiest House district in the state, Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District. Tennessee’s Republicans re-gerrymandered the state in 2022 to break up the Democratic stronghold of Nashville. The Democrat who ran in 2024 lost by 22 percentage points. So an AOC Democrat moved the needle by 14 points in Tennessee’s Trumpiest district. No surprise that Republicans are spooked.
So Trump is huffing and puffing about how he’s going to cut off federal money to Indiana, which is illegal. (Indiana will sue and get the money eventually anyway, and taxpayers will be needlessly out a few millions, but at least Widdle Donnie’s ego will be assuaged. Obviously, we are living in the Stupidest Times.) But what Trump wanted, in essence, was for these Indiana Republicans to put their own re-election into jeopardy. At a time when voters are swinging to Democrats by 10, 15, 20 points over their 2024 results, is that really a time when you want to make your district R+8?
That would be a bridge too far for the vast majority of elected officials. It makes no difference that Trump, a guy so bad at math and money that he went bankrupt on casinos, doesn’t realize that’s what he’s asking for; those 21 Republicans can do math, and it was a very stupid move they were unwilling to make
Some Republicans will pretend this was a decision made based on high principles. But we’ve all been seeing the election results in 2025.
For Republicans, it’s one thing to give in to #PresidentDunce when it just hurts your constituents; it’s very different when the one that his stupidity is going to hurt is you.
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