Latest news with #ShaunBowler
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
As Texas and California ramp up their redistricting fight, a new study finds gerrymandering erodes confidence in democracy
Researchers identified a connection between highly partisan congressional maps and lower confidence in the integrity of elections. The ongoing partisan battle over gerrymandering could further undermine the confidence of Americans in their democracy, the results of a new study suggest. 'We know that confidence in U.S. elections being conducted fairly has been dwindling — gerrymandering just adds gas to that fire,' Shaun Bowler, a professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, who coauthored the study, told Yahoo. Right now, Texas Republicans are trying to redraw their state's congressional district map to make it more favorable to their party, potentially securing up to five additional seats for the GOP in the House of Representatives in next year's midterms. That effort is currently on hold, though, because Democratic state lawmakers have fled Texas in order to block the legislature from having enough members present to formally meet. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he is moving forward with a plan to counter Texas's redistricting effort by asking voters to approve a measure that would allow Democrats to redraw the state's maps. Democrats in New York and Illinois have said they may follow California's lead. Meanwhile, the GOP has been looking at putting more favorable maps in place in other red states like Ohio and Missouri. While we can't know how the redistricting tit-for-tat will ultimately shake out, there is reason to believe that this high-profile fight over congressional maps could weaken voters' already-weakening faith in the U.S. political system, Bowler said. 'A lot of the time gerrymandering really doesn't make the news ... which means a lot of the time it's not very visible to voters,' he said via email. 'But this time ... the news is going national. Even international. So a lot more voters will hear about it. And a lot don't like it.' Americans as a whole have less confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections than they did two decades ago. The biggest cause of that decline is a sharp drop among Republicans tied to President Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. But polls show that faith in democracy was dipping well before Trump became the GOP's standard-bearer, indicating that other factors are playing a role as well. Bowler and his coauthor, Todd Donovan of Western Washington University, analyzed surveys from more than 30,000 voters to understand how gerrymandering impacts views about the integrity of our elections. They found that, while belief in Trump's claims about the election was the most important driver of low trust in democracy, gerrymandering does appear to have a noticeable effect on whether voters think the elections in their states are fair. Unsurprisingly, the biggest drop in confidence was among voters who were on the wrong side of partisan gerrymanders. Democrats in states with strong pro-Republican gerrymanders like Wisconsin and Ohio were more skeptical of the integrity of the elections in their states than Democrats in other states. The same was true for Republicans living in states with gerrymanders designed to benefit Democrats, like Illinois. But Bowler emphasized that this isn't purely about sour grapes. Voters who belong to the party that benefits from a gerrymander can also be affected by the perception that the electoral victories they had hoped for were earned illegitimately, he argued. 'To some extent it doesn't matter if it is 'your' side doing it or not,' he said. 'It's not really fair play.' Bowler expanded on that point in a press release about the study. 'If they didn't win fair and square, why should I believe what they say?' he said. 'Why should I pay my taxes? You get an erosion of civic behavior.' A separate poll released on Thursday added more evidence to support Bowler's argument. It found that Californians oppose Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposal to redistrict their state in response to Texas's potential gerrymander by a two-to-one margin. Other national polls have found that few Americans support the Texas GOP's redistricting plan. They have also found that strong majorities believe partisan gerrymandering is a major problem and that the practice should be illegal. Bowler told Yahoo that even lawmakers who might be indifferent to changes in voters' faith in democracy should be wary of going too far out of their own self-interest. 'Let's say you are a Republican voter in Texas and have voted GOP for years … because of gerrymandering, there is maybe less incentive to turn out and vote,' he said. The belief that results are all but decided well before Election Day could also undermine a party's fundraising, which could make a difference in races where the outcome is more in question, he added. In their study, Bowler and Donovan also looked at how corruption — or even perceptions of corruption — among a state's elected officials affected voters' faith in democracy. They found a similar decline in trust among respondents in states where lawmakers had been convicted of crimes like bribery and campaign finance violations or had faced highly publicized accusations of corruption.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
As Texas and California ramp up their redistricting fight, a new study finds gerrymandering erodes confidence in democracy
Researchers identified a connection between highly partisan congressional maps and lower confidence in the integrity of elections. The ongoing partisan battle over gerrymandering could further undermine the confidence of Americans in their democracy, the results of a new study suggest. 'We know that confidence in U.S. elections being conducted fairly has been dwindling — gerrymandering just adds gas to that fire,' Shaun Bowler, a professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, who coauthored the study, told Yahoo. Right now, Texas Republicans are trying to redraw their state's congressional district map to make it more favorable to their party, potentially securing up to five additional seats for the GOP in the House of Representatives in next year's midterms. That effort is currently on hold, though, because Democratic state lawmakers have fled Texas in order to block the legislature from having enough members present to formally meet. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he is moving forward with a plan to counter Texas's redistricting effort by asking voters to approve a measure that would allow Democrats to redraw the state's maps. Democrats in New York and Illinois have said they may follow California's lead. Meanwhile, the GOP has been looking at putting more favorable maps in place in other red states like Ohio and Missouri. While we can't know how the redistricting tit-for-tat will ultimately shake out, there is reason to believe that this high-profile fight over congressional maps could weaken voters' already-weakening faith in the U.S. political system, Bowler said. 'A lot of the time gerrymandering really doesn't make the news ... which means a lot of the time it's not very visible to voters,' he said via email. 'But this time ... the news is going national. Even international. So a lot more voters will hear about it. And a lot don't like it.' Americans as a whole have less confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections than they did two decades ago. The biggest cause of that decline is a sharp drop among Republicans tied to President Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. But polls show that faith in democracy was dipping well before Trump became the GOP's standard-bearer, indicating that other factors are playing a role as well. Bowler and his coauthor, Todd Donovan of Western Washington University, analyzed surveys from more than 30,000 voters to understand how gerrymandering impacts views about the integrity of our elections. They found that, while belief in Trump's claims about the election was the most important driver of low trust in democracy, gerrymandering does appear to have a noticeable effect on whether voters think the elections in their states are fair. Unsurprisingly, the biggest drop in confidence was among voters who were on the wrong side of partisan gerrymanders. Democrats in states with strong pro-Republican gerrymanders like Wisconsin and Ohio were more skeptical of the integrity of the elections in their states than Democrats in other states. The same was true for Republicans living in states with gerrymanders designed to benefit Democrats, like Illinois. But Bowler emphasized that this isn't purely about sour grapes. Voters who belong to the party that benefits from a gerrymander can also be affected by the perception that the electoral victories they had hoped for were earned illegitimately, he argued. 'To some extent it doesn't matter if it is 'your' side doing it or not,' he said. 'It's not really fair play.' Bowler expanded on that point in a press release about the study. 'If they didn't win fair and square, why should I believe what they say?' he said. 'Why should I pay my taxes? You get an erosion of civic behavior.' A separate poll released on Thursday added more evidence to support Bowler's argument. It found that Californians oppose Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposal to redistrict their state in response to Texas's potential gerrymander by a two-to-one margin. Other national polls have found that few Americans support the Texas GOP's redistricting plan. They have also found that strong majorities believe partisan gerrymandering is a major problem and that the practice should be illegal. Bowler told Yahoo that even lawmakers who might be indifferent to changes in voters' faith in democracy should be wary of going too far out of their own self-interest. 'Let's say you are a Republican voter in Texas and have voted GOP for years … because of gerrymandering, there is maybe less incentive to turn out and vote,' he said. The belief that results are all but decided well before Election Day could also undermine a party's fundraising, which could make a difference in races where the outcome is more in question, he added. In their study, Bowler and Donovan also looked at how corruption — or even perceptions of corruption — among a state's elected officials affected voters' faith in democracy. They found a similar decline in trust among respondents in states where lawmakers had been convicted of crimes like bribery and campaign finance violations or had faced highly publicized accusations of corruption.
