Gerrymandering is a thorny problem that we consider to be a top three contributor to our polarized Congress joining Citizens United (Supreme Court case that removed election influence restrictions for big money special interests), and closed primaries (advantages ideological extremists).
The recent unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering arms race that the GOP kicked off earlier this year with their sus move to gerrymander Texas, has now spread to both parties across many states, and only adds further to the polarization of Congress, due to uncompetitive races in approximately 90% of the voting districts.
Earlier this year, we highlighted how citizen voters who want consensus solutions get systematically screwed by gerrymandering, but let’s now take a closer look at what’s coming in 2026 as both parties jockey for control of the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.
Cook Political, among other things, tracks the proposed gerrymandering efforts on a state-by-state basis. While we don’t know which states will be successful in their efforts, we do know which districts are being targeted for redistricting by their respective partisan legislators.
Bridgers are over-represented compared to dividers in being redistricted
Once, again, non-partisan citizen voters who want common sense collaboration by their elected officials look to get screwed—with the gerrymandering efforts in process threatening a disproportionate group of legislative “bridgers” compared to a random sample. Specifically, 20 out of 28 targeted districts are currently represented by those earning As and Bs in our near real-time scoring for the 119th Congress—72% compared to what should be just 50% based on a random sample.
A partisan prisoner’s dilemma
Partisan gerrymandering is a classic prisoner’s dilemma—a well-known game-theory scenario where two parties acting in their own rational self-interest, end up with a mutually worse outcome than had they cooperated.
As voters go to the ballot (for example, Prop 50 in California), many know that voting for more gerrymandering is against their long-term self interest, yet will still do so to defend their interests against the other players who are also not cooperating. They feel damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
The paradox is that these voters, who want checks and balances and less partisanship in our Federal government, have incentive to vote for the temporary redistricting on the ballot, even when they know gerrymandering is toxic and enhances polarization in the long run.
The stakes are so high—control of the House, legislative agenda, committee assignments, as a check and balance to the Executive and Judicial Branches—that such a move can be considered rational.
And so, the polarization beat goes on, and the partisan game of tug-of-war (see video) becomes even more entrenched.
Meanwhile, both parties love it.
Once again, citizens are check-mated into agreeing to cede our agency back to the power-thirsty parties.
At Bridge Grades, we believe the long-term way out is to engage and activate non-partisan citizen voters (there are some 40% or more out there) who are disillusioned from the partisan power games, and together support a bloc of legislative bridgers, from both parties, who act as free agents and seek win-win solutions in our common interests, while systematically throwing out the hyper-partisans who divide us.
Bridge Grades is a citizen-led public utility that uses public 3rd party data to measure how collaboratively or divisively each member of Congress governs. We’re building a trust-worthy, transparent, and durable system protected from big money or special interests. Our first principles: open-source, crowdsourced, and independently governed. We are part way on a multi-year journey to get there.
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