On Monday, a trial began in federal court over Ohio’s congressional map (shown at top left), which Republicans engineered as one of the most extreme gerrymanders in the country. If the plaintiffs prevail, the state would have to redraw the lines and implement fairer districts ahead of the 2020 elections. In this post, we'll explore what a nonpartisan map would look like, and the conclusion we can draw is that Democrats would be certain to win several more seats absent GOP gerrymandering in the Buckeye State.
Democrats gained a historic 40 seats to flip the House in 2018, but while some pundits still insist that this outcome means gerrymandering didn’t matter that much last year, Ohio stood out as a glaring example of why that argument simply isn’t true. Just as it has this entire decade, Ohio's congressional gerrymander delivered Republicans 12 of the state’s 16 districts, even amid 2018's blue wave. This result held last year even as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won re-election by a 7-point margin.
However, as the hypothetical nonpartisan map on the top right of this post illustrates (see here for a larger version), ending the GOP's gerrymander would likely have transformed Ohio's congressional elections last year. This map would have likely led to Democrats winning three or perhaps four more districts, a much fairer outcome given Ohio’s status as a GOP-tilting but nevertheless up-for-grabs swing state.
As shown on the map below, our hypothetical districts rely solely on traditional nonpartisan redistricting criteria, which include adhering to federal law and the Voting Rights Act; ignoring partisan statistics and incumbency; preserving communities of interest; keeping cities and counties whole; and compactness. It splits just 13 counties, four townships, and just one city, Columbus, which is too large for a single district and therefore must be divided. That stands in sharp contrast to the GOP's gerrymander, which split 23 counties and dozens of cities.
Click to enlarge — Election results and demographic data summary
To assess the partisan impact of these districts, we have calculated the results of all statewide elections from 2012 to 2018 by district. These results are strongly correlated with the outcomes of House races. Under the current map, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each carried just four districts under the actual gerrymander in 2016 and 2012, respectively; under our nonpartisan alternative, Clinton would have won six and Obama eight. In 2018, Brown would have won 10 of our districts for Senate, and four of the five other Democratic candidates for statewide office would have won seven seats amid narrow losses, up from four under the actual map.
Looking at individual seats, Democrats would have almost certainly flipped three districts that Republicans won under the actual lines and would have had a strong chance to win a fourth. These include the 1st District, where the GOP’s gerrymander egregiously split liberal Cincinnati and drowned out the voices of voters there with heavily conservative exurbs. Unifying the city and its inner suburbs as our map does would have yielded a district that every statewide Democrat would have won by double digits, and Republican Rep. Steve Chabot would have likely lost to Democrat Aftab Pureval.
In the Columbus area, Republicans divvied up the suburbs of Franklin County into three districts, including two dark-red seats that sprawl deep into rural territory. In our proposal, we consolidate those more liberal suburbs into just two seats: the 3rd, which takes in the urban core of Columbus, and the 12th, which would become an entirely suburban district. That would flip the latter from backing Trump 53-42 to supporting Clinton by 49-46. Democrat Danny O'Connor would have almost certainly turned his 4-point loss into a win over Republican Rep. Troy Balderson last year (and would have been all but guaranteed to win their earlier special election matchup).
Additionally, our map unifies the Akron metro area, which is currently split among several districts, into a single seat, the 16th. That would have yielded a district without any obvious Republican incumbent, and given that this seat easily backed every statewide Democrat, it likely would have elected a Democrat to the House, too.
The final seat Democrats might have flipped would have been the reconstituted 9th in the Cleveland suburbs, which likely would have been an open seat because Republican Rep. Jim Renacci ran for Senate. Sherrod Brown won the 9th by a wide 12 points, and only one statewide Republican candidate carried it (and then by just 3 points). Freshman Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez likely would have faced a stronger Democratic opponent and may well have lost. However, this district still narrowly backed Trump, so it could have gone either way last year.
As a result of this map, some districts would head in the other direction. Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan's Youngstown-area seat goes from a 6-point Clinton win to a 12-point Trump victory, and unfortunately for him, all non-federal Democrats lost it in their statewide races. However, this predominantly white working-class district is ancestrally Democratic and still backed Brown for Senate by 8 points; it also saw Democrat Richard Cordray lose the race for governor by a slim 2 points. Ryan's lengthy incumbency likely would have helped him stave off defeat in the 2018 wave, but this seat would be increasingly vulnerable to a GOP takeover, especially if it became open.
Finally, while the 14th District in the eastern Cleveland suburbs would become several points bluer (it would have supported Brown by 11 points), Republican Rep. David Joyce won by 10 points in 2018. Consequently, he likely would have still won even this redrawn district, though the non-federal statewide races were very close here.
Ultimately, a nonpartisan map like this one would be much fairer for the people of Ohio, but even a victory at the lower court is likely to be overturned by a Supreme Court whose conservative majority is increasingly hostile to policing partisan gerrymandering. However, our look at a hypothetical nonpartisan alternative should lay to rest the notion that gerrymandering didn’t matter in 2018.
Unfortunately, even the bipartisan redistricting reform measure that Ohio voters passed in 2018 still has loopholes big enough to slip a similar GOP gerrymander through next decade. Consequently, it's critical that Democrats win both Republican-held seats on the state Supreme Court that are up in 2020, which would give them a majority on the bench. We could then see the high court take action under the state constitution regardless of what happens in this week's federal trial.
