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.