There's an issue that's not well known, even to Americans, and that's reapportionment and redistricting, and the vital role state legislatures have upon the
redistricting process. It's a recursive process which can make one party or the other dominant beyond its natural demographics on both a state level and upon the House of Representatives.
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"Apportionment" refers to the allocation of representatives in legislative bodies to particular geographical units, while "districting" refers to the design of the geographically based election districts within those units. There is a clear distinction between these processes when it comes to seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Seats in the U.S. House are first apportioned to states, according to the relative size of each state's population, through a formula contained in a federal statute (2 U.S.C.S. §2a), while the districts themselves are then designed by the individual states. The distinction between apportionment and districting at the state and local levels is blurred, however. Prior to the adoption of the "one person, one vote" requirement for representational districts at these levels, which mandates that districts be close to equal in population, counties often received specified numbers of representatives in state legislatures, and sometimes municipalities or other preexisting units were allocated seats in county legislatures. Such allocations now almost always conflict with the population equality requirement, resulting in apportionment and districting at these levels becoming essentially one process, performed by the state or locality. The expressions "reapportionment" and "redistricting," therefore, are used interchangeably at these levels.
The revision of geographical districts to elect legislators in the United States is required after each decennial census. This enumeration of the country's population happens every year that ends in zero. The new population counts almost always require the revision of U.S. House districts, state legislative districts, and local legislative districts in order to bring them into compliance with the population equality requirement. The purpose of this process, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, is to provide the people with "fair and effective representation" within these bodies.
It's such a complicated issue, I've hesitated to even open the subject. But the Democrats taking state legislatures on a year that ends in zero is a huge factor in how things will go for years.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/multistate.us/production/landingpages/lZO9YmOKYwcsgtGY8/attachment/Deck_ 2020 State Elections Preview _ MultiState (last updated 11_2_20) (1).pdf
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A significant number of state legislative seats — almost 80 percent — are up for election in 2020 (5,877 out of 7,383 total seats).
⬝ At present, the same party controls both chambers of the legislature in every state except two: Minnesota and Alaska. Minnesota currently has a Democratic Senate and Republican House, and Alaska has a Republican Senate with the House controlled by a coalition of Democrats and centrist Republicans.
⬝ Ten legislative chambers controlled by a Republican majority have the potential to flip to Democratic control as a result of the election. The most likely are the Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate and both the Senate and House in Arizona, which are all rated as "Lean Democratic" by CNalysis. Next likely are the Republican-controlled chambers rated as "Tilt Democratic," which are the Texas House, Iowa House, and Michigan House.
This shift has already happened in my state of Nevada. Since the 2018 we have a Democratic trifecta.
Added to that is the shifting demographics. We're looking at a significant shift toward something we have not had since the early 19th century, which is a one party system.
When Texas demographically/politically shifts to a blue state, that will signal that there will be no more Republican presidents. (This is a process that includes Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, and soon Georgia.) That Texas shift was thought to be 8 years in the future, but it now looks as if 4 years is probable.
The Republicans have been holding onto a political power above their natural demographic power for three reasons:
1. The Senate gives equal power to states no matter what their population is. Two Senators per state.
2. The electoral college gives states with low populations outsized power to elect the president.
3. The Republicans were the party in power during the last reapportionment and redistricting in 2010.
The first two will remain in place. However shifting demographics in formerly solid Republican states is changing those as well.
In short, the Republican party is losing all three advantages, while American demographics continue to shift.
