WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2026
...Dems are just two points ahead: On June 29, 1982, new language entered the world.
Some of this language was perhaps a bit murky. Language may have "gone on holiday," As language will sometimes do.
Briefly, a laborious review:
The new language to which we refer included subsection (b), an addition to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. At the risk of losing customers—"Where I come from, we only talk so long"—we present that new language again:
SECTION 2 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
42 U.S.C. § 1973. Denial or abridgement of right to vote on account of race or color through voting qualifications or prerequisites; establishment of violation.
a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b
(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
(b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.
Part (b) was the new language. Some of that language is still a bit murky, even today, though that fact may be hard for us the people to spot.
Some of that language was a bit murky. That said, the House passed this addition to the VRA by a 389–24 margin. The Senate passed it by an 85–8 vote. For a fuller account, click here.
There is no doubt that subsection (b) changed the face of congressional politics. In the redistricting which followed the 1990 census, this new provision led to the creation of majority Black districts in various Southern states. This added to the number of Black members of the House of Representatives.
That said:
Back on May 10, the New York Times' Carl Hulse answered a fairly obvious question about the creation of those new districts. That question would be this:
Why did the GOP support the creation of those new districts?
Given voting patterns of the day, these new districts sent Democratic members to the House, as everyone knew they would. So why did the GOP support the creation of those majority Black / majority Democrat districts?
Why did the GOP do that? As we noted in Friday's report, here's the way Hulse explained it:
CONGRESSIONAL MEMO
How Minority Districts Fueled the G.O.P.’s Southern Ascendancy in Congress
[...]
In the late 1980s, Republicans had been deep in the House minority for nearly 40 years. But growing dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party had begun moving white Southern conservatives into the Republican ranks, as illustrated by high-profile party switches in Washington. Then the redistricting initiated under a series of court decisions aimed at fostering more minority representation provided yet another opening that might have seemed counterintuitive at first glance.
Architects of the [new congressional] maps realized that if they could maximize Black and Hispanic representation in the new districts, they would simultaneously dilute Democratic strength in surrounding jurisdictions where coalitions of white and Black voters had elected white Democrats for decades. The shift would ultimately create dozens of openings for Republican candidates in what had formerly been known as Democrats’ “Solid South.”
As far as we know, this is fairly standard history. In the Southern states which were fitfully switching toward Republican control at that time, creation of the majority Black districts helped Republicans pick up seats in neighboring congressional districts.
Today, Hulse further says, the transition among white Southerners from D to R is complete. For that reason, Hulse says, the GOP is now moving to eliminate the (frequently gerrymandered) majority Black districts in various Southern states, believing that the party could now win every House seat in those Southern states.
As far as we know, Hulse's history is fairly standard. If memory serves, the partisan tradeoffs in question were openly discussed in real time, with North Carolina's crazily shaped District 12 serving as the poster child for such discussions.
District 12 was in the news! The leading authority on the district describes it as it existed at that time:
North Carolina's 12th congressional district
[...]
The district was re-established after the 1990 United States census, when North Carolina gained a House seat due to an increase in population. It was drawn in 1992 as one of two minority-majority districts [in North Carolina], designed to give African-American voters (who comprised 22% of the state's population at the time) the chance to elect a representative of their choice; Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibited the dilution of voting power of minorities by distributing them among districts so that they could never elect candidates of their choice.
In its original configuration, the district had a 64 percent African-American majority in population. The district boundaries, stretching from Gastonia to Durham, were so narrow at some points that it was no wider than a highway lane. It followed Interstate 85 almost exactly. One state legislator famously remarked, after seeing the district map, "If you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you'd kill most of the people in the district."
The nutty shape of this new district made it a press corps favorite. Starting in November 1992, Rep. Mel Watt was elected eleven times from this district, which was heavily majority Black, and heavily Democratic.
Rep. Watt repeatedly won by very large margins in a district which had been designed to pull Democratic voters out of its several neighboring districts. The district starred in several court cases as the judiciary struggled to find the proper way to interpret and apply subsection (b) of the Voting Rights Act.
At any rate, the transition of the white South from solidly D to solidly R has helped create the modern world in which the GOP holds a slender majority in the House. The last-minute elimination of majority Black districts in certain Southern states may help the GOP retain that control this November.
Can Democrats regain the House this fall? Yes, they certainly can! That said, the analysts groaned yesterday at the numbers presented in this report by Mediaite:
SHOCK POLL: GOP Closing the Gap With Democrats in Latest Midterm Poll
A new survey from The Economist and YouGov indicates that Republicans are closing the gap with Democrats ahead of this November’s midterm elections.
History would suggest that the latter boasts a considerable advantage over the former as...incumbent parties tend to struggle in the midterms. Previous incarnations of the Economist/YouGov poll backed up that theory.
One survey from February found that Democrats boasted a seven-point lead over Republicans on the “generic ballot” question, “If the elections for U.S. Congress were being held today, who would you vote for in the district where you live?” Another from May suggested that Democrats’ lead had slipped to five points.
But in this latest poll of 1,549 American adults (1,402 of which were registered voters conducted between June 13 and 15, Republicans trailed Democrats by just three points (39%-36%) among the former, larger group and two points (46%-44%) among the latter, smaller one.
Let's restate that final paragraph in English:
On this Economist/YouGov poll, Democrats are holding only a two-point lead among registered voters on this version of the "generic ballot" question:
If the elections for U.S. Congress were being held today, who would you vote for in the district where you live?
The Democratic Party's lead on that question is down to just two points! Given the madness of Republican governance, how is that even possible?
Yes, it's only one poll. There's no reason to assume that this particular survey's results are perfectly accurate.
It's also true that there's no way to know what will happen between now and November. But especially given the way the mid-census redistricting wars seem to be shaking out, there is currently zero guarantee that the Democrats will regain the House this fall.
The Republican president continues to engage in highly erratic conduct. The Republican Congress has continued to support his erratic conduct pretty much right down the line.
Admittedly, the price of eggs is down—but the price of gas has been way up! Given those facts, why isn't the Democratic Party seeming to stage a "blue wave" runaway on these generic ballot questions?
What's holding the Democrats back? Tomorrow, we'll return to the insult aimed at Michelle Obama to offer one possible type of answer.
We'll return to the way that same insult is frequently churned by the folk who perform the corporate messaging for the rancid Fox News Channel. Most strikingly, we'll look at the way this insult was interpreted on yesterday's Deadline: White House.
Eventually, we'll find our way back to the murky language which emerged in 1982—and yes, these questions are related. In the immediate present, though, they lead us onward to this question:
In what ways might we, the Blues, perhaps be defeating ourselves?
Tomorrow: As heard on Deadline: White House
