The battle for control of the U.S. House is leading many states to redraw their congressional districts to give one party a political advantage over the other. It's a process known as gerrymandering, but it comes with risks.

What You Need To Know

  • Thomas Brunell coined the phrase “Dummymander” 

  • Brunell says a dummymander occurs when the party drawing the new district lines spreads its voters too thin to overcome a wave of support for the opposition party

  • A change in voting patterns by Hispanics in Florida could turn Florida’s gerrymander into a dummymander, said Sam Wang, director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project

  • The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to weaken the Voting Rights Act could also spur some states to redraw their maps and potentially lead to dummymandering

“If they get too greedy, it could backfire on them," said Thomas Brunell, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. "And if it backfires on them, that's what we call on 'dummymander.'"

Brunell coined the phrase “dummymander” in a gerrymander. The political party that controls redistricting spreads voters of the opposing party among many districts, or packs them into a few districts to dilute their overall voting power. Brunell says a dummymander occurs when the party drawing the new district lines spreads its voters too thin to overcome a wave of support for the opposition party.

“So now let's say every district is like 55% Democrat and 45% Republican,” Brunell said. "If there happens to be a Republican wave in one of the elections that follows, that can overcome that 10-point gap. Then the Democrats can lose all the seats.”  

Some experts believe a few states may have already fallen into this trap.

“Texas and Florida, we'll see," said Sam Wang, director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a a research group that aims to achieve fair representation in redistricting. "There may be, ironically, an increase in competition, which is back to the dummymandering idea,” 

Florida lawmakers recently passed a congressional map that is designed to elect 24 Republicans and just four Democrats, giving the GOP a net gain of four seats. But a change in voting patterns by Hispanics in Florida could turn Florida’s gerrymander into a dummymander.

“That whole southern region of Florida, there are considerable Hispanic communities, again, that an aggressive gerrymander relies on those communities sticking with Republicans as they did in 2024," Wang said. "And that is by no means a done deal."

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week to weaken the Voting Rights Act is already spurring some states to redraw their maps that could potentially lead to dummanymandering, experts say.

 “What this ruling does is it opens the gates to discrimination by race in federal, state and local redistricting,” Wang said.

Republicans who control the state government in Louisiana have already delayed the state’s congressional primary so they can adopt a new map, Tennessee has adopted new district lines, and President Donald Trump is urging other Republican-led states to aggressively pursue redistricting as well. On Friday, the Alabama Legislature approved new districts, too, pending court approval.

Meanwhile in Democratic-leaning Virginia, new districts approved by voters last month were struck down by the state's Supreme Court.