# The Economic Impact of Gerrymandering

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 20 May 2026, 17 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/0a8e0750-1973-4cd8-a89a-b4500160d272/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

For months, Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a fierce battle over the way districts are drawn across the US. As both parties try to gain an edge ahead of midterms in November, efforts to redistrict could reshape Congress in the final two years of Trump’s second term — and regional economies for decades to come. On today’s Big Take podcast, guest host Stacey Vanek Smith hears from Virginia Democratic Representative Don Beyer, economist Julianne Malveaux and Bloomberg’s Greg Giroux about how the race to redistrict America could affect everything from representation to economics. Read more: What the Virginia Court Ruling Means for Democrats We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Stacey Vanek Smith; Produced by David Fox with help from Rachael Lewis-Krisky; Reported by Greg Giroux; Edited by Aaron Edwards and Tracey Samuelson. Fact-checking by Laura Newcombe; Engineering by Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:08] Speaker 2: My district right now is very urban. I don't have
[0:10] Speaker 2: a single farm, newer, single factory.
[0:13] Speaker 3: Congressman Don Bayer has represented Virginia's eighth district for more
[0:17] Speaker 3: than a decade. It's one of the state's Democratic strongholds,
[0:20] Speaker 3: located just outside of Washington, DC. But for three weeks
[0:24] Speaker 3: this spring, Buyer's district shifted in a big way. Coming
[0:28] Speaker 3: up Virginia has decided voters have said yes to redrain
[0:32] Speaker 3: Virginia's congressional districts. It was part of a concerted effort
[0:36] Speaker 3: from Virginia Democrats to create new Democratic seats in Congress.
[0:39] Speaker 3: Virginia is a purple state with nearly nine million people.
[0:42] Speaker 3: It has eleven representatives in the House, six Democrats and
[0:46] Speaker 3: five Republicans. By breaking up some key Republican districts and
[0:50] Speaker 3: folding them into Democratic ones, the state's Democrats hope to
[0:54] Speaker 3: shift that balance even more in their favor and create
[0:57] Speaker 3: ten Democratic districts, leaving just one to Republicans.
[1:00] Speaker 2: My new district had sixteen new counties, most of them
[1:04] Speaker 2: very rural, and so I was going to need to
[1:07] Speaker 2: dive into the fact that their internet service is terrible
[1:11] Speaker 2: that they have to go forty five minutes to have
[1:14] Speaker 2: a heart attack or two hours to have a baby.
[1:17] Speaker 3: Historically, Buyer has been against this kind of map redrawing,
[1:20] Speaker 3: sometimes referred to as jerrymanderin for the last decade he
[1:23] Speaker 3: has pushed legislation that would make the practice a thing
[1:26] Speaker 3: of the past. But he backed the recent effort to
[1:29] Speaker 3: create that Democrat friendly map because he says, well, Republicans,
[1:33] Speaker 3: at the urging of President Trump were doing the same
[1:35] Speaker 3: thing in a bunch of other states.
[1:37] Speaker 2: The phrase everyone used, stacy again and again was you
[1:40] Speaker 2: can't just roll over that.
[1:41] Speaker 4: We can't.
[1:44] Speaker 2: Take a knife to a gunfight, and Donald Trump has
[1:47] Speaker 2: got the gunfight.
[1:48] Speaker 3: In the end, Buyer's new district lasted only a few weeks.
[1:52] Speaker 3: The state Supreme Court throughout the map. Earlier this month,
[1:55] Speaker 3: Democrats tried to get the US Supreme Court to intervene,
[1:58] Speaker 3: but when that court declined to do so, it was
[2:00] Speaker 3: a nail in the coffin. Bloomberg Government's Great Duro says,
[2:04] Speaker 3: rapidly shifting maps like the ones in Virginia are all
[2:07] Speaker 3: part of a bigger and highly unusual redistricting fight that's
[2:10] Speaker 3: been playing out all across the country.
[2:12] Speaker 4: I did not have on my Bingo card, and certainly
[2:15] Speaker 4: my editors didn't have so many states to cover in
[2:17] Speaker 4: these mid decade reducing wars, So this is very unusual.
[2:21] Speaker 4: We have one of the tiniest House majorities in modern
[2:24] Speaker 4: US history right now. The Republicans control just two hundred
[2:27] Speaker 4: and seventeen seats, two hundred and twelve for the Democrats,
[2:30] Speaker 4: one independent, five vacancies, and really with Democrats needing just
[2:36] Speaker 4: a net gain of three seats to get to that
[2:38] Speaker 4: majority of two hundred and eighteen in the House, every
[2:41] Speaker 4: seat seems to magnify in importance.
[2:44] Speaker 1: People who think about politics or saying, oh gee, it's political,
[2:48] Speaker 1: but it's also very economic.
[2:50] Speaker 3: Doctor Julian Malvoux is a DC based economist and President
[2:53] Speaker 3: Emerita of Bennett College for Women. She says, beyond voting
[2:57] Speaker 3: in elections, this jerrymandering will have a profound impact.
[3:01] Speaker 1: People will experience less economic access, less economic freedom because
[3:07] Speaker 1: of this redistrict and I think that's quite frankly the point.
[3:13] Speaker 3: I'm Stacey Vannick Smith in for David Gura and Sarah Holder,
[3:16] Speaker 3: and this is the big take from Bloomberg News Today.
[3:20] Speaker 3: On the show, the race to redistrict, why it's happening now,
[3:24] Speaker 3: what the political and economic impacts could be for voters,
[3:27] Speaker 3: and of course, who's winning the term Jerrymander dates back
[3:37] Speaker 3: to eighteen twelve, when then Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Jerry signed
[3:41] Speaker 3: into law a redistricting plan that would favor his party.
[3:45] Speaker 3: The Boston Gazette compared the shape of one of the
[3:48] Speaker 3: contorted new districts to a salamander. The headline combined Governor
[3:52] Speaker 3: Jerry's name with salamander, and Jerrymander was born. Bloomberg Government's
[3:57] Speaker 3: Greg Duro has had a front row seat to many
[4:00] Speaker 3: gerrymandering battles. He's covered politics for thirty years and says
[4:04] Speaker 3: redistricting tends to follow a familiar rhythm.
[4:07] Speaker 4: So redistricting is usually the once per decade process of
[4:11] Speaker 4: modifying congressional district lines after every census and after the
[4:15] Speaker 4: reapportionment of the four hundred and thirty five House seats
[4:18] Speaker 4: among the states. That number is fixed, so it's very
[4:20] Speaker 4: much a zero sum game. States that grow faster get
[4:24] Speaker 4: more seats at the expense of those that don't grow
[4:26] Speaker 4: as fast or those that lose population. That leads to
[4:29] Speaker 4: some very very difficult political fights in the states, usually
[4:33] Speaker 4: in years ending in one and two years.
[4:36] Speaker 3: Like twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two. Redistricting has
[4:41] Speaker 3: that predictable cadence because it usually follows the census, and
[4:45] Speaker 3: who gets to draw the lines varies by state. Traditionally,
[4:48] Speaker 3: the job has followed to state legislatures and governors, so
[4:51] Speaker 3: if the same party controls both, it can redraw the
[4:54] Speaker 3: maps in its favor. Several states have tried to protect
[4:57] Speaker 3: against this and now leave redistricting respect onsibilities to an
[5:01] Speaker 3: independent or bipartisan commission. Greg says Normally all of that
[5:05] Speaker 3: work in any related political fights are wrapped up in
[5:08] Speaker 3: the first couple of years after the census comes out,
[5:10] Speaker 3: but this wave of redistricting has been an exception.
[5:14] Speaker 4: What's different about this decade is that we've seen an
[5:16] Speaker 4: explosion of states that are enacting registing new maps in
[5:20] Speaker 4: the middle of a decade.
[5:22] Speaker 3: The mid decades scrambled to rapidly redrap congressional districts kicked
[5:26] Speaker 3: off in twenty twenty five in Texas at.
[5:29] Speaker 4: The urging of Trump White House, Texas Republicans enacted new
[5:34] Speaker 4: maps in that state that could deliver up to five
[5:37] Speaker 4: additional seats for the GOP and help them rescue their
[5:41] Speaker 4: very shaky House majority in the twenty twenty sixth election.
[5:44] Speaker 3: Here's how Texas Governor Greg Abbott made the case for
[5:47] Speaker 3: the move on Fox News.
[5:48] Speaker 5: Look at the entirety of all of the New England
[5:51] Speaker 5: states and all of New England, there are millions of
[5:54] Speaker 5: Republican voters, and yet there is no member of the
[5:57] Speaker 5: United States Congress who is a Republican. So they grow
[6:00] Speaker 5: drew their lines a long time ago to eliminate Republicans
[6:03] Speaker 5: in Congress. And what has happened across America is lines
[6:07] Speaker 5: have been drawn illegally based upon race.
[6:10] Speaker 4: Texas acting prompted some other Republican governments to follow suit,
[6:14] Speaker 4: and Democrats decided to counterattack in some states.
[6:17] Speaker 3: After Texas redistricted, California soon followed with a new map
[6:21] Speaker 3: that would add more Democratic seats. Virginia, Democrats like Don
[6:25] Speaker 3: Bayer also launched a bid to redraw their map. Republicans
[6:28] Speaker 3: were able to redraw district maps in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio,
[6:32] Speaker 3: and Florida. One notable exception was Indiana, where Republicans rejected
[6:37] Speaker 3: President Trump's request to draw a new district map.
[6:40] Speaker 4: In their state, and that big fight that we've seen
[6:44] Speaker 4: in twenty twenty five in the first a few months
[6:46] Speaker 4: of twenty twenty six was only super turbo charged by
[6:50] Speaker 4: a US Supreme Court decision in late April that basically
[6:53] Speaker 4: restricted how much states could use race and redistricting.
[6:57] Speaker 3: That late April decision was Louisiana versus Cala, which weakened
[7:01] Speaker 3: key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
[7:04] Speaker 4: The US Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's map, which has
[7:08] Speaker 4: two black majority districts out of six in the state,
[7:10] Speaker 4: and said that it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. And
[7:14] Speaker 4: so as a result of that decision, Louisiana is trying
[7:17] Speaker 4: to enact a new map, as are some other states.
[7:20] Speaker 3: Those other states include Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Since
[7:24] Speaker 3: the Supreme Court decision, Republicans have introduced new maps in
[7:28] Speaker 3: all three states, and those new maps will impact more
[7:32] Speaker 3: than just politics.
[7:33] Speaker 1: I think that the pundits have talked about this from
[7:36] Speaker 1: a political perspective, which is absolutely right. But you know,
[7:39] Speaker 1: politics and economics are inextably intertwined. They both deal with
[7:44] Speaker 1: the same thing. Who gets what, when, where and why.
[7:46] Speaker 3: Economist doctor Julian Malvaux.
[7:49] Speaker 1: Economists talk about it from a money perspective, Politicians talk
[7:53] Speaker 1: about it from a voting perspective. In some ways, in
[7:55] Speaker 1: this case, they're literally the same thing.
[7:58] Speaker 3: Doctor Malvo says there are two commonly used techniques when
[8:01] Speaker 3: it comes to Jerrymanderin. She has seen them play out
[8:04] Speaker 3: many times in predominantly black communities.
[8:06] Speaker 1: We talk about packing and cracking. Packing is putting all
[8:09] Speaker 1: the black folks into one district or they could be
[8:12] Speaker 1: in two or three. Cracking is where you crack them
[8:15] Speaker 1: like a walle I cracked them into several districts to
[8:18] Speaker 1: dilute their voting power precisely, and to dilute their influence
[8:22] Speaker 1: and representation.
[8:25] Speaker 3: Malvel points to the ninth District in Tennessee, which used
[8:28] Speaker 3: to include all of Memphis and has served as a
[8:30] Speaker 3: Democratic stronghold in the state, represented by Congressman Steve Cohen.
[8:34] Speaker 3: A new map adopted earlier this month splits the city
[8:37] Speaker 3: into three districts.
[8:39] Speaker 1: So now, who among these three districts is going to
[8:43] Speaker 1: advocate for resource allocation for Memphis. What if they need
[8:47] Speaker 1: a new school, what if they need a new playground,
[8:50] Speaker 1: Who's going to argue for them? And so the economic
[8:53] Speaker 1: part of it is you've diluted not only political power,
[8:56] Speaker 1: but also economic power, the ability to essentially advocate for
[9:02] Speaker 1: economic issues, for community development, block grants, for small business allocations.
[9:10] Speaker 1: There are just so many things that a congress person
[9:13] Speaker 1: representing his or her district is going to push for,
[9:16] Speaker 1: whereas three congress people in diluted districts, Memphis is not
[9:20] Speaker 1: going to be the first choice for any of them.
[9:22] Speaker 3: What kinds of things have you seen happen when this occurs?
[9:26] Speaker 1: Well, first of all, the essential district gets ignored. The
[9:30] Speaker 1: essential district, which is the Memphis City. It gets ignored
[9:35] Speaker 1: when you now have three people representing central Memphis, three
[9:40] Speaker 1: different members of Congress. So what could happen? Some will
[9:43] Speaker 1: take some legislation for a new school because some schools
[9:47] Speaker 1: are eroding, so they take that legislation. Who takes it?
[9:51] Speaker 1: Now you got three people, even in the best of circumstances,
[9:54] Speaker 1: those three might decide we're not going to work together
[9:57] Speaker 1: on this. And who gets ignored Black community in this case.
[10:01] Speaker 1: In other cases you'd see other things ignored, but you
[10:04] Speaker 1: basically have seen the essential interests of the community overlooked, and.
[10:10] Speaker 3: The economic impacts follow if.
[10:12] Speaker 1: You dilute congressional power, you dilute other power, You dilute
[10:17] Speaker 1: economic power. Often and when there's an investment to happen
[10:21] Speaker 1: in a district, the member of Congress is one of
[10:23] Speaker 1: the people who may talk to investors, may talk to
[10:28] Speaker 1: industry to say, look, this is what I can do
[10:31] Speaker 1: for you if you bring this investment to my district,
[10:34] Speaker 1: I can promise you X might be a tax abatement,
[10:38] Speaker 1: might be something else. Well, you can't really say that
[10:41] Speaker 1: if you have less influenced less power.
[10:45] Speaker 3: Research from the University of Southern California published last month
[10:48] Speaker 3: found property values can be greatly impacted by redistricting, with
[10:52] Speaker 3: homes losing or gaining nearly eight percent of their market
[10:55] Speaker 3: value when put into different districts. Redistricting has also been
[10:59] Speaker 3: shown to impact people's access to credit.
[11:02] Speaker 1: People often talk about your credit score as being your
[11:04] Speaker 1: adult report card because essentially it does talk about her
[11:09] Speaker 1: credit worthing is your access to capital. And as we
[11:12] Speaker 1: know many small minority other businesses, but small businesses are
[11:18] Speaker 1: sitting at the edge. They don't have a lot of
[11:21] Speaker 1: cash reserves, and their ability to access credit is often
[11:25] Speaker 1: their ability to survive. And again the question becomes who
[11:29] Speaker 1: will be their advocate. Now, the member of Congress isn't
[11:32] Speaker 1: going to change can't change a law for you, but
[11:34] Speaker 1: they can certainly. That's why they have, you know, support staff.
[11:38] Speaker 1: They can look into it. A letter from a congressperson's
[11:41] Speaker 1: aid saying Jane Jones says she didn't get a loan?
[11:45] Speaker 1: Can you help us with that? Often they'll get an answer,
[11:48] Speaker 1: But if there's no Congress to lift up Jane Jones.
[11:52] Speaker 1: Another onevice the dust.
[11:56] Speaker 3: So who's winning and losing this year's redistricting race? That's mixt.
[12:09] Speaker 3: Bloomberg Government reporter Greg Giro says when it comes to redistricting,
[12:13] Speaker 3: it's important to remember how midterm elections tend to pan
[12:16] Speaker 3: out in the US. The trend is pretty stark.
[12:20] Speaker 4: In eighteen of twenty midterm elections since the end of
[12:22] Speaker 4: World War Two, the White House's Party has lost seats
[12:25] Speaker 4: in the House. Only twice has the White House's Party
[12:28] Speaker 4: gained seats, nineteen ninety eight and two thousand and two,
[12:31] Speaker 4: when Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush respectively had
[12:34] Speaker 4: very high approval ratings. President Trump's approval rating is below
[12:38] Speaker 4: forty percent as we speak today, and so very much
[12:41] Speaker 4: I think the Republicans knew, just by the historical evidence
[12:44] Speaker 4: last summer that their majority was very much at risk,
[12:48] Speaker 4: and that redrawing more seats of their advantage would help
[12:52] Speaker 4: rescue their majority. And also by extension the last two
[12:56] Speaker 4: years of Donald Trump's presidency, because of Democrats take control
[12:59] Speaker 4: of the House, they could initiate investigations and certainly a
[13:03] Speaker 4: block any of his legislative initiatives.
[13:05] Speaker 3: Does one of the parties have a greater advantage right now?
[13:08] Speaker 4: As it stands, it seems like the Republicans have regained
[13:11] Speaker 4: the advantage in the line drawing. However, I don't think
[13:13] Speaker 4: with the midterm election history we just reviewed that any
[13:16] Speaker 4: advantage that Republicans have in the line drawing will be
[13:19] Speaker 4: will be sufficient to overcome what may be a Democratic
[13:24] Speaker 4: wave election if it transpires.
[13:27] Speaker 3: For doctor Julian Malvo, the weakening of the Voting Rights
[13:30] Speaker 3: Act and states scrambling to redistrict remind her of a
[13:33] Speaker 3: different time and if different techniques used to manipulate which
[13:36] Speaker 3: candidates got elected.
[13:38] Speaker 1: I'm old enough, and I have relatives who are old enough.
[13:41] Speaker 1: My aunt was a registrar of voters in Mississippi in
[13:45] Speaker 1: the late nineteen sixties, and she used to tell these
[13:48] Speaker 1: stories about how you have to count the number of
[13:51] Speaker 1: jelly beans in a jar to pass a voting test.
[13:57] Speaker 1: And there's stories upon stories in the South and especially
[14:00] Speaker 1: in the black belt Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and you know,
[14:04] Speaker 1: Alabama and Louisiana now are two of the states where
[14:07] Speaker 1: they're in contention about the lines. We end up in
[14:12] Speaker 1: a situation where black influence is diluted. We have fewer
[14:17] Speaker 1: African American members of Congress, but you also have fewer
[14:21] Speaker 1: or less access to resources, and that's the economic part
[14:24] Speaker 1: of it.
[14:26] Speaker 3: Congressman Don Byer shared that concern.
[14:29] Speaker 2: If I look from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
[14:33] Speaker 2: every single Democrat is a Black Democrat in a seat
[14:38] Speaker 2: carved out for voting rights. When they throw it out,
[14:41] Speaker 2: it's not hard to imagine four years from now that
[14:43] Speaker 2: there won't be a single African American from South Carolina
[14:47] Speaker 2: all the way over to Louisiana in a place that
[14:50] Speaker 2: has thirty or forty percent black population. When the Supreme
[14:53] Speaker 2: Court said it's okay to redistrict based on political party,
[14:58] Speaker 2: on ideology, sadly we could go right back to the
[15:02] Speaker 2: nineteen fifties and earlier where there just was no Blacker representation.
[15:08] Speaker 3: But that's not a given. Greg at Bloomberg Government says,
[15:11] Speaker 3: as challenges to some of these new maps work their
[15:14] Speaker 3: way through the courts and as voters head to the polls,
[15:16] Speaker 3: there's still may be some surprises in store.
[15:19] Speaker 4: One thing I'm be watching for is, you know, to
[15:22] Speaker 4: what extent do Democrats and Republicans realize their targeted gains
[15:27] Speaker 4: under these maps? When Texas Republicans aren't guaranteed to win
[15:31] Speaker 4: all five of the seats they targeted because they have
[15:33] Speaker 4: to unseat you know, veteran Democratic incumbents, and some of
[15:36] Speaker 4: the districts I think that were drawn made certain assumptions
[15:40] Speaker 4: about how the electorate might act in twenty twenty six, say,
[15:43] Speaker 4: similar to the twenty twenty four maybe Hispanic voters don't
[15:47] Speaker 4: continue trending Republican what they used to. And in California,
[15:50] Speaker 4: where Democrats had targeted five seats, you know, I think,
[15:53] Speaker 4: you know, three of them are very likely to flip,
[15:55] Speaker 4: but a couple of them are gonna be a little
[15:56] Speaker 4: bit harder. One of them involves unseating a Republican come
[16:00] Speaker 4: with some crossover appeals. So that's another thing I'll be
[16:02] Speaker 4: watching is are there any unexpected consequences to some of
[16:05] Speaker 4: these maps? Do they backfire to the parties actually realize
[16:09] Speaker 4: the gains they set out months ago?
[16:18] Speaker 3: This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Stacey
[16:20] Speaker 3: Vannick Smith in for David Gera and Sarah Holder. To
[16:23] Speaker 3: get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to
[16:26] Speaker 3: all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe today at Bloomberg dot
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[16:34] Speaker 3: get your podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thank
[16:37] Speaker 3: you for listening. We will be back tomorrow

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