The dirty trick that couldn’t save Trump’s midterms

After Democrats declared a landslide win in the midterms, a narrative quickly formed online: Republicans’ aggressive redistricting strategy had spectacularly backfired…but the reality is more complicated.

Years ago, Donald Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their electoral map specifically to blunt the kind of wave that just hit them, and it worked exactly as designed, just not enough to survive a landslide.

This time the strategy didn’t win them the election, but it meaningfully softened the damage, even as their own aggressive redistricting triggered a counter-gerrymander from Democrats that cost them ground elsewhere. So did the plan really fail, or did it just stop a landslide from being even bigger?

Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.

Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IfYoureListeningABC