Huh? MSNBC Suggests GOP Tries To 'Gerrymander' Presidential Elections

This is the kind of keen political insight that makes MSNBC our go-to network -- for laughs. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough was dragging out the old DNC talking point that hey, the Republicans have lost the nationwide popular vote in seven of the last eight elections. This is how Electoral College Deniers argue. Eugene Robinson, MSNBC's chief political analyst, who is also an associate editor of the Washington Post, was responding to Joe Scarborough's question as to what Republicans should do, given their popular vote record. Here was Robinson's description of the Republican strategy to win the White House despite losing the popular vote: "Well, the first thing you do, is you gerrymander the hell out of everything, right? To, to try to build in an advantage." -- Not "right," Gene. Wrong!

In 48 of the 50 states, the winner of the state's popular vote receives ALL of the state's Electoral College votes. [Maine and Nebraska have different ways of allocating their Electoral College votes.] Given that Maine and Nebraska have only a combined nine Electoral College votes, that means that 98.3% of all Electoral College votes are awarded in, 48 of 50 states, on a winner-take-all popular vote basis. You can't gerrymander your way around that, Gene! Yes, both parties do their share of gerrymandering of congressional districts. The latest example is New York, where Democrat state legislators rejected a bipartisan congressional district map in order to gerrymander things to their maximum advantage. But you can't gerrymander presidential electoral districts when—in almost all the states!—there's only one presidential district: the entire state!

• More at: NewsBusters - Huh? Morning Joe Suggests GOP Tries To 'Gerrymander' Presidential Elections
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2024/02/27/huh-morning-joe-suggests-gop-tries-gerrymander-presidential