Republicans are poised to finish this year’s redistricting war 10 seats ahead of Democrats | CNN Politics

The coast-to-coast battle to gain an edge in November’s elections through partisan gerrymandering is racing to its conclusion – with Republicans poised to finish with as many as 10 seats ahead of Democrats through redistricting alone. The GOP kicked off the fight last year in Texas, changing boundaries for US House districts in the hopes of improving the party’s chances of surviving a blue wave this fall, with Democrats responding in turn. The US Supreme Court’s blockbuster decision last month to gut one of the remaining pillars of the 1965 Voting Rights Act further supercharged redistricting efforts across the South, prompting several Republican-controlled states to move election dates and eliminate districts with sizable Black populations. The moves could be a major boon in efforts to protect House Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor-thin majority ahead of the midterm elections. But regardless of the outcome in November, the mid-decade redistricting battle has likely altered American politics permanently – fueling a growing appetite to redraw lines for partisan advantage every election cycle, rather than every decade after the census, as is traditional. “There is no normal