In fall 2025, I was teaching a class on state and local government.
One week in the semester, I was teaching the students about the significance of the state legislative branch in the budgeting process, criminal justice laws, executive branch oversight and apportionment. That same week, President Donald Trump publicly “requested” for Texas to redraw congressional districts to favor Republicans. Soon thereafter, Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by calling for the districts in California to be redrawn to favor Democrats.
The following week, the class could not move into the next subject because they wanted to discuss redistricting. As a professor, I appreciated the students connecting the readings and class discussions with current events. The concern the students had tended to be repeating the concerns many Democrats and Democratic strategists said on various media channels.
Then the students asked, “Would Georgia redraw the congressional map?”
This became the most intense question for nearly nine months in and out of the classroom.
When Gov. Brian Kemp announced a special session regarding the congressional map along with other unfinished items from the regular session, all of the state, and seemingly the country, waited on pins and needles to see what Georgia elected Republicans would do.
Before Georgia’s special session and during Georgia’s primary election season, South Carolina Republicans rejected the president’s push to redraw their congressional and state legislative lines. This was significant since Georgia and South Carolina seem to have an interesting relationship, rather competition, for business, tourism and one could argue, modern-day political journey.
The decision for Georgia Republicans to not redraw the congressional and state legislative map was on par with South Carolina. More importantly, it’s on par with the overall politics of Georgia.
Regardless of the elected officials and rhetoric, the desired policies in Georgia are more moderate-conservative in nature than strongly conservative. However, in order to stay away from the political crosshairs of the president, Republicans have taken on the rhetoric and posture of the president around the country.
This is a short-term strategy.
Learning from the short-term nature of redistricting and appreciating the moderate-conservative nature of Georgia voters, Georgia Republicans decided not to redraw the lines.
Strategically, not redrawing the lines makes sense.
Historically, the mid-term elections do not favor the president or the president’s party. With the current political climate, housing affordability challenges, rising fuel costs, contentious international relationships and seemingly domestic political overreach, political confidence in current leaders is waning.
These factors add to the feeling that Democrats could be on trend to overtake Congress.
A further question, could Democrats flip some state legislatures?
One could argue this question is top of mind for Georgians. Redrawing the map, even though the map would not be in effect until 2028, could still mobilize and energize Democratic voters, and potentially independent voters, to participate at a higher than normal rate in November.
Redrawing the map immediately following the primary and run-off elections and before the general election could help statewide races as well as the federal and state legislature races.
Not changing the map at the end of the June special session was viewed as a victory until the quiet part was said out loud — wait until after the November election. Kemp could wait until after the November election to call another special session to redraw the map and avoid any political consequences from the voters.
How will this work?
Would the map change if the Georgia Republicans win the majority of offices? Will Georgia Republicans redraw the map if the Republicans lose statewide races yet maintain a majority in the legislature?
Perhaps no. Why would the Republicans change the map if the Republicans maintain a political majority?
However, if Georgia Republicans lose statewide offices or the legislature, the chances of redrawing the map increases. And this is the playing politics that frustrates the electorate.
If Georgia Republicans attempt to redraw the map to reverse any Democratic wins for the 2028 election, Republicans would be affirming the notion that the only way to win elected office is to create a favorable map rather than competing for the votes of the electorate. Of course, this also means that the policies were not necessarily popular, just that the map was drawn, from a base perspective, to favor partisan Republican policies.
The congressional and state legislative map is larger than current politics and policies.
These maps help to solidify and codify policies with a particular vision. These maps create an atmosphere, arguably, that an increasingly minority policy view becomes policy for the majority.
This minority as the governing majority creates policies where those in the numerical political minority create policy that benefit the political view of another minority because the political majority is either apathetic or ill-informed of the issues.
These maps in-turn limit the political realization of the promise of state-level politics and policy. This limitation trickles up to how functional our federal government can be to anticipate and realize the challenges of our nation.
These maps also can discourage irregular voters from participating because media outlets emphasize the extreme positions leaving the nuanced positions or outcomes buried in the news story.
Media outlets report the extreme positions of these redistricting efforts creating an either-or situation for the voters. These all or nothing sceneries help with polarizing the electorate as if there is a “yes or no,” “right or wrong,” “good or bad” situation.
This type of reporting corners officials to amplify partisan positions as well as limit understanding of the complexity of redistricting.
By creating these polarizing understandings of redistricting, we create winners and losers. We pin neighbors against neighbors. We separate communities that have more in common than different.
Polarizing maps based on political party creates a politicking advantage.
Polarizing maps does not expand governing to the majority. And, perhaps, that is the point: to avoid governing to the majority.
Governing to the majority means elected officials would work to engage their constituents, hold town hall meetings, seek compromise and work to be reelected.
Our Republic, in action, is a democracy. A strong Republic is about engaging in the democratic system — the most fundamental is citizens having a high political efficacy. Political efficacy is trust and belief that our participation will be heard by elected officials. A polarizing map does not encourage high political efficacy.
To put it simply, consider our nation as a body. We can lift weights and exercise a small group of muscles to have very strong arms because every day is upper body day while your lower body is ignored. Or, we can exercise every muscle in our body such that we are physically proportional and strong as a whole.
Which exercise plan do you prefer?
Tammy R. Greer has a PhD in Political Science and teaches public policy.
