Political Science Professor Eric Schickler was featured in article in The New York Times titled, "How Redistricting Is Making the Midterms Less Competitive."
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election in November, but fewer than a tenth of those races are likely to be competitive. And that number has been dwindling.
One culprit? The nationwide redistricting battles, in which Republicans and Democrats across the country have resorted to creative cartography to draw as many safe seats as possible as they fight for control of Congress.
Competitive districts — where a candidate leads a challenger by fewer than 10 percentage points — are increasingly rare. That is partly because many voters choose to live in communities with like-minded people, making many areas more politically homogenous and less competitive. And it is partly because parties are able to draw gerrymandered House maps, whittling down the number of swing districts even further.
“It’s a mutually reinforcing process,” said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at U.C. Berkeley.