There may be no greater indication that voters are not being listened to in the escalating redistricting war between the Republican and Democratic Parties than a new poll from NBC News that shows 8-in-10 Americans want the parties to stop.
It’s what they call an "80-20 issue," and yet neither party is standing up for the 80% as they prioritize control of Congress.
The NBC News poll, conducted from August 13 to September 1, surveyed respondents on a variety of topics, including President Donald Trump’s approval, the top issue for voters right now, and even what voters think about vaccines.
These things have been broadly covered in the press. But what has received less coverage now that the focus has shifted away from what is happening in Texas, California, Missouri, New York, and more is the threat mid-decade redistricting poses to voters.
The poll found that 82% of respondents said they want redistricting done by a nonpartisan commission, not the party in power. Even most members of the majority party in their state do not think politicians should be picking their voters.
NBC Poll: For example, 71% of Republicans in GOP-controlled states say they would prefer redistricting done by a nonpartisan commission. Yet in the same week as the poll’s release, Missouri’s Republican-majority advanced their own mid-decade gerrymander.
This, of course, follows a new map approved in Texas, which is ground zero for this tit-for-tat redistricting fight. Texas did it, so California did it. Missouri is doing it, so New York or Maryland or Illinois may do it.
And yet, 88% of Democrats in states controlled by their party also prefer a nonpartisan redistricting commission over legislative-drawn maps. The No on Prop 50 campaign in California sent out the NBC News poll results over email.
Proposition 50 will be on a November 4 special election ballot, where voters can approve or reject a new congressional map drawn by the legislature.
If approved, the map could give the Democratic Party over 90% representation in the state’s congressional delegation.
Those responsible for the proposition, including Governor Gavin Newsom, know how their voters feel about legislative gerrymandering. He says he wants to see independent redistricting commissions used at a national level but insists that his party must “fight fire with fire.”
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In fact, Proposition 50 includes a section in its summary that says it “[e]stablishes state policy supporting use of fair, independent, and nonpartisan redistricting commissions nationwide” – even as it will do exactly what most voters say they don’t want.
In other words, it will implement a partisan gerrymander approved by the Democratic majority in the legislature. It will sidestep the state’s independent redistricting commission, approved by voters in 2008 and 2010.
Prop 50 does not abolish the independent commission. It says the new congressional map will be in place until the commission redraws and approves new maps after the 2030 census. However, it is worth noting that this means 3 congressional election cycles under the new map.
Whether it is Texas or California, the question to ask is: What happens to the trust and confidence of the political minority when the majority says to them that on a whim, they will take away their opposition’s representation all but completely?
Texas’ maps will have to be struck down in court while California voters are left to wonder what happens the next time the Democratic majority decides they need to “fight fire with fire” again.
The answer to the question is: The partisan majority doesn’t care. When the system puts the self-serving interests of private political parties over meaningful and accountable representation, it all becomes a game to Republican and Democratic leaders.
“They did it, so we have to do it.” Then the other side will turn around and say, "They cheated first."
Even now, 82% of voters say they want politicians out of the business of choosing whose vote matters. Yet, Texas and California were only the beginning. More states are trying to expand the controlling party's majority in Congress or nullify the other side’s gains, completely ignoring what voters want.
Poll: 82% of Americans Want Redistricting Done by Independent Commission, Not Politicians was first published on IVN and re-published with permission.
Shawn Griffiths Is An Election Reform Expert And National Editor Of IVN.us.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.