Nevada joins Texas with an ‘F’ rating for gerrymandering

The Silver State and the Lone Star State may swing different ways politically, but they have at least one thing in common: an “F” rating for partisan gerrymandering.

Nevada’s 2021 rejiggering of the state’s congressional districts received the failing grade from Princeton University’s nonpartisan Gerrymandering Project Redistricting Report Card for giving Democrats a significant electoral advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Texas’ 2021 electoral maps also received a failing grade for favoring the GOP, and Texas Republicans are pushing for a rare mid-decade redrawing of their congressional district maps that could give the party a better shot at maintaining its House majority in the 2026 midterms. The Gerrymandering Project also gave Texas’ proposed 2025 maps a failing grade for giving Republicans a significant advantage.

Nevada’s congressional district maps were also crafted to give the party in power an advantage, though it’s unclear if fairer maps would have changed election outcomes. Attempts to create an independent commission to redraw maps have failed, but a renewed effort will come in 2026.

Following the release of the 2020 census, Nevada lawmakers sat down in 2021 to redraw the state’s legislative and congressional maps. Democrats held majorities in both the state Senate and Assembly, and Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak signed off on the maps that has proved beneficial for Democrats through two tough elections.

In 2024 Nevada elected President Donald Trump, the first Republican to win the state in 20 years. It elected Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and other Republicans in statewide races in 2022, but Democrats still scored major wins in its congressional and legislative races.

The way districts were drawn gave Democrats a bigger lead in two of its three reliably Democratic House seats, and it helped the Democratic Party maintain majorities in the Legislature, experts say.

How Nevada’s maps are gerrymandered

The Gerrymandering Project found more significant Democratic advantage in the state’s congressional districts than its legislative districts, though both were slanted toward Democrats.

All four of Nevada’s House districts were outside of the “competitive zone,” which is when the partisan split of a district is within seven percentage points.

For Nevada’s 21-seat state Senate, the Gerrymandering Project gave Nevada a “B” in partisan fairness with a slight Democratic advantage. Democrats also had a slight advantage in the 42-seat Assembly, with only five seats considered competitive.

A good indication of a gerrymandered map is if the party that drew it can survive a five-point swing against the party that drew it, according to David Damore, a political science professor at UNLV.

Nevada has a varied history with its redistricting. In 2001, Nevada’s redistricting resulted in a bipartisan incumbent gerrymander, according to Damore. The divided Legislature drew maps that protected incumbents of both parties, he said.

In 2011, a Republican governor and a Democratic-majority Legislature failed to reach a compromise, so redistricting had to be determined by a panel of three judges. The maps were drawn neutrally, and both parties won races throughout the decade, Damore said.

In 2021, Democrats’ redistricting goal was to keep the 3-1 split in Congress. The party moved some of the Democratic voters from Rep. Dina Titus’ district to Rep. Susie Lee’s and Rep. Steven Horsford’s, he said.

The move angered Titus, because even though it helped the party, she had to give up some of her advantage and campaign in new areas, Damore said. Even so, Titus easily won re-election by 5.6 percentage points in 2022 and more than 7.5 percentage points in 2024, though she faced the same candidate both times.

The redistricting particularly benefited Lee in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, which has been a competitive district since it was created in 2002. Lee has been able to hold onto to her seat, though she had some close calls, Damore said. She won re-election by nearly 3 percentage points in 2020, before the maps were redrawn, and by 4 points with the new map in 2022 and by 2.74 points in 2024.

It’s unclear that gerrymandered maps were the reason behind some Republican losses in recent elections.

If better candidates ran against Titus, for instance, the outcome might have been different, Damore said. With state legislative races, the Republicans spread their ammo pretty thin, he said.

Less competitive House seats could also be due to shifting demography, and Nevada is a difficult state for redistricting because of its transient populations and the increase in nonpartisan voters, Damore said.

‘No overtly partisan intentions’

Peter Koltak, a Democratic strategist who advised the state Senate Democratic Caucus during the 2021 redistricting process, pushed back on claims of gerrymandering and said many people in academics don’t understand the political realities of a state like Nevada. Republicans complain that the new maps are bad for them, but they struggled on the prior maps, too, he said. More Republicans are also concentrated in rural areas of the state, he said.

Between the maps drawn by court in 2011 and the maps drawn by the Legislature in 2021, the partisan makeup of both the Legislature and the congressional seats didn’t really change, Koltak said.

When redrawing the maps in 2021, the Nevada Legislature’s biggest issue was drawing the congressional districts with balanced populations. In the 10 years between censuses, Clark County had a massive population growth, Koltak said.

Clark County’s population grew from 1.95 million in 2010 to nearly 2.27 million in 2020, a 15.6 percent increase, according to the U.S. Census.

“There were no overtly partisan intentions there; it was just a map that was drawn to reflect the fact that 10 years of population growth had happened in Nevada, and a lot of that was in Clark County,” he said.

Questions over legislative impact

Democrats were able to get close to a supermajority in the Legislature, Damore said. Barring a huge wave against the Democratic Party, they will likely control the majority of both chambers of the Legislature for the entire decade, Damore said.

Republicans point to Nevada’s Senate District 15 in Reno as an example of gerrymandering.

Former Republican state Sen. Heidi Seevers O’Gara had held the district. It was redrawn to strip northern portions that leaned Republican and were added to a district that went all the way to the outside of Elko, O’Gara said. By changing that, it went from an almost evenly split district to leaning Democrat, O’Gara said.

“That really was a huge shift of balance for the Senate,” she said.

Democratic state Sen. Angie Taylor won the seat by 9.8 percentage points in 2024.

O’Gara said she has observed the redistricting process a number of times and thought the 2021 process was an effort to disenfranchise Republicans to support Democratic supermajorities.

Koltak said Senate District 15 was trending less Republican cycle over cycle, and it wasn’t changed as part of some “sneaky, secret” plan. The district had grown and changed, he said.

Why it matters

Gerrymandering affects competitiveness and voter turnout. If one party has a much higher advantage in a district, then it becomes less competitive, and voters will feel like their votes are less likely to matter, according to Damore.

“We know that a more competitive district is going to drive turnout and responsiveness from elected officials,” Damore said.

Sondra Cosgrove, executive director of Vote Nevada and a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada, said some districts are so gerrymandered that there’s no challengers, which in turn leads to less communication with voters.

In Cosgrove’s district, Assembly District 28, Assemblymember Reuben D’Silva faced no challengers in 2024, so he didn’t campaign and talk to voters, Cosgrove said.

“So how am I supposed to feel represented by someone that I never saw either during the primary or the general election? I don’t know how representative our government is when that happens,” she said.

There is an argument for gerrymandering. If there’s a geographic sorting of voting by economics and demographics that translate to political predispositions, then voters are represented by someone who shares common goals, Damore said.

If there are more competitive congressional districts that switch back and forth between parties, the state may be less powerful in Congress since senior members get influential positions on committees, he said.

Could Nevada get an independent redistricting commission?

One solution could be an independent redistricting commission that draws up the maps instead of the Legislature.

Fair Maps Nevada has tried and failed to change how the state conducts its once-in-a-decade redrawing. It first attempted to put a question on the ballot in 2020 but failed when it didn’t get enough signatures. Attempts in consequent years were met with lawsuits.

But Cosgrove, who has led the effort, thinks 2026 could be the year, and the national discourse around Texas’ redistricting could spur change.

“I thought we were going to have to wait until we got into the next census count for people to pay attention to what this is, and it’s kind of wonky, but everybody is very aware,” she said. “And the Democrats say that gerrymandering is bad, so we really shouldn’t be doing it, right?”

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.