Gerry-rigged

Nevada is gaining a fourth U.S. House seat, and a Washington Post writer speculated that Democrats are likely to gain from the change.

Aaron Blake wrote that because the Nevada Legislature is split—Republicans and Democrats each control one house—it is likely they will divide the new districts between them. Right now Republicans hold two of the existing house seats.

Since Nevada stopped being a one-House-seat state in 1980, the legislature has usually provided one seat for Washoe County and eastern and central parts of the state while basing the others seats in populous Clark County, which contains most of the state’s population. Blake’s take, “And, since neither side has full control of the drawing of the map, the logical solution would be to split the map—either create two Republican districts and two Democratic districts, or draw one safe district for each party and two competitive districts.”