By: Michael Bautista, Community Journalist
GLASSBORO — As debates over congressional district boundaries continue to unfold across the country ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, a recent event at Rowan University focused on how the fight over political maps in states like New Jersey, Texas, and California could determine who takes control of Congress.
Hosted by the Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship (RIPPAC), the discussion event brought together faculty experts and students to examine how congressional districts are drawn, the strategies behind gerrymandering, and the growing role of mid-decade redistricting efforts within states across the country.
“The mid-cycle redistricting that is happening right now is not typical,” said Dr. Kathy Javian, assistant teaching professor and assistant chair of Rowan University’s Department of Political Science and Economics. She noted that the current mid-cycle redistricting helped inspire the organization of the event that invited the campus community to an educational and interactive discussion on gerrymandering.
Under the Constitution, states are responsible for drawing congressional district lines, typically after the census, to ensure equal population across districts. However, recent efforts in states like Texas and California to redraw maps mid-decade have raised the stakes ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, where even a small shift in seats could determine which party controls the House of Representatives.
“How a district is drawn determines which party will have control over that district. Students need to understand that many districts are drawn to be uncompetitive. This makes it harder to hold politicians accountable because it is harder to vote them out of office,” said Javian.
She explained that while restrictions must follow certain legal requirements, including equal population and contiguous boundaries, those rules still leave room for manipulation in a sophisticated way.
“You can follow the rules and still create situations that are unfair,” said Javian, who hopes that was one of the key takeaways attendees learned from the event’s interactive exercise.
The event had students break up into different groups and given a sheet where they were tasked to create 10 districts of 10 people each. Each group discussed how they’d break up 100 total people, 45 of whom were registered Republicans and 55 who identified as Democrats. Both parties were made up of varying races and ethnicities, including White, Hispanic, Asian, and Black voters.
During the discussion, Javian also took the time to outline the distinction between partisan and racial gerrymandering, which are often at the center of legal challenges.
“One is drawing a district to favor a political party, and another is either to favor or dilute the power of a racial group. There are many reasons why district maps are challenged in court,” said Javain.
Founding Director of RIPPAC, Dr. Benjamin Dworkin expanded on the legal framework, noting that the courts have drawn a line between political and racial intent.
“The distinction comes down to intent. Gerrymandering for political purposes is legal, as the US Supreme Court decided that it was not their place to determine what was ‘too political.’ Racial gerrymandering is illegal if its primary intent is to devalue the voting power of identified racial minorities,” said Dworkin.
He added that the stakes of redistricting are particularly high in the current political climate, where control of Congress is narrowly divided.
“The GOP has 219 votes right now, with 218 needed to have the majority. Democrats, in other words, need just a few votes to get the majority in the House of Representatives, and they expect to do just that in the upcoming elections. Midterm elections tend to be a referendum on the president and almost always to the detriment of the president’s party. So, historically speaking, Democrats expect to do well in 2026. The initial GOP effort to do mid-decade redistricting was an attempt to make it tougher for the Democrats to win enough seats to take control of the House,” said Dworkin.
At the same time, Dworkin emphasized that redistricting is only one factor in determining election outcomes.
“The president’s popularity and the state of the economy will also have a major effect on who wins control of the House and Senate,” said Dworkin on the mid-decade redistricting efforts in states like Texas and California.
The event also explored how modern technology has transformed the redistricting process, allowing political operatives to draw increasingly precise maps based on voter behavior and demographic data.
“Redistricting used to be done with just past election results and yellow legal pads. Today, it is all computerized with software that integrates election data along with consumer and polling information. Generally speaking, both parties create a two-pronged ‘score’ for every voter – a ‘likely to vote’ score and a ‘likely to vote for our side’ score,” said Dworkin. “When you overlay these individual scores with Census tract maps, you can look at how the voters in a specific neighborhood might be good or bad for your party. District lines are then drawn with this information, making the process much more precise than it was a generation ago.”
To illustrate how those strategies work in practice, students participated in a simulation exercise, where they were tasked with drawing districts to achieve specific political goals, such as maximizing party advantage or creating races.
“I thought the discussion was really interesting because it showed how complicated redistricting actually is. A lot of people think of it as purely partisan, but there are also legal rules, population changes, and geography to consider. As a Republican, I know both parties have used redistricting to their advantage, so I think we should focus on making the process more open and fair,” said Zoey Wong, a political science and law and justice major at Rowan University.
Wong said her group attempted to apply a real-world political strategy during the simulation.
“Our group tried to create as many Republican Majority districts as possible, which proved to be difficult, since we had fewer registered voters, so we worked to spread them out and make about seven Republican-leaning districts. This showed how gerrymandering strategies can work in real life by clustering or spreading voters to influence results. As Republicans, our goal in the exercise was to win as many districts as we could with the voters we had,” said Wong.
Despite acknowledging the strategic nature of gerrymandering, Wong said the practice can raise concerns about fairness.
“I believe it’s really a little bit of both. Gerrymandering has been part of politics for a long time, and both Democrats and Republicans have used it when they could to their advantage. But when districts are drawn in extreme ways, it can make people lose trust in the system. Changes that make the process more open or require both parties to be involved could help,” said Wong.
Gianna DiGiovanni, a political science major and the president of the Rowan University Democrats, said both major parties share responsibility for the issue.
“I think gerrymandering has historically happened on both sides of the political spectrum. Each party is responsible for ensuring that any redistricting is equitable,” said DiGiovanni.
She added that the practice becomes more concerning when it crosses ethical lines.
“I think when democracy becomes challenged by policymakers who feel they need to go around ethical boundaries and dividing areas that do not need to be divided,” said DiGiovanni. She also expressed that she would be open to reforms aimed at increasing fairness, even if they came with political trade-offs.
“If it allows more of the general public to have their voices represented, I would be open to this idea,” said DiGiovanni.
As redistricting efforts continue across the country, the lines drawn in statehouses could ultimately shape not only national politics but also how effectively communities in South Jersey are represented in Washington, D.C.
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