With Texas lawmakers voting to redistrict their congressional maps to favor Republicans and California responding to cancel out those gains, Connecticut is unlikely to join the fray due to the state’s population distribution and longstanding districting standards.
Although Connecticut’s five congressional districts result from a bipartisan redistricting process, the state’s five seats have been held by Democrats since 2008.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff dismissed the idea of changing Connecticut’s congressional districts midway through the census cycle.
“It’s sad to watch Texas Republicans turn to off-season gerrymandering in an effort to rig next year’s elections,” Duff said. “Here in Connecticut, we’ll stick to winning the old-fashioned way: adopting policies our residents support. That’s why voters have elected Democrats to every one of our congressional districts, every constitutional office, and an overwhelming majority of our state legislative seats. In election after election, Connecticut voters have made it clear they’re not buying what Republicans are selling.”
In a Connecticut Mirror opinion piece following the state’s once-a-decade redistricting efforts, leaders of the League of Women Voters explained that Connecticut has a bipartisan multi-step process where Democrats and Republicans form a commission to determine fair districts. If this effort fails, a second commission comes into play. If both efforts fail, the state Supreme Court draws the lines.
Changes made in 2022 were seen as largely insignificant, with some shifting of borders to account for population changes.
The second district includes much of the eastern half of the state, covering New London, Middlesex, Tolland and Windham counties with the first and fifth districts respectively sharing much of Hartford and Litchfield counties, the third largely representing New Haven County and the fourth holding much of Fairfield County.
The Connecticut Mirror noted in 2022 that the state’s map was largely designed to favor the Republican Party in the early 2000s when population changes required six congressional districts to be condensed down to five.
Democrats’ consistent victories in the last 20 years have reflected voting habits and changing populations rather than redistricting, even as statewide races often see the second and fifth districts favor Republicans.
