Could Democrats Be Leveling The Redistricting Playing Field?

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The redistricting arms race continues, with several developments that may blunt President Trump's effort to advantage the Republican Party in the 2026 midterm elections. We also discuss a case before the Supreme Court that could alter how mail-in ballots are counted and an effort to reduce elections occurring in odd-numbered years.

This episode: national political correspondent Sarah McCammon, political correspondent Ashley Lopez, and voting correspondent Miles Parks.

This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.

Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
0:05.4	RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.
0:12.1	Learn more at RWJF.org.
0:16.8	Hi, this is Molly and my cello here at our community symphony orchestra in Middletown, New York.
0:24.1	We're prepping for our all Strauss 200th birthday bash.
0:28.8	This podcast was recorded at...
0:31.3	106 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, November 12th, 2025.
0:35.7	Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll probably still be waltzing away to Strauss.
0:45.2	Lovely.
0:45.9	Yeah, I love that.
0:46.9	I love a stringed instrument.
0:48.3	You know, I was surprised, I feel like there was 10 years where I wasn't in a string instrument.
0:52.2	A little trauma from playing the viola in elementary school.
0:55.2	But now I feel like that sounds really nice. It's coming back online. Yeah. I'm glad you've recovered, Miles. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Ashley Lopez. I also cover politics. And I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. Today on the show, we're talking about some news
1:11.2	related to how people vote, including some new redistricting efforts and a Supreme Court case
1:16.9	that could affect elections in more than half the country. So let's start with redistricting. Big news
1:22.4	in the last several days. Miles, there have been a few updates in a few states recently in what's sort of become a redistricting arms race. Catch us up.
1:32.6	Yeah, it is a lot to track. And I feel like let's just go from the last couple weeks. We'll go biggest to smallest in terms of impact.
1:39.3	I think the biggest development at this point recently was in Virginia, where a couple of weeks, this is not a
1:44.7	state that was really on people's radars when it came to the redistricting battles. But Democrats have
1:49.5	started a pretty long bureaucratic process to get that state in play. It involves multiple
1:55.2	votes in the General Assembly, and it also will involve, should it move forward, a question that
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