CNN “journalists” have been tying themselves in knots recently as they tried to gaslight Americans with lies about how their Democratic Party supposedly didn’t gerrymander their states. There was yet another example of this narrative during Tuesday’s Inside Politics as senior reporter Aaron Blake falsely suggested that Democrats were in a bad spot in the gerrymander arms race because they selflessly hamstrung themselves.
Referencing comments Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) made to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday, host Dana Bash paraphrased his argument. “… Republicans having the advantage nationwide, with legislatures where they can -- if they want to continue this power play, gobble up more secure Republican seats. They can do that.”
Adding: “And just one example, the one place, California, which we've been talking about, which has the potential, potential to add more Democratic seats, they don't have a lot to work with. Already there are 43 Democratic seats, there are only nine possibilities on the GOP side.”
Of course, Bash left out the part where Abbott called out how blue states like California, New York, and Massachusetts had “already gerrymandered” as much as they could. But Blake had his own “very good reason” for why Democrats were going to have a hard time with pushing their gerrymandering efforts.
According to Blake, Democrats were so well meaning that they intentionally hamstrung their own ability to eliminate Republican representation:
[A] lot of these blue states have instituted these redistricting commissions like we have in California. That if California wants to respond in kind, they need to get voters to sign off on basically allowing the Democrats to gerrymander.
I mean, that's a very difficult proposition, no matter how Democrats are spinning this right now, and so Republicans are basically saying, look, if you want to go hard at this, we'll do that because we can win this battle and we can draw more seats than you.
But those commissions weren’t as nonpartisan as Blake would like CNN viewers to believe. As New York Congressman Mike Lawler (R) told Tapper (linked above), New Jersey’s purportedly "independent redistricting commission" said “Republicans got to draw the map last time. So I'm going to give it to the Democrats.”
Blake also lamented that Republicans had such strong representation around the country that they controlled much more of the state governments:
Yeah. Look, I mean, this was a standoff that was perhaps inevitable in some ways, and there's a very good reason for that. It's because Republicans have superior control over this process, and so to the extent they were willing to get a little bit more Trump and a little bit more brutal in their political tactics, forcing this kind of a redistricting arms race was likely to accrue to their benefit.
They control so many more districts across the country that's in part because they control more of the state governments cross country…
When looking at Democratic states that limited Republican representation in Congress, five states stood out (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Rhode Island) in that the GOP made up a third or more of the electorate but held ZERO seats in the House. New Mexico was particularly egregious in that Republicans represented nearly half the electorate (44%), and yet they held zero of the three seats.
Tell us more Aaron about how selfless Democrats are in hampering their gerrymander ability.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Inside Politics
August 12, 2025
12:23:11 p.m. Eastern(…)
BASH: And what Governor Abbott said about Republicans having the advantage nationwide, with legislatures where they can -- if they want to continue this power play, gobble up more secure Republican seats. They can do that.
And just one example, the one place, California, which we've been talking about, which has the potential, potential to add more Democratic seats, they don't have a lot to work with. Already there are 43 Democratic seats, there are only nine possibilities on the GOP side.
AARON BLAKE: Yeah. Look, I mean, this was a standoff that was perhaps inevitable in some ways, and there's a very good reason for that. It's because Republicans have superior control over this process, and so to the extent they were willing to get a little bit more Trump and a little bit more brutal in their political tactics, forcing this kind of a redistricting arms race was likely to accrue to their benefit.
They control so many more districts across the country that's in part because they control more of the state governments cross country, but it's also because a lot of these blue states have instituted these redistricting commissions like we have in California. That if California wants to respond in kind, they need to get voters to sign off on basically allowing the Democrats to gerrymander.
I mean, that's a very difficult proposition, no matter how Democrats are spinning this right now, and so Republicans are basically saying, look, if you want to go hard at this, we'll do that because we can win this battle and we can draw more seats than you.
(…)