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The gerrymandering report bookends other analyses, by the Brennan Center and others, documenting how state-level Republicans have introduced some 165 proposals in 33 states this year that would make voting more difficult. These include imposing new voter-identification laws, rolling back access to mail balloting and early-voting periods, and adding new hurdles to the voter-registration process. H.R. 1 and a new VRA, if they become law and survive legal challenges, would preempt almost all of those moves as well.

Read: The decision that will define Democrats for a decade

Given the likelihood that, absent federal intervention, red states will enact severe gerrymanders and new obstacles to voting, the decision about whether to end the Senate filibuster to pass these two bills could shape the future of American politics more than anything else Democrats do in the next two years. If the filibuster remains in place, [H.R. 1] dies in the Senate, Dan Pfeiffer, the former White House communications director for Barack Obama, wrote this week. If that happens, the Republicanswho represent a shrinking minority of Americanswill likely return to power and control politics for the next decade or more.

When Senate Democrats like Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and [Dianne] Feinstein oppose getting rid of the filibuster, Pfeiffer added, they are deciding to make it more likely that their time in the majority is ever so brief.

Li told me that, in some respects, partisans may have less opportunity now for aggressive redistricting than they had after the 2010 census, though that may not be true in key states. States draw new lines for congressional districts after each decennial census, and that process is shaped by a complex convergence of legal and political factors.

Republicans leverage over the process seems slightly reduced since the 2010 redistricting. Parties have the greatest freedom to manipulate the lines in states where they control redistricting without input from the other sidealmost always because they hold both chambers of the state legislature and the governorship. (Some states deny the governor any role.) After the 2010 census, Republicans enjoyed this level of control over the drawing of 213 congressional districts. They used their authority to impose extremely one-sided gerrymanders in states including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

This time, Republicans hold complete control in states that will draw up to 188 districts. (Democrats, by contrast, completely control the maps in states with up to 74 seats.) The number of seats Republicans will oversee has diminished because they lost unified control of government in some statesincluding Wisconsin and Pennsylvaniaand because Michigan transferred control of redistricting from the state legislature to an independent commission. Additionally, in GOP-controlled Ohio, voters approved an initiative that created redistricting standards that could impede, though not eliminate, gerrymandering.

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The GOP Cheat Code to Winning Back the House - The Atlantic

Trumps lawyers excused it and gave Republican senators their rationale for acquittal by talking about free speech, but that cast the president of the United States the most powerful person in the world, entrusted with the security of his country as just any old crank spouting off. It minimized his station. It trivialized the stakes. It also overlooked that its not OK to yell fire in a crowded theater, though Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, reminded them of that, describing Jan. 6 as a case where the town fire chief whos paid to put out fires sends a mob not to yell fire! in a crowded theater but to actually set the theater on fire.

The lawyers also turned history on its head, essentially bookending Trumps presidency by minting the precise sorts of alternative facts that Kellyanne Conway smugly heralded at the start. Unlike the left, President Trump has been entirely consistent in his opposition to mob violence, one of his lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said, scaling new summits of preposterousness. Trump blessed mob violence at his campaign rallies. He blessed mob violence in Charlottesville, Va. Hes against mob violence the way Im against spaghetti carbonara. Which is to say that he thrills to it and eats it up.

Both before and during the Senate trial, Trumps defenders asserted that theres no clear causal link between his malfeasance and that police officers screams. But the House Democrats effectively destroyed that argument by documenting not only Trumps words in the days, hours and minutes before the mob attacked but also his long, painstaking campaign to erode trust in democratic processes, so that if those processes didnt favor him, his supporters were primed to junk them. Hes a study in slow-motion treason. Jan. 6 was simply when he slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

It was also, in retrospect, the climax that his presidency was always building toward, the inevitable fruit of his meticulous indoctrination of his base, his methodical degradation of American institutions, his romancing of right-wing media and his recruitment of the most ambitious and unscrupulous Republican lawmakers. At his behest, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and several other Republican senators promoted the lethal falsehood that the election was fraudulent, yet that didnt disqualify them from sitting as jurors to render a foregone verdict on a man whose delusions they had already endorsed. What a system. What a farce.

They were distracted, cavalier jurors at that. Rick Scott, who of course voted not guilty, was seen studying and then fiddling with a map or maps of Asia. Dare we dream that hes plotting his own relocation there? Hawley, who also voted not guilty, at one point moved to the visitors gallery above the Senate floor and did some reading there, his feet propped up, his lanky body a pretzel of petulance. What happened to Republicans respect for authority? What happened to basic decency and decorum?

Clinton was a supposedly unendurable offense against that, but then along came Trump, and Republicans decided that decency and decorum were overrated. Truth, too. Heck, everything that they claimed to stand for in the Clinton years was now negotiable, expendable, vestigial. Nothing was beyond the pale.

But that footage was beyond the pale. Did you really look at it, Senators Hawley, Scott and Cruz (yet another not guilty)? Did you see the blood and the terror on that police officers face? Do you honestly contend that theres no connection between Trumps lies refined over years, repeated incessantly and rendered in the most incendiary fashion possible and the officers pain?

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Opinion | Trumps Republicans, Brought to Their Knees - The New York Times

In the hours after Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (LA) and Richard Burr (NC) joined five other Republican senators in voting to convict former President Donald Trump on an article of impeachment for his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection, the state Republican parties in Louisiana and North Carolina wasted no time laying down a marker that the GOP still belongs to Trump.

The LAGOP and NCGOP each quickly censured Cassidy and Burr for their votes. In a statement posted to Twitter, the LAGOP wrote that it condemn[s], in the strongest possible terms, the vote today by Sen. Cassidy to convict former President Trump, while NCGOP chair Michael Whatley released a statement denouncing Burrs vote as shocking and disappointing.

Trump won both Louisiana and North Carolina in 2020. Cassidy was loyal to Trump throughout Trumps term in office, but began to distance himself during the impeachment trial, perhaps feeling emboldened by the fact that he just won reelection for another six-year term. Following his vote, he posted a remarkably succinct video statement in which he said, I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.

Burr was also mostly loyal to Trump throughout his term, but is more free than some of his Republican colleagues to vote his conscience, since hes already announced he doesnt plan to run for reelection next year. As Voxs Li Zhou has reported, a recent Vox/Data for Progress poll found 69 percent of Republicans say they are less likely to support a senator who voted to convict Trump. Notably, one of the Republicans running to fill Burrs seat, former Rep. Mark Walker, was quick to post a tweet condemning the senators vote.

Cassidy and Burrs votes to convict were somewhat surprising, given that each of them voted to end the trial before it began on the grounds that convicting a former president of an article of impeachment is unconstitutional. But they were apparently persuaded of Trumps guilt by House impeachment managers.

While Trumps encouragement of the January 6 insurrection and his conduct in the weeks and months leading up to it a period in which he relentlessly pushed lies about election fraud to discredit Joe Bidens victory has been widely condemned, state Republican parties have repeatedly censured Republican lawmakers who have had the temerity to condemn it.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), for instance, was not only censured by the Wyoming Republican Party after she voted in favor of Trumps impeachment but was targeted by staunch Trump loyalist Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in a rally in her home state following her vote. And the Arizona Republican Party censured Republican Gov. Doug Ducey (as well as Cindy McCain and former Sen. Jeff Flake) simply because the governor was unwilling to work with Trump to invalidate Joe Bidens victory in the state.

While the fact that seven of the 50 Republican senators voted for Trumps conviction indicates his hold over members of his party in that chamber has weakened since he was in office, the quick censures of Cassidy and Barr are reminders that his popularity among grassroots Republicans remains strong.

The series of censures also points to a worrying dynamic that will be at play if Trump decides to run again in 2024. After all, if publicly inciting a violent attack on the legislative branch of the federal government isnt enough to prompt state-level Republicans to break with him, then what, if anything, would?

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Cassidy and Burr were quickly censured for voting for Trumps conviction - Vox.com

A mob of former President Donald Trump supporters breached the U.S Capitol security on Jan. 6. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A mob of former President Donald Trump supporters breached the U.S Capitol security on Jan. 6.

The mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol may have been a fringe group of extremists, but politically motivated violence has the support of a significant share of the U.S. public, according to a new survey by the American Enterprise Institute.

The survey found that nearly three in 10 Americans, including 39% of Republicans, agreed that "if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions."

That result was "a really dramatic finding," says Daniel Cox, director of the AEI Survey Center on American Life. "I think any time you have a significant number of the public saying use of force can be justified in our political system, that's pretty scary."

The survey found stark divisions between Republicans and Democrats on the 2020 presidential election, with two out of three Republicans saying President Biden was not legitimately elected, while 98% of Democrats and 73% of independents acknowledged Biden's victory.

The level of distrust among Republicans evident in the survey was such that about 8 in 10 said the current political system is "stacked against conservatives and people with traditional values." A majority agreed with the statement: "The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it."

The survey found that to be a minority sentiment two out of three Americans overall rejected the use of violence in pursuit of political ends and Cox emphasized that the finding reflected "attitudes and beliefs" rather than a disposition to do something.

"If I believe something, I may act on it, and I may not," Cox says. "We shouldn't run out and say, 'Oh, my goodness, 40% of Republicans are going to attack the Capitol.' But under the right circumstances, if you have this worldview, then you are more inclined to act in a certain way if you are presented with that option."

The AEI survey found that partisan divisions were also evident along religious lines. About 3 in 5 white evangelicals told the pollsters that Biden was not legitimately elected, that it was not accurate to say former President Donald Trump encouraged the attack on the Capitol, and that a Biden presidency has them feeling disappointed, angry or frightened.

On all those questions, Cox says, white evangelicals are "politically quite distinct." Majorities of white mainline Protestants, Black Protestants, Catholics, followers of non-Christian religions and the religiously unaffiliated all viewed Biden's victory as legitimate.

The AEI survey found that white evangelicals were especially prone to subscribe to the QAnon movement's conspiracy theories. Twenty-seven percent said it was "mostly" or "completely" accurate to say Trump "has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites." That share was higher than for any other faith group and more than double the support for QAnon beliefs evident among Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics and non-Christians.

"As with a lot of questions in the survey, white evangelicals stand out in terms of their belief in conspiracy theories and the idea that violence can be necessary," Cox says. "They're far more likely to embrace all these different conspiracies."

The survey also found "considerable cleavages" among Americans with respect to pride in their national identity. About 6 in 10 said they are proud to be an American, but the finding varied along generational and race lines, with significantly lower levels of national pride among younger and nonwhite people.

The AEI report was based on a survey of 2,016 U.S. adults conducted between Jan. 21 and Jan. 30.

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A 'Scary' Survey Finding: 4 In 10 Republicans Say Political Violence May Be Necessary - NPR

In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.

In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.

An analysis of January voting records by The New York Times found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts said the data indicated a stronger-than-usual flight from a political party after a presidential election, as well as the potential start of a damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.

Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.

What happened in D.C. that day, it broke my heart, said Mr. Nunez, a lifelong Republican who is preparing to register as an independent. It shook me to the core.

The biggest spikes in Republicans leaving the party came in the days after Jan. 6, especially in California, where there were 1,020 Republican changes on Jan. 5 and then 3,243 on Jan. 7. In Arizona, there were 233 Republican changes in the first five days of January, and 3,317 in the next week. Most of the Republicans in these states and others switched to unaffiliated status.

Voter rolls often change after presidential elections, when registrations sometimes shift toward the winners party or people update their old affiliations to correspond to their current party preferences, often at a department of motor vehicles. Other states remove inactive voters, deceased voters or those who moved out of state from all parties, and lump those people together with voters who changed their own registrations. Of the 25 states surveyed by The Times, Nevada, Kansas, Utah and Oklahoma had combined such voter list maintenance with registration changes, so their overall totals would not be limited to changes that voters made themselves. Other states may have done so, as well, but did not indicate in their public data.

Among Democrats, 79,000 have left the party since early January.

But the tumult at the Capitol, and the historic unpopularity of former President Donald J. Trump, have made for an intensely fluid period in American politics. Many Republicans denounced the pro-Trump forces that rioted on Jan. 6, and 10 Republican House members voted to impeach Mr. Trump. Sizable numbers of Republicans now say they support key elements of President Bidens stimulus package; typically, the opposing party is wary if not hostile toward the major policy priorities of a new president.

Since this is such a highly unusual activity, it probably is indicative of a larger undercurrent thats happening, where there are other people who are likewise thinking that they no longer feel like theyre part of the Republican Party, but they just havent contacted election officials to tell them that they might change their party registration, said Michael P. McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. So this is probably a tip of an iceberg.

But, he cautioned, it could also be the vocal never Trump reality simply coming into focus as Republicans finally took the step of changing their registration, even though they hadnt supported the president and his party since 2016.

Kevin Madden, a former Republican operative who worked on Mitt Romneys 2012 presidential campaign, fits this trend line, though he was ahead of the recent exodus. He said he changed his registration to independent a year ago, after watching what he called the harassment of career foreign service officials at Mr. Trumps first impeachment trial.

Its not a birthright and its not a religion, Mr. Madden said of party affiliation. Political parties should be more like your local condo association. If the condo association starts to act in a way thats inconsistent with your beliefs, you move.

As for the overall trend of Republicans abandoning their party, he said that it was too soon to say if it spelled trouble in the long term, but that the numbers couldnt be overlooked. In all the time I worked in politics, he said, the thing that always worried me was not the position but the trend line.

Some G.O.P. officials noted the significant gains in registration that Republicans have seen recently, including before the 2020 election, and noted that the party had rebounded quickly in the past.

You never want to lose registrations at any point, and clearly the January scene at the Capitol exacerbated already considerable issues Republicans are having with the center of the electorate, said Josh Holmes, a top political adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader. Todays receding support really pales in comparison to the challenges of a decade ago, however, when Republicans went from absolute irrelevance to a House majority within 18 months.

He added, If Republicans can reunite behind basic conservative principles and stand up to the liberal overreach of the Biden administration, things will change a lot quicker than people think.

In North Carolina, the shift was immediately noticeable. The state experienced a notable surge in Republicans changing their party affiliation: 3,007 in the first week after the riot, 2,850 the next week and 2,120 the week after that. A consistent 650 or so Democrats changed their party affiliation each week.

But state G.O.P. officials downplayed any significance in the changes, and expressed confidence that North Carolina, a battleground state that has leaned Republican recently, will remain in their column.

Relatively small swings in the voter registration over a short period of time in North Carolinas pool of over seven million registered voters are not particularly concerning, Tim Wigginton, the communications director for the state party, said in a statement, predicting that North Carolina would continue to vote Republican at the statewide level.

In Arizona, 10,174 Republicans have changed their party registration since the attack as the state party has shifted ever further to the right, as reflected by its decision to censure three Republicans Gov. Doug Ducey, former Senator Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain for various acts deemed disloyal to Mr. Trump. The party continues to raise questions about the 2020 election, and last week Republicans in the State Legislature backed arresting elections officials from Maricopa County for refusing to comply with wide-ranging subpoenas for election equipment and materials.

It is those actions, some Republican strategists in Arizona argue, that prompted the drop in G.O.P. voter registrations in the state.

The exodus thats happening right now, based on my instincts and all the people who are calling me out here, is that theyre leaving as a result of the acts of sedition that took place and the continued questioning of the Arizona vote, said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist in Arizona.

For Heidi Ushinski, 41, the decision to leave the Arizona Republican Party was easy. After the election, she said, she registered as a Democrat because the Arizona G.O.P. has just lost its mind and wouldnt let go of this fraudulent election stuff.

The G.O.P. used to stand for what we felt were morals, just character, and integrity, she added. I think that the outspoken G.O.P. coming out of Arizona has lost that.

This is the third time Ms. Ushinski has switched her party registration. She usually re-registers to be able to vote against candidates. This time around, she did it because she did not feel that there was a place for people like her in the new Republican Party.

I look up to the Jeffry Flakes and the Cindy McCains, she said. To see the G.O.P. go after them, specifically, when they speak in ways that I resonate with just shows me that theres nothing left in the G.O.P. for me to stand for. And its really sad.

Mr. Nunez, the Army veteran in Pennsylvania, said his disgust with the Capitol riot was compounded when Republicans in Congress continued to push back on sending stimulus checks and staunchly opposed raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

They were so quick to bail out corporations, giving big companies money, but continue to fight over giving money to people in need, said Mr. Nunez, who plans to change parties this week. Also, Im a business owner and I cannot imagine living on $7 an hour. We have to be fair.

Though the volume of voters leaving the G.O.P. varied from state to state, nearly every state surveyed showed a noticeable increase. In Colorado, roughly 4,700 Republican voters changed their registration status in the nine days after the riot. In New Hampshire, about 10,000 left the partys voter rolls in the past month, and in Louisiana around 5,500 did as well.

Even in states with no voter registration by party, some Republicans have been vocal about leaving.

In Michigan, Mayor Michael Taylor of Sterling Heights, the fourth-largest city in the state, already had one foot out the Republican Party door before the 2020 elections. Even as a lifelong Republican, he couldnt bring himself to vote for Mr. Trump for president after backing him in 2016. He instead cast a ballot for Mr. Biden.

After the election, the relentless promotion of conspiracy theories by G.O.P. leaders, and the attack at the Capitol, pushed him all the way out of the party.

There was enough before the election to swear off the G.O.P., but the incredible events since have made it clear to me that I dont fit into this party, Mr. Taylor said. It wasnt just complaining about election fraud anymore. They have taken control of the Capitol at the behest of the president of the United States. And if there was a clear break with the party in my mind, that was it.

Mr. Taylor plans to run for re-election this year, and even though its a nonpartisan race, community members are well aware of the shift in his thinking since the last citywide election in 2017.

He already has two challengers, including a staunch Trump supporter, who has begun criticizing Mr. Taylor for his lack of support for the former president.

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Why Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party - The New York Times