Politics

In 2024 Elections, Most Races Were Over Before They Started

Published

18 hours ago

January 26, 2025

In 2024 Elections, Most Races Were Over Before They Started

Competition is an endangered species in legislative elections.

A New York Times analysis of the nearly 6,000 congressional and state legislative elections in November shows just how few races were true races. Nearly all either were dominated by an incumbent or played out in a district drawn to favor one party overwhelmingly. The result was a blizzard of blowouts, even in a country that is narrowly divided on politics.

Just 8 percent of congressional races (36 of 435) and 7 percent of state legislative races (400 of 5,465) were decided by fewer than five percentage points, according to The Times’s analysis.

Consequences from the death of competition are readily apparent. Roughly 90 percent of races are now decided not by general-election voters in November but by the partisans who tend to vote in primaries months earlier. That favors candidates who appeal to ideological voters and lawmakers who are less likely to compromise. It exacerbates the polarization that has led to deadlock in Congress and in statehouses.

“Because of partisan and racial gerrymandering, you end up with these skewed results and legislative bodies that don’t necessarily reflect the political makeup of either the states or, writ large, the House of Representatives representing the political desires of the American people,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general in the Obama administration who, as chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, has criticized the mapmaking process and at times even called out his own party’s redistricting practices.

In 2020, the last time that once-a-decade national exercise took place, both parties largely followed a similar strategy. Their maps typically made districts safer by stocking them with voters from one party, rather than breaking them up in an effort to pick up seats. Republicans, as the party in control of the process in more states, drew more of these slanted districts than Democrats.

Other factors have contributed to vanishing competition, including demographic shifts and “political sorting” — the tendency of like-minded citizens to live in the same community. But the role of redistricting is evident when zooming in on a single state.

Take, for example, Texas, where in 2020, before redistricting, 10 of 38 congressional races were decided by 10 percentage points or fewer. In 2024, just two races were. In five races last year, Democrats did not even run a candidate, ceding the seat to Republicans. One Democrat ran unopposed.

In state legislatures, where lawmakers are drawing maps for their own districts, safe seats abound.

There are 181 state legislative seats in Texas, with 31 senators and 150 representatives. In 2024, just four of those elections — three in the Statehouse and one in the State Senate — were decided by five points or fewer, according to The Times’s analysis.

“Legislatures draw maps in most places, and the reality is, a big concern for members who have to pass these bills is: ‘What happens to my district?’” said Michael Li, a senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “Very few members are willing to say, ‘Oh, gosh, I should have a more competitive district.’ So there is an inherent conflict of interest in the way that we draw districts.”

Adam Kincaid, the director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, said that making seats safer was always the goal.

“We made no bones about the fact that we’re going to shore up incumbents, and where we had opportunities to go on offense, we were going to do that,” Mr. Kincaid said. “So what that means is bringing a whole lot of Republican seats that were otherwise in jeopardy off the board.”

The Power of a Map

While it is easy to focus on the candidates, the money, the message or the economy, increasingly it is the maps that determine the outcome. In North Carolina, they may have decided control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Only one of the state’s 14 congressional districts was decided by fewer than five points. A Republican won the state’s next closest race — by 14 points.

In 2022, the State Supreme Court ordered a more competitive map, but it was tossed out after midterm elections shook up the balance of the court. The replacement, which was drawn by the Republican-led Legislature, gave three Democratic seats to the G.O.P. while making nearly every district safer for the party that held it.

It is impossible to know how elections held under the first map would have turned out. But, according to Justin Levitt, a redistricting law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, “had every seat stayed the same as in 2022, those three seats would have made the difference, and Democrats would have had a one-seat majority” in Congress.

Of course, North Carolina played a pivotal role because the margin in the House was so small. Gerrymanders nudge the political balance in every election, but the 2024 vote was the rare occasion in which they were decisive.

North Carolina’s role in the 2024 House elections follows a historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2019 — involving partisan congressional maps in North Carolina — in which the court called partisan gerrymanders a political problem outside federal courts’ jurisdiction.

Even though those maps were “blatant examples of partisanship driving districting decisions,” the majority wrote, “state statutes and state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply.”

Almost unnoticed, other battles over slanted congressional maps that could affect the 2026 elections are crawling though state and federal courts — in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina (again), South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

Of all those lawsuits, the one most likely to affect the next House elections appears to be in Utah, where Salt Lake City, the state’s liberal hub, was carved into four districts to water down the impact of Democratic voters on House races.

Democrats appear likely to pick up a single House seat from that litigation, which faces a crucial court hearing on Friday.

Nationwide Decline

North Carolina is hardly an outlier.

In Illinois, a state dominated by Democrats, no congressional election was within a five-point margin, and just two were within 10 points. In Maryland, just one district was within a five-point margin.

Georgia did not have a single congressional district within a 10-point margin, out of 14 seats. The state’s closest race was the 13-point victory by Representative Sanford Bishop, a Democrat, in the Second Congressional District.

At the state legislative level, the numbers were even starker.

In Georgia, just five of the 236 state legislative seats, or 2 percent, were decided by five points or fewer, and more than half of the races were uncontested. In Florida, 10 of the 160 state legislative races were within a five-point margin.

With so few general elections to worry about, tribalism can take over in legislatures, leaving many elected officials to worry only about primary challenges, often from their party’s fringes. In the modern climate of political polarization, the lack of competitive districts not only removes an incentive to work with the other party but actively deters doing so.

“As competitive districts dwindle, so do incentives to compromise,” said Steve Israel, a former Democratic congressman from New York and the former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “I remember campaigning on bipartisanship in a very moderate district in my first election in 2000. By the time I left in 2017, talking about crossing the aisle was like announcing a walk to my own firing squad.”

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Politics

Trump Wants to Impose 25% Tariffs on Colombia. Here’s What Could Cost More.

Published

7 hours ago

January 26, 2025

Press Room

Trump Wants to Impose 25% Tariffs on Colombia. Here’s What Could Cost More.

The possibility of a trade war erupted on Sunday between the United States and Colombia that could make coffee, flowers and raw materials more expensive for Americans, while U.S. corn growers and chemical companies could find billions of dollars in sales at risk.

Relations between the two countries quickly deteriorated after the South American country refused to receive U.S. military planes carrying deported immigrants. In response, President Trump said on social media that he would immediately impose a 25 percent tariff on all Colombian imports and escalate the tariffs to 50 percent in a week. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, threatened his own 50 percent tariff hours later.

The United States is Colombia’s largest trading partner, but Colombian products make up a relatively minor share of U.S. imports. Some Colombian products are much more exposed than others.

While crude oil is by far the United States’ most valuable Colombian import, accounting for $5.4 billion of the $16 billion worth of products the United States imported from there in 2023, that’s just a tiny share of overall crude imports. Colombia accounted for more than a third of the total nursery stock imports and about 20 percent of coffee imports, according to the Census Bureau. That could mean more expensive coffee and flowers ahead of Valentine’s Day.

While the U.S. economy is a vastly bigger market than Colombia’s, it is also likely to feel some pain if the tariffs do get imposed. The industries most likely to be affected are agriculture and suppliers of the raw materials that are the building blocks of industry. U.S. makers of petroleum products, for instance, did about $2.5 billion in business with Colombia in 2023. The next most valuable annual exports to the country were corn ($1.2 billion) and chemicals ($1 billion).

Politics

After raucous first week in office, Donald Trump to keep his foot on the gas

Published

8 hours ago

January 26, 2025

Press Room

After raucous first week in office, Donald Trump to keep his foot on the gas

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Following a torrid first week in office, President Donald Trump does not have a very busy public schedule on Monday. That does not mean there won’t be plenty of action. The 47th president is known to spring major actions and announcements without much notice.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NEEDS MORE PLANES TO CARRY OUT DEPORTATIONS: REPORT

President Donald Trump speaks to the media after signing executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 23, 2025. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

The president starts off the week by attending a House GOP Conference meeting at Trump National Doral Miami at a time to be determined. The GOP January retreat is an opportunity for Republicans to game-plan their approach to implementing their shared agenda with President Trump. Major policy initiatives that are likely to be addressed are the president’s sweeping border security and ongoing deportation initiatives, increasing domestic energy production and advancing a new tax plan.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Politico that he expects to have a “blueprint” for a massive reconciliation package in place after the retreat. The House Budget Committee, which is tasked with writing the instructions on the bill, is set to meet next week.

Johnson sent a letter to the president to address a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025. In the letter, Johnson wrote, “Your administration and the 119th Congress working together have the chance to make these next four years some of the most consequential in our nation’s history.”

He went on to write, “To that end, it is my distinct honor and great privilege to invite you to address a Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives, to share your America First vision for our legislative future. I eagerly await your response.”

SPEAKER JOHNSON INVITES TRUMP TO ADDRESS CONGRESS AMID BUSY FIRST 100-DAY SPRINT

House Speaker Mike Johnson and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands

House Speaker Mike Johnson shakes hands with President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 13, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Another event that is key to an early Trump priority will be a hearing at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation titled “Fees and Foreign Influence: Examining the Panama Canal and Its Impact on U.S. Trade and National Security.” The committee is headed by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

In his inaugural address, Trump said, “China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to visit Panama this week. According to the State Department, the trip will include visits to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Confirmation hearings continue in the Senate this week with Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kelly Loeffler and Kash Patel all appearing.

Continued immigration and deportation activities are expected to continue with border czar Tom Homan and the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, traveling to Chicago on Sunday to witness the stepped-up enforcement actions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Politics

Trump punishes Colombia for refusing entry to deportation flights

Published

9 hours ago

January 26, 2025

Press Room

Trump punishes Colombia for refusing entry to deportation flights

WASHINGTON — Facing another early challenge to his immigration policies, President Trump on Sunday ordered a 25% tariff on exports from Colombia and a travel ban on Colombian officials and “their supporters” as punishment for the country’s refusal to accept military deportation flights from the U.S.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump declared on social media.

Colombia’s action came as numerous countries in Latin America are attempting to figure out how to deal with the week-old Trump administration, pledging cooperation on some immigration issues but also seeking fair treatment and respect for their own national sovereignty.

Media reports in the U.S. quoted Pentagon officials as saying Mexico also denied landing permission to a deportation flight late last week. While Mexico did not explicitly confirm or deny the action, its Foreign Ministry emphasized its spirit of continued cooperation with the U.S. President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would address the matter Monday.

Nevertheless, tensions are high in Mexico, the country that is the largest source of U.S.-bound migrants and where tens of thousands are becoming stranded as Trump ends amnesty and other legal-entry programs.

Both Colombia and Mexico in the past accepted some deportation flights but may be reacting now to Trump’s threats to increase the number exponentially and include more third-country migrants. Some in the region are also unnerved by the switch from civilian aircraft to U.S. military planes used in the deportations.

Trump said he would raise the tariffs on all Colombian goods coming to the U.S. to 50% after one week if flights are not allowed. While Colombia is not high on the list of the region’s traders with the U.S., exporting only about $16 billion in goods, coffee is among its top commodities. It also exports roses and other fresh-cut flowers, used widely in the U.S. on holidays like Valentines Day.

He also said he was revoking U.S. visas from various members of the Colombian government, putting visa restrictions on tens of thousands of other Colombians, enhancing customs and border inspections on people and cargo from Colombia and imposing a raft of unspecified financial and banking sanctions.

Trump’s wrath came in response to actions by Gustavo Petro, the left-leaning president of Colombia, who is dealing with his own immigration crisis: the arrival of massive numbers of people fleeing neighbor Venezuela.

“I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia,” Trump wrote. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”

The two military C-17 aircraft departed San Diego with about 80 migrants and headed for Colombia before being turned around, officials said.

With Trump’s rise to power, Petro made a brief attempt at avoiding confrontation, but that seems to have vanished.

Also writing on social media, Petro earlier Sunday did not rule out allowing the repatriation of Colombian nationals but said the process had to be “dignified.”

“The U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants like criminals,” Petro wrote. “I am denying the entry of United States airplanes with Colombian migrants to our territory. The U.S. must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.”

He later said he would offer his presidential plane to pick up Colombian deportees to avoid them being left stranded and stateless. He also suggested he would impose a 25% tariff on U.S. exports.

The defiance from Latin America comes ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip later this week to the region, his first as Trump’s top diplomat. Neither Colombia nor Mexico are on his itinerary, although immigration will be on his agenda, especially in Panama, Guatemala and El Salvador.

He is expected to press the countries to accept deportees. In Panama, the topic of Trump’s desire to seize the Panama Canal will also dominate discussions. (The other countries he will visit are Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.)

Throughout the region, Rubio is also hoping to begin to counter China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence.

Guatemala on Friday allowed three U.S. flights — two military and one charter — to land there carrying 265 expelled migrants. And Brazil allowed two flights last week but complained that returning migrants were shackled.

“President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of,” Rubio said in a terse statement reacting to Petro’s position on the flights. He said it was the responsibility of nations to take back their citizens who are in the United States without legal authorization.

But, he said, “Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air.”

Resistance to Trump’s immigration crackdown in which he has threatened to expel several million people, including some who are in the United States legally but temporarily, is percolating slowly as advocates and the courts grasp the exact nature of the administration’s plans.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sunday announced it had launched long-anticipated raids in Chicago aimed at preserving “public safety and national security” by rounding up immigrants and “keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.” ICE teamed up with the FBI, U.S. Marshals and several other federal agencies.

The first challenge to Trump’s immigration plan came swiftly, when a federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to people born in the U.S. to noncitizens. Automatic, or birthright citizenship, is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The judge, a Reagan appointee based in Seattle, granted a stay in Trump officials’ attempt to enact the change in law.

Trump has portrayed the illegal entry of migrants over the southern U.S. border as an invasion. Although illegal crossings did rise early in the Biden administration, they fell sharply over the last year, with current levels the lowest they’ve been since Trump left office.

The White House made a big splash of the start of the deportation flights, although thousands of such deportations took place under Biden, albeit not with military participation.

Will Freeman, an expert on Colombia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Petro will eventually be forced to back down but seems to want the fight for now.

“I can’t think of many *worse* strategic blunders for the U.S., as it competes w/ China, than going nuclear against its oldest strategic ally & last big country in S. America where it enjoys a trade advantage,” Freeman said on social media.

“Colombia becomes a testing ground for the threat-forward approach to Latin America,” he added. “Colombians lose out, & so will the U.S. vis-a-vis China.”

Times staff writer Patrick McDonnell in Mexico City contributed to this report.