Howie Carr: Time to gerrymander in New England!
Gerrymandering remains a contentious issue in U.S. politics, particularly highlighted by the recent circumstances surrounding the representation of New England voters. In the 2024 presidential election, approximately 3.1 million people in the six New England states cast their votes for Donald Trump, accounting for nearly 41% of the electorate. Despite this significant support, the Republican Party holds no seats in the region’s 21-member congressional delegation. Instead, Democrats, who garnered 59% of the vote, occupy all 21 seats. This stark disparity raises questions about the fairness of electoral representation and the implications of gerrymandering practices that effectively marginalize a substantial portion of the electorate.
The situation is further complicated by the case of Maine’s Rep. Jared Golden, who recently announced he will not seek re-election. Golden has represented Maine’s Second District, a region that has consistently voted Republican in recent elections, including Trump’s victories in 2016, 2020, and 2024. The district’s preference for Republican candidates is evident, as Trump won with 53.5% of the vote last year. However, Golden’s continued representation can be attributed to ranked-choice voting, a system that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Critics argue that this method can lead to convoluted outcomes that do not accurately reflect the electorate’s will, as exemplified by Golden’s initial election victory over Republican Bruce Poliquin in 2018, where the Democrats strategically introduced additional candidates to ensure a Democratic win through vote redistribution.
As the conversation around gerrymandering intensifies, it is essential to recognize its broader implications on democracy and representation. The article points to similar patterns in states like California and Illinois, where Republican representation has been significantly diminished despite substantial voter support. In California, for example, Trump received 38% of the vote, yet Republicans hold only nine of the 52 congressional seats. This trend raises critical concerns about the integrity of the electoral process and the extent to which partisan interests manipulate district boundaries to maintain political power. As discussions about democracy and representation continue, the stark reality of gerrymandering serves as a reminder of the challenges facing voters who seek a fair and equitable political landscape.
Can we talk about gerrymandering?
A year ago, in the six New England states, 3,095,520 people voted for Donald J. Trump.
That works out to just under 41% of the overall electorate.
Next statistic: New England has 21 of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Would you care to guess how many of those 21 Congressmen are Republicans, representing that 41% of the population that voted GOP for president in 2024?
The number of Republicans is zero. Democrats, with 59% of the voters, control 100% of the 21 seats.
Republicans, who are 41% of the voters, get zero percent of the seats.
Don’t Democrats claim to believe in, among so many other wonderful things, diversity, equity and inclusion?
How is basically gerrymandering 41% of New Englanders into political oblivion a celebration of DEI?
I bring this up today after the decision by Maine Democrat Rep. Jared Golden not to seek reelection. Since 2018, he has represented the Second District of Maine, the northern part of the state, which is basically a Republican district.
How Republican is the electorate of the Second? They voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. In Maine’s system of allocating electoral votes by Congressional district, the Maine Second gave Trump his only electoral votes in New England in the last three elections.
Last year Trump carried the Second with 53.5% of the vote.
So why does the Second have a Democrat Congressman?
The answer can be summed up in three words:
Ranked-choice voting.
Democrats have all kinds of ways to rig elections, and not just massive out-and-out fraud like in 2020. Mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, voting by illegals, felons (including the incarcerated), dead people, etc. etc.
And then there’s ranked-choice voting. In a nutshell, here’s how ranked-choice voting works. Democrats just keep counting and counting and recounting the votes until the worst Democrat wins.
The best description of ranked-choice voting came in 1948, in the movie “Key Largo.” Edward G. Robinson was brilliant in the role of Johnny Rocco, a Capone-like gangster reminiscing about how he used to get his corrupt stooges elected in the big city:
“Get my boys to bring the voters out. And then count the votes over and over again ‘til they added up right and he was elected.”
C’mon down, Jared Golden! It was 2018, and he was running against GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin. The Democrats knew they couldn’t beat Poliquin, so they put in… ranked-choice voting.
I could try to explain to you how it works, but what’s the point? Johnny Rocco summed it up decades before Democrats actually put it into practice. The fix is in, that’s all you need to know.
Bottom line: On election day 2018, Poliquin defeated Golden by 2,000 votes. But the Democrats had inserted two other candidates even more deranged than Golden, so Poliquin didn’t quite get a majority.
That opened the way for Democrats to keep counting the votes over and over again ‘til they added up right.
And that was the political end of the last Republican congressman, not just in Maine, but in New England.
Since then Golden has somehow hung on, buoyed by tens of millions in dark, Soros-type out-of-state funds. Politically, he’s a chameleon’s chameleon. In DC he took orders from Pelosi, then returned Down East, pretending to be a real Mainer.
That worked for him, until it didn’t. Democrats in Maine have become like Democrats everywhere else – they’re always looking for the flavor of the month, as long as it’s nuttier than the last one.
Look at their Senate candidate in Maine, Graham Platner, the self-proclaimed “working class” candidate who went to the la-de-da Hotchkiss School in Connecticut.
Jared Golden was a cutting-edge Democrat there for a while because he had a tattoo. Democrats truly believe a tattoo makes you “working class.” Now comes Graham Platner running for the US Senate. Platner too has a tattoo – a Nazi tattoo.
No wonder he’s 30 points ahead of the dreadful 78-year-old incumbent Democrat, Janet Mills.
Platner’s the flavor of the month. Tattoos good, Nazi tattoos better. Socialism good, Communism better. It’s a Democrat thing now. Pass the Kool-Aid.
So like Janet Mills, crackpot fellow traveler Jared Golden was getting muscled… from the left. His votes, like his tattoos, just weren’t insane enough anymore. A comrade was running in the primary against him.
And on the Republican side, Golden was facing former Gov. Paul LePage. Like Trump, LePage has carried the Second District every time he’s run (for governor). He doesn’t have any tattoos, but he does speak French. And he’s not a phony like Golden. Golden was 5 points down in the polls to LePage.
Golden was squeezed out, like the two Democrat senators who opposed doing away with the filibuster during the Biden junta. They’re gone now. Golden would do anything to stay in office, and did.
But ultimately, it wasn’t enough. The revolution eats its own, yet again. Robespierre could not be reached for comment.
Golden’s fate reminded me of how he slithered into office, and what it’s meant for the last six years – zero Republican representation in New England for 40% of the population. (Sorry, Sen. Susan Collins doesn’t count.)
Once the Schumer shutdown ends, regime-controlled media will again pivot back to the deranged Democrat gerrymandering going on in states like California and Illinois.
In California, nine of the 52 Congressional seats are held by Republicans – 17%. Trump got 38% of the vote in the Golden State. So Democrats just spent tens of millions of dollars to redistrict the number of Republicans down to four – 7%.
Democrats basically said they had to rig the districts to stop the district-rigging. You know, like in Vietnam they had to destroy the village to save the village.
It’s the same in all the Democrat states. In Illinois, Trump got 43.5% of the vote last year. The GOP has 3 of the 15 House seats – 17%. In the Land o’ Lincoln, Lincoln today would be an endangered species, thanks to Democrat gerrymandering.
Just remember these numbers, the next time you hear a Democrat talk about threats to democracy.
One man, one vote, unless you’re a Republican.
(Order Howie’s new book, “Mass Corruption: Vol. 1, The Cops,” at
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