JD Vance Schools NBC’s Kristen Welker on Gerrymandering

During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, JD Vance defended Texas’ new congressional map that should hand Republicans another five seats in the House of Representatives. 

Vance argued to Welker that redistricting efforts in the state are meant to balance years of aggressive gerrymandering in Democrat-controlled states.

“First of all, Kristen, you have to ask yourself why have Democrats gerrymandered their states aggressively in the past 10 to 20 years,” Vance said. “If you look, for example, at the popular vote in a lot of these states, in Massachusetts, where 32% of the residents of Massachusetts voted for Republicans, zero Republican federal representatives.”

He continued, “All we’re doing frankly is trying to make the situation a little bit more fair on a national scale. The Democrats have gerrymandered their states really aggressively. We think there’s opportunities to push back against that, and that’s really all we’re doing.”

He also pointed out that illegal aliens being counted in the census is giving blue states more representation at the expense of red states.

“We had way fewer House seats than we should have. One, if the Democrats hadn’t aggressively gerrymandered. And two, if illegal aliens were not counted in the census for purposes of apportioning congressional seats,” Vance pointed out. 

“The best estimates I’ve seen is that California, for example, has five additional congressional seats than it should have because they count illegal aliens for the purpose of apportioning representatives. Meanwhile, Ohio, my home state, lost a representative. We’re literally losing representatives for American citizens in order to give congressional representation to illegal aliens.”