24
RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE
Opinion of the Court
party’s advantage may be shown through sensitivity testing: probing how a plan would perform under other plausible electoral conditions.” Brief for Appellees League of
Women Voters of North Carolina et al. in No. 18–422,
p. 55. See also 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 885. Experience proves
that accurately predicting electoral outcomes is not so
simple, either because the plans are based on flawed
assumptions about voter preferences and behavior or
because demographics and priorities change over time. In
our two leading partisan gerrymandering cases themselves, the predictions of durability proved to be dramatically wrong. In 1981, Republicans controlled both houses
of the Indiana Legislature as well as the governorship.
Democrats challenged the state legislature districting map
enacted by the Republicans. This Court in Bandemer
rejected that challenge, and just months later the Democrats increased their share of House seats in the 1986
elections. Two years later the House was split 50–50
between Democrats and Republicans, and the Democrats
took control of the chamber in 1990. Democrats also
challenged the Pennsylvania congressional districting
plan at issue in Vieth. Two years after that challenge
failed, they gained four seats in the delegation, going from
a 12–7 minority to an 11–8 majority. At the next election,
they flipped another Republican seat.
Even the most sophisticated districting maps cannot
reliably account for some of the reasons voters prefer one
candidate over another, or why their preferences may
change. Voters elect individual candidates in individual
districts, and their selections depend on the issues that
matter to them, the quality of the candidates, the tone of
the candidates’ campaigns, the performance of an incumbent, national events or local issues that drive voter turnout, and other considerations. Many voters split their
tickets. Others never register with a political party, and
vote for candidates from both major parties at different