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📰 Above the fold
Utah’s new congressional map—approved by a judge in the gerrymandering case—gives Democrats a real shot at flipping a GOP-held seat in the 2026 midterms. Republicans call it a Democratic gerrymander in a deep‑red state. The numbers say it’s significantly fairer than the 2021 plan.
According to Inside Elections, the baseline partisanship measure of the congressional map approved by lawmakers in 2021 gave a Republican candidate a built-in advantage of anywhere between 24 and 34 points - making it near impossible for a Democrat to win any of Utah’s congressional seats.
The new court-ordered map turns one district to D+14. The other three remain safely Republican at R+38 to R+47.
Source: Inside Elections
Another way to gauge gerrymandering is the efficiency gap, which compares each party’s “wasted” votes—ballots beyond what the winner needs to reach a majority, plus all votes for the loser. A neutral map would have an efficiency gap near zero. Higher numbers are an indicator of a biased map.
Using the 2024 presidential election results, the previous congressional map had an efficiency gap of R+28, making it one of the most biased congressional maps passed during the last redistricting cycle. By contrast, the efficiency gap on the new map is just R+6.
Republicans still dominate Utah, but Democrats now have a realistic path to win in one district.