Obama/Holder Group Targets All-G.O.P. States to Attack Gerrymandering
Mr. Holder said in an interview that the group was chiefly determined to deny Republicans so-called trifectas in state governments — places where a single party controls the governorship and an entire legislature, as Republicans do in Ohio and Florida, among other critical battlegrounds.
The group’s list of high-priority states includes most of the critical states in presidential elections. Mr. Obama, who has made redistricting a focus of his attention since leaving office, plans to visit some of those states in 2018, and Mr. Holder reviewed his strategy with the former president in Washington on Monday, aides said.
States at the top of the just-finalized target list include traditional purple states like Michigan and Wisconsin, where Republicans can currently design maps without Democratic input, and others — including Colorado, Minnesota and Nevada — where Democrats have significant influence in government but must defend it in the 2018 elections.
“From my perspective, success is if you break a trifecta,” Mr. Holder said, adding: “I don’t think that in December of 2018, you measure success only by whether you have assumed control of a particular state.”
Because of the broad authority Republicans hold in many states, and the favorable maps many Republican lawmakers have drawn for themselves, Mr. Holder said his group would spend money wherever Republicans appear to be vulnerable. In Ohio, that will mean pursuing not only the governorship but also the offices of state auditor and secretary of state, both of which play a role in shaping congressional maps. In Wisconsin and Florida, Mr. Holder’s group will help Democrats compete for the governorship and the State Senate majority.
In North Carolina, where there is a Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, but Republicans have control of the legislature by vast margins, the redistricting committee hopes to shave seats off the current Republican supermajorities.
Mr. Holder said he would campaign aggressively himself in some of these races, beginning with an election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court this spring. Both he and Mr. Obama will focus heavily on mobilizing African-American voters, Mr. Holder said.
The strategy has the potential to inject a new volume of money, on the Democratic side, into typically low-profile elections. Mr. Holder said the group has raised more than $16 million out of a previously announced $30 million goal, but it has not disclosed how much cash it has on hand.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/politics/democrats-gerrymandering-election-maps.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
info on what AG Holder and President Obama are up to on gerrymandering, Randy
And, "mobilizing African American Voters"
Thank you President Obama and Mr Holder. 
Actually, we have a fairly good system for districting. We use a tri-partite panel of one D, one R, and one judge (who is hopefully non-partisan). Our congressional districts are fairly rational overall and generally follow demographics.
It's really demographics and Repub over-reach that drove the flipping of our State House.
