How redrawing congressional districts can affect results
Spectrum News talks to UC expert about Ohio gerrymandering
Spectrum News turned to a University of Cincinnati political science expert to explain the stakes of new congressional map the Ohio General Assembly is preparing for the 2026 elections.
The map decides the geographic boundaries for each of Ohio's 15 districts, traditionally after the U.S. Census reapportions districts by state population every 10 years. The districts can be apportioned based on geography, common economic interests and other factors. And how they are drawn can significantly advantage a particular party, known as gerrymandering.
UC College of Arts and Sciences Professor David Niven said gerrymandering sometimes creates districts that have less in common economically or geographically.
“Four runs all the way from the outskirts of the Cleveland metropolitan area all the way over to the outskirts of the Dayton metropolitan area, and the problem with that, of course, is the folks at either end of these districts don’t have a heck a lot in common,” Niven told Spectrum News.
Niven teaches political science in UC's School of Public and International Affairs. He said more states are opting to put the task of drawing up maps in the hands of an independent commission. Ohio voters rejected such a proposal in November.
“States including Michigan and Colorado have chosen to use an independent redistricting commission, which basically means two things: One, politicians don’t draw their own lines and two, those commissions are balanced by parties so that neither party can choose the map.”
Watch the Spectrum News story.
Featured image at top: UC Professor David Niven is following Ohio's congressional redistricting for 2026. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC
Ohio's congressional map. Graphic/Ohio Secretary of State
Related Stories
UC professor leads film students to the future
April 6, 2026
As a kid, at the age of 10, Marty Schiff’s dad gave him a Kodak Brownie movie camera, and that led to a lifetime of creating stories on film. He spent his summers with that camera, making eight-millimeter movies, with a camera that taught him how to thread a projector, change the film in a closet, and tell stories with the medium he loved. “I always wanted to go to Hollywood,” Schiff says. So later he did, with $200 in his pocket, and began a career that has spanned acting, directing, producing—pretty much everything with the exception of costumes (“I’m not really good with a sewing machine,” he says).
High Court offers protections for therapy speech
April 5, 2026
Jennifer Bard, a professor in the Donald P. Klekamp College of Law and the UC Department of Internal Medicine, spoke with journalists about the US Supreme Court ruling granting first amendment protections for speech offered during therapy sessions.
Scientists discover how snakes stand upright without limbs
April 3, 2026
Smithsonian magazine highlights a study co-authored by UC Professor Bruce Jayne, an expert in snake locomotion, about how snakes stand upright without arms or legs.