lose their seats. “It’s such a quandary,” says Akilah Ensley, a strategist. “Black voters are the base of the party and we just got freedom in my parents’ lifetime”. The real loser of Callais is neither political party, but democracy itself. The danger of this judicially-inspired redistricting bonanza is not just that black Americans have less of a say. The more safe seats are drawn up, the less changes in the national mood will swing results—leaving Americans who vote differently from their state’s majority voiceless. It is in the country’s interest for both parties to negotiate a truce. But there is not nearly enough goodwill in Washington to dream of it. ■ Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and Balance, a weekly note that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//united-states/2026/05/07/the-supreme-court-has- unleashed-the-gerrymanderers
“Midwest Nice” is no match for presidential petty In Indiana, Donald Trump takes his revenge May 7th 2026 “You have to be mindful if there are breaks in the ranks. You have to be vigilant.” So says Marty Obst, a Republican operative in Indiana and enforcer for the president. Last summer Mr Obst was tasked with pushing a gerrymandered congressional map through Indiana’s Republican-held statehouse. Had it passed, it would have drawn Democrats out of existence in the state congressional delegation. But unlike in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and, most recently, Tennessee, where lawmakers dutifully complied, Republicans in Indiana balked. Naturally Donald Trump turned to retribution. What followed was a scorched-earth effort to punish seven obscure Republican lawmakers who voted against the map. In the primary on May
5th, at least five lost to challengers backed by the president. He may be more unpopular than ever but, among the MAGA base, his endorsement matters. Success in Indiana will only deepen his appetite for fealty pledges and intraparty purges. Mr Trump’s next targets include Bill Cassidy, a senator from Louisiana, and Thomas Massie, a congressman from Kentucky. Both face Trump-endorsed opponents later this month. What differentiates Indiana was the small-potatoes-ness of it. These are part- time lawmakers who make $33,000 a year and handle campaign business from their Gmails. Yet Mr Trump was aggrieved enough to deploy Chris LaCivita, an adviser to his presidential campaign, and involve Club for Growth, a conservative Super PAC that normally plays at the national level. Mr Trump’s intervention initiated an arms race—in total, $13.5m was spent on ads, up from a few hundred thousand dollars in years past. Dan Dernulc, an incumbent who lost his primary, had always been “Trump, Trump, Trump”. But he took umbrage at the idea that he should support a gerrymandering scheme cooked up in Washington outside the normal once- a-decade redistricting process. “The problem was, I never had any input into this,” he says. Not that Republicans in Indiana oppose gerrymandering in the abstract. In fact, they are experts at it: 20 years ago Democrats held five of the state’s nine congressional seats. Today they hold two even as their vote share is 38%. Patrick Munsey, a journalist in Kokomo, describes the general M.O. like this: “We’ll gerrymander the crap out of our districts when it’s time.” Having seen their colleagues’ fate, lawmakers in Indianapolis may decide that the time is next year, not 2030. Certainly other red states will plough ahead, aided by the Supreme Court’s gutting on April 29th of the Voting Rights Act, which had kept gerrymandering in check. Republicans in Alabama and South Carolina want to eliminate Democratic districts before the midterms. Louisiana and Tennessee are already doing that. Until the court set off this most recent scramble, the gerrymandering wars had looked like a draw. Now Republicans might have the edge. In Indiana, their willingness to buck the president was a win for institutionalists. Randy Niemeyer, a Republican county chair, says MAGA operatives in Washington had assumed redistricting would be a slam dunk.
He told them no: Indiana may be full of Republicans, but it is not full of ideologues. Good sense, fair play and independence matter. “Indiana is Midwest Nice,” he says. In the end that was no match for presidential petty. ■ Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and Balance, a weekly note that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//united-states/2026/05/06/midwest-nice-is-no-match-for- presidential-petty
Foreign firms: have you considered America? A report from the basement of the SelectUSA Investment Summit May 7th 2026 “The united states ranks first in the Kearney Global FDI Confidence Index,” reads a 20-foot-tall banner hanging outside the Potomac ballroom of the Gaylord convention centre at National Harbour, Maryland. “This is the 14th year in a row!” Another boasted that America has the largest number of quantum startups; a third that America has the highest levels of venture- capital investment in the world. “That’s serious fuel for innovation!” it adds. The banners hint at how weird the 2026 SelectUSA Investment Summit was. Then Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, took to the stage to explain that America has lots of consumers and deep capital markets. Among those listening, from the VIP section, sat the delegations from Burkina Faso and Panama.
All this raised more questions than it answered: what business people, anywhere, do not know that America—the world’s biggest economy—is dynamic, innovative and awash with capital? Are they learning this, for the first time, at the Gaylord? And why is America putting on a show to woo foreign investment, in part, from nations with economies smaller than four- fifths of its states? The conflab made more sense in the cavernous exhibition hall below, where 49 states plus Washington, DC, along with territories, cities and local- government officials—many manning booths the size of houses—were swapping business cards with the foreign business people. The purpose of the summit is only clear when you zoom in a little bit: TSMC, the giant Taiwanese semiconductor firm, can broker deals in Washington any time it chooses. But the small Indian manufacturers of advanced robots, who are looking to onshore some of their assembly process to avoid tariffs, might have to ping-pong all over America to understand where best to locate their factory. At SelectUSA they can visit (almost) every state at once. But where should they go? Many states offered snacks to tempt would-be investors. Your correspondent sampled gummy bears made in Indiana (number one for passthrough highways!); salmon jerky from Alaska (located within nine hours of 90% of the industrialised world, good for shipping!) and sipped Ale-8-One, a citrus ginger soda, from Kentucky (number one for air cargo by landed weight!). The summit was founded in 2013 to encourage reshoring. Despite the snacks, headline FDI inflows are lower as a share of GDP than they were then.■ Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and Balance, a weekly note that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//united-states/2026/05/07/foreign-firms-have-you- considered-america
Young men are souring on Donald Trump But can Democrats win them over? May 7th 2026 WHEN IT comes to making a show of manliness, few politicians can match Donald Trump. One day he is swaggering into a cage-fighting stadium to the tune of Kid Rock’s “American Badass”. Another day he is shrugging off a third assassination attempt with the observation that only the “most impactful” presidents attract would-be assassins. Voters have long thought of Republicans as the “daddy” party (strong on defence, tough on crime) and the Democrats as more maternal (nurturing the needy, fussing about mean words). Asked which is more the party of men, Americans are almost seven times likelier to say “Republicans” than “Democrats”.
Mr Trump has added to this vibe with braggadocious appeals to the male id. On social media he portrays himself as dominant, victorious and humorously transgressive. His administration’s posts blend real footage from the war in Iran with images from video games. In his three runs for office, Mr Trump has always won the male vote and always won overall when his opponent was a woman. A study by Dan Cassino of Fairleigh Dickinson University found that, after voting for Trump in 2024, men actually reported feeling more masculine. Yet his macho magic appears to be fading, especially among young men. In 2024 49% of men aged 18-29 voted for him. Now only 28% approve of him, finds a Harvard/IOP poll. Virile vibes are all very well, but young men have practical concerns, too. They often want to find a job, buy a home, attract a partner and raise a family. This is especially true of young men who voted for Mr Trump; in an NBC poll they ranked “having children” as their top life goal. (Young women who voted for Kamala Harris ranked it second-last out of 13 options.) The trouble is, homes and families cost money. Mr Trump said he would “make America affordable again” by ending inflation and even making prices fall. Yet his tariffs and war in Iran have had the opposite effect. “Everything’s expensive,” complains Miguel Martinez, a 21-year-old restaurant worker in Flowery Branch, Georgia. “You can’t even go inside the grocery store right now and not spend $80.” Mr Martinez works two jobs and lives with his parents. He wants to get a place of his own, but prices are “crazy”. He sees memes online about the older generation paying “basically nothing for a house”, which does nothing for his mood. He voted for Mr Trump in 2024, but come the midterms in November, he won’t be pulling the lever for anyone. Souring on Mr Trump need not imply loving the Democrats. On the contrary, many young men feel spurned by them. For years, the party’s message to them sounded like “hey, the future is not you,” laments Josh Thomas, a Democratic state lawmaker in Virginia. Democrats can seem eager to talk about the problems men cause, but not the ones they face. “There’s kind of a hesitancy for some Democrats to campaign on those issues, because they don’t want to appear as, like, a dude or a bro,” says a