We’ve been calling out the Democrats’ outrage over Republican redistricting in Texas for what it is: blatant hypocrisy. You’ve got Texas Democrats fleeing to Illinois—arguably one of the most aggressively gerrymandered states in the nation—while blue-state governors in already rigged states promise to gerrymander even harder. The level of hypocrisy is staggering. And no one deserves the spotlight more than Barack Obama, who recently condemned Texas Republicans for a so-called “power grab” that he claims threatens democracy.
What makes Obama’s criticism especially galling is that his entire political career owes a debt to gerrymandering.
Obama’s rise wasn’t some natural outpouring of talent or voter will—it was carefully engineered through a gerrymandered map drawn by a Democratic consultant, designed to hand him a politically safe district on a silver platter.
This isn’t conspiracy theory or speculation; it’s a documented fact, exposed in a 2012 ProPublica article that laid bare how Obama’s early power base in Chicago wasn’t built on genuine grassroots support, but on the calculated lines of a rigged district.
As the article detailed, after a stinging defeat in 1999 when Obama challenged incumbent Bobby Rush in a heavily African-American district, the political establishment came to his rescue.
In 1999, Obama suffered a serious defeat when he tried to take on longtime South Side Congressman Bobby Rush, who represents a district that is more than 62 percent African-American.
Two years later, with the Democrats in control of Illinois redistricting, Obama was apparently able to reshape his state senate district to his own specifications, which included drawing in wealthy supporters from Chicago’s Gold Coast.
John Corrigan, the Democrat who helped draw the map alongside Obama, revealed the scheme in an interview with the New Yorker back in 2008.
“Corrigan remembers two things about the district that he and Obama drew. First, it retained Obama’s Hyde Park base — he had managed to beat Rush in Hyde Park — then swooped upward along the lakefront and toward downtown. By the end of the final redistricting process, his new district bore little resemblance to his old one,” Ryan Lizza wrote. “Rather than jutting far to the west, like a long thin dagger, into a swath of poor black neighborhoods of bungalow homes, Obama’s map now shot north, encompassing about half of the Loop, whose southern portion was beginning to be transformed by developers like Tony Rezko and stretched far up Michigan Avenue and into the Gold Coast, covering much of the city’s economic heart, its main retail thoroughfares, and its finest museums, parks, skyscrapers, and lakefront apartment buildings.”
ICYMI: Democrats Aren’t Hiding It Anymore: They Plan to Rig the System
As Lizza pointed out, while African-Americans remained the majority and the district still included some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, Obama’s newly drawn district was fundamentally transformed—it became wealthier, whiter, more Jewish, less blue-collar, and far better educated. It even encompassed one of the city’s highest concentrations of Republicans.
“It was a radical change,” Corrigan admitted—a deliberate, calculated shift that reshaped the district’s entire political and social makeup—all for Obama.
This “radical change” was no accident. It was a strategic political engineering feat that padded Obama’s campaign coffers, broadened his voter appeal, and gave him a safer, more prestigious seat. Suddenly, the political landscape looked far more favorable for Obama, setting him up flawlessly for his successful 2004 U.S. Senate run. It was, in fact, the cornerstone moment of his early career.
Lizza called the gerrymandering effort “perhaps the most important event in Obama’s early political life,” since it provided the crucial financial and political backing that launched his 2004 Senate campaign—and ultimately paved his path to the White House.
So there you have it: Barack Obama’s entire political career—and the fortune he now has— come down to gerrymandering. While he lectures others about “power grabs” and “threats to democracy,” his rise was engineered through rigged maps and backroom deals designed to protect and further his own interests and sideline genuine voter influence. This isn’t just about one election or one state—it’s a pattern of hypocrisy that defines his entire political legacy, and that of his party.
Barack Obama’s political career was no accident—it was built on a gerrymandered district designed to ensure his rise, yet he hypocritically attacks Texas Republicans for the same tactic. PJ Media uncovers truths Big Media won’t touch. Become a PJ Media VIP member today using code FIGHT for 60% off and enjoy ad-free browsing plus member-only insights. Stand with us in exposing the lies—join now!
