"As a Green, you want to draw up districts such that Green politicians win with 55% of the vote—with some room for error, but not all that much—and for Orange politicians to win with 100% of the vote.
SIMPLICIO: Ah, so that the Orange politicians won’t need to be responsive to Orange voters because their re-election is nearly guaranteed, right?"
Did Simplicio mean to say GREEN politicians? The gerrymandering arrangement sets the bar lower for Greens to win (55%) than Oranges (100%), so Green re-election is what's nearly guaranteed.
No, Simplicio means Orange politicians. All districts are 'safe,' in that the majority party in the district is likely to win. But the orange districts are extremely safe--so much so that one expects the orange politicians to become out of touch with their voters. The theory is that competition is what forces politicians to actual pay attention to what voters care about, and to steal issues from other politicians that might be generally popular.
Like ChristianKl points out, this mostly ignores primaries, but note that even in primaries the Orange politicians only really need to care about internecine Orange issues, rather than developing a nationally relevant platform. If they have the power to knock potential contenders out of the Orange party, this means they they can route around the voters entirely. (Attempts by the Greens to do this in 55% Green districts would lead to a Green loss.)
2ChristianKl
Individual politicians care about getting elected in addition to caring about their party having the majority. The gerrymandering means that in the district of an orange politician you would get 90% oranges if that would be possible to gerrymander.
In practice EY ignores that there are primaries. Orange politicians do have to face primary challengers and pander to their base. This means that there are forces to have more extreme orange politicians than you would otherwise get.
Could someone help me understand this section?
Did Simplicio mean to say GREEN politicians? The gerrymandering arrangement sets the bar lower for Greens to win (55%) than Oranges (100%), so Green re-election is what's nearly guaranteed.