they do the census, state legislators get to redraw election districts. in the lead-up to the 2010 midterm election, red map starting raising money to flip districts, to flip legislative seats, to approach that whole problem systematically. they raised a little over $30 million and that's a lot of money. it's not a ton of money for a political project. but here's the genius. instead of pumping that $30 million into high-profile senate and congressional districts and all of the big races, instead, they put all of that money into states where the legislators would have the most control over the redistricting process that was going to happen after the census. they focused scientifically on finding flipable seats in key legislatures around the country and because they were obscure races, they had to spend very little money to flip these seats. they flipped a bunch of these seemingly obscure seats in places like new york where they ended up losing control at the new york state senate and alabama, where they flipped the house and the senate from democratic control to republican