America has a big problem: Gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is the changing of political lines in order to further a political goal. Now, it might sound difficult to win extra seats based off of drawing the lines. If a state is 50% Democrats and 50% Republicans, and you make one seat more Republican, another seat has to become more Democratic right? In reality, it's more complex than just that. To begin, we have to understand two things about gerrymandering. One is that communities are split into tiny portions called "precincts", and different precincts have different voter compositions. This occurs due to "self-sorting", which is the tendency of people to live among others who have similar views, or have similar interests. Self-sorting can be unintentional or intentional. Intentionally choosing to live in a conservative community is just as much self-sorting as is choosing to live in a rich community that happens to be conservative.