The former Attorney General Eric Holder warns Democrats not to be overconfident following their triumph in Virginia’s elections.

On November 7th, in Washington, D.C., after delivering a speech to theCampaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, Eric Holder grabbed hisBlackberry in search of results from the Virginia elections. Asthe former Attorney General scrolled backward through a long e-mailthread, he quickly learned just how stunning a night it had been for theDemocrats. He also understood that, after this triumph, it might be alittle harder to keep his party focussed on gerrymandering.

“The system didn’t become more fair as a result of what happened lastnight,” Holder told me the next day. “The system appears to be morefair in spite of the reality that those Democratic candidates faced. Thejob that I have is to make sure people don’t become complacent.”

Holder has spent the past year tackling the once hopeless task of makingredistricting sexy. He leads the National Democratic RedistrictingCommittee, and its charge is nothing less than saving the Party’sprospects for the next decade. Big donors need to be convinced thatstate legislative races matter as much as the Presidency; congressionalleaders, desperate to retake the House in 2018, need to recognize thatlong-term down-ballot success is crucial to unlocking future majorities.These are not easy arguments to pursue with politicians who are narrowlyfocussed on their next election. It’s even harder when they believe thatan electoral wave—one like last Tuesday’s—rather than sacrifice,compromise, and planning, will save them.

“Their professional lives are going to be a little less certain,” Holdersaid. “But Democrats can’t go through another decade like the decade weare in now. In another decade, Republicans could solidify this in such away that, well, you’d be talking about such structural changes that I’mnot sure we could overcome even when you get to 2031.”