A new kind of political battle is emerging between America’s parties — one centered on the composition of Congress and congressional redistricting. This process usually occurs every decade, after the US Census finishes its work and releases new demographic information that states use to reconfigure how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the 50 states.
But this month, Texas Republicans are scrambling those norms.
Republican lawmakers have begun fielding proposals for the GOP-controlled legislature to redraw their congressional maps in the middle of the decade to give the national party an advantage in the 2026 midterm elections.
It’s a blatant power play — jump-started by President Donald Trump’s desire to offset potential losses next year and win a bigger Republican majority in the House for the second half of his term. At the moment, it looks likely that Republicans might lose some ground in Congress, as has been the trend for presidents’ parties for the last 70 years.
This mid-decade redistricting effort is not the first time Texas Republicans have aggressively gerrymandered seats to boost their party’s representation in Congress, but it is abnormal for redistricting to happen this early, or as a direct response to a president’s wishes to gain an electoral advantage. And it doesn’t seem like Texas will be the only Republican-controlled state to try this.
This sudden gamesmanship is forcing national and state-level Democrats to consider their own tit-for-tat, mid-decade redistricting efforts — and to confront a harsh reality. Many Democrats lack the political will to bend norms in response to these Republican efforts. And those who do will face steep legal and political obstacles, including from their own party.
Still, that isn’t stopping some Democratic leaders from becoming more vocal. Govs. Kathy Hochul of New York and Phil Murphy of New Jersey have said they are willing to consider mirroring Texas Republicans’ moves. And California Gov. Gavin Newsom will announce his plan to respond to Texas Friday afternoon.
How Republicans are pressing their advantage
Republicans have the upper hand on redistricting. In the majority of states across the country, state legislatures have the primary control and power to draw district lines. That includes the three states where Republicans have signaled they will try to redraw maps before the 2026 midterms — Texas, Ohio, and Missouri — all in which the GOP has unified control of the legislature and the governor’s office.
Through redistricting these states alone, Republicans would be able to gain enough seats to secure a majority after midterm elections. They’d gain about five seats in Texas, anywhere from one to three seats in Ohio, and one seat in Missouri. Republicans currently have a three-seat majority in the House, as a result of resignations and deaths, which shrinks to a two-seat majority if all those vacancies are filled.
And there are still more Republican-run states that could be tapped. As Punchbowl News reported this week, five Democratic-held seats could be threatened in Florida if Gov. Ron DeSantis agrees to a mid-decade redraw. And New Hampshire’s governor, Kelly Ayotte, could still be convinced by the White House to consider state Republicans’ past plans to create another Republican-friendly seat in the state.
Other Republican-leaning states — like Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska — are limited from redrawing maps before 2026 by Democratic governors, more moderate Republican legislators and state courts, or the fact that their legislatures aren’t in session.
Democrats in the three states that will likely create new GOP seats have few options to resist or block redraws. In Texas, Democrats have considered boycotting or preventing the legislature from voting by leaving the state — though Republicans are trying to force them to participate by delaying a vote on flood disaster relief and recovery funding until after their redistricting effort passes. Democrats in Ohio and Missouri have no similar leverage.
That leaves out-of-state Democrats as the next line of defense. But they face obstacles there.
Democrats are limited by their own advocacy
Democrats hoping to strike back have many fewer options. They’re limited by the number of states they control, the way those states handle redistricting, and the political will of legislators who view this kind of redistricting as beyond the pale.
Democrats have unified control in 15 states, out of which they could probably only gain seats in about nine states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington. But politicians trying to redraw districts in any of these states will face steep hurdles.
In California, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, and Washington, independent or bipartisan commissions have the power to draw congressional maps, not state legislatures. Those commissions were set up after years of bipartisan advocacy for fair representation and liberal activism for better government accountability and transparency. They are enshrined by state law or were set up by state ballot measures, and would require constitutional amendments, a statewide referendum, or court challenges to return redistricting power to the state legislature.
That includes California — the state with the largest population — where Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to retaliate at Texas by forcing a state referendum or legislation to redraw districts to give Democrats a five- to seven-seat boost. Newsom hasn’t yet presented a solid case or plan for how he’d go about doing this, however. And he faces bipartisan opposition to his idea.
Other states essentially have prohibitions on mid-decade or early redistricting efforts, Dan Vicuña, a redistricting expert at the government accountability organization Common Cause, told me. The state constitutions of Washington and New Jersey, Vicuña said, contain provisions that limit redistricting to the year immediately following the census, and limit intervention before that time.
That leaves Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, and Oregon as the Democratic states where early redistricting could likely be accomplished with fewer obstacles. Already, some Maryland Democrats are signaling they would try to squeeze one more Democratic seat by redrawing their district lines. National Democrats have said they’ll try to gain a seat in Minnesota, though they’ll have to wait until state Democrats regain their majority in the senate, where a Democratic lawmaker resigned this week, tying the chamber.
Democrats may have no choice but to try redistricting
For as much bluster as Democrats are making about trying to retaliate, Republicans are actually taking the steps to do early redistricting. Congressional Democrats, for now, are trying to build support among governors and state lawmakers to engage in this political back-and-forth.
According to CNN, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his advisers are exploring legal ways to redraw maps in California, New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, and Washington, but those details have yet to be made public. Some Texas state Democrats, meanwhile, traveled to California and Illinois on Friday to discuss GOP redistricting with the Democratic governors there.
But to stay in the game, Democrats may have to abandon their own rules.
The Trump-era GOP has shown their willingness to push the bounds of political norms and bend institutions. There are valid, long-term concerns about what this kind of ad-hoc redistricting will mean for elections and trust in government in the future — what Vicuña described as a “race to the bottom” — but Democrats, at least in Congress, are accepting that playing fair, or by old norms, isn’t enough.
Update, July 25, 12:30 pm ET: This article has been updated on July 23 with news of Texas Democrats’ travel to California and Illinois, as well as news from California and New York’s governors.
