A massive week in the battle for control of the House

IN THIS EDITION

Illinois and SCOTUS drive big week for redistricting

Thune tries to mix things up with DOD spending bill

Sununu inches closer to creating contested N.H. primary

Johnson’s third quarter haul

ICYMI: McCormick on skilled labor, federal workers and retirement security

THE TOP

Illinois and SCOTUS drive big week for redistricting

Happy Wednesday morning.

This is Day 15 of the government shutdown. There’s no resolution in sight to the crisis.

House members are AWOL during this huge government-funding fight thanks to Speaker Mike Johnson, but there’s been an absolute deluge of action on the redistricting front.

The redistricting wars are the biggest story of the 2026 midterms as both parties race to draw as many favorable new seats as permitted under state and federal law. These power struggles between local politicians, congressional leaders, courts and the White House are playing out in a dozen states, as well as the halls of Congress.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today for a second time in a Louisiana redistricting case that could have huge implications for the 1965 Voting Rights Act and minority representation in Congress. The Congressional Black Caucus is holding a press conference on the case — Louisiana vs. Callais — this afternoon.

Let’s break down what’s happened in the past few days, state by state:

Illinois. We reported in Tuesday’s PM edition that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is making an aggressive late push to get Illinois lawmakers to pass a new congressional map during the next few weeks.

This is a power play by Jeffries, who has personally lobbied Illinois legislative leaders and worked to get the delegation on board with a map that nets Democrats one seat by drawing out Republican Rep. Mary Miller.

Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker is also supportive of adding more Democratic seats.

But it’s a big gamble. Illinois is already heavily gerrymandered and there’s a risk of potentially putting Democratic incumbents at risk by spreading out their voters.

“My comment right now is, ‘I love the district that I serve in, and I don’t want to see my district change,’” Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.) said.

The Illinois legislature will need to introduce a map soon because the candidate filing deadline is Nov. 3.

California. Democrats are feeling exceptionally optimistic about Proposition 50, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ballot measure to pause the state’s redistricting.

Democrats’ spending advantage in support of Prop 50 has swelled to $40 million on TV. Republicans have basically given up, going dark on air this week.

If Prop 50 passes, California’s new map gives Democrats up to five pickups. It’s crucial to Democrats to help neutralize the GOP’s new map in Texas, which would yield Republicans as many as five seats.

North Carolina. Tar Heel State Republicans announced Monday they’d redraw their map this fall. The goal is to nix one Democratic seat. Thanks to a series of court orders, North Carolina has had a new congressional map nearly every cycle for the last decade.

The N.C. delegation is currently 10 Republicans to four Democrats. We’d heard initially that Republicans were considering an aggressive map designed to elect 12 Republicans and two Democrats. But now it seems likely Republicans plan to draw out Democratic Rep. Don Davis, according to sources familiar with the plans.

Indiana. Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the Hoosier state on Friday is spurring more conversations about redistricting. Right now, all eyes are on Republican state legislators.

GOP Gov. Mike Braun is inclined to call a special session to advance a new map in the coming weeks, according to sources familiar with his thinking. But backers of the effort are still trying to shore up support from Indiana GOP state senators and House members.

Time is ticking for Braun to convene the special session in November. But the White House has been heavily invested in this effort. The GOP could try to pick up two red seats here, making it a state with more opportunity than some of Republicans’ other options.

Maryland. Maryland’s House delegation is currently seven Democrats to one Republican — House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris. A number of Harris’ Democratic colleagues want to make a map that’s eight to zero.

Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones (D) both would like to redistrict, but Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D) isn’t sold on it yet. There’s no decision on a special session at this time. Otherwise, Free State lawmakers don’t convene again until mid-January.

Utah. Republicans have launched a last-ditch effort to stop a court-ordered redraw from taking effect in 2026. A new map could net Democrats one seat, maybe even two. But Republicans can potentially thwart the map if they can collect tens of thousands of signatures by mid-November.

If they reach the signature threshold, the map passed by Utah’s legislature will be placed on the ballot and won’t take effect this cycle.

Supreme Court. What’s left of the Voting Rights Act is on trial today at the Supreme Court. An eventual ruling in this case could have a massive ripple effect on congressional maps across the Deep South and minority representation in the House.

SCOTUS is rehearing this challenge to Louisiana’s map, specifically whether the state legislature erred when it added a second majority-minority seat. A broad ruling is certainly possible and could mean the end of Section 2 of the VRA.

We’ll get a better sense of what the justices are thinking by their questions. Between six and 10 Democratic seats could be at risk under a broad ruling, especially in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia and South Carolina. But it gets difficult to draw too many more GOP-favored seats than that because of demographics and parochial politics.

There is some good news for Democrats. Even if a ruling comes in the next few months, it would likely be too late to affect the midterms.

— Ally Mutnick, John Bresnahan and Laura Weiss

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DAY 15

Thune tries to mix things up with DOD spending bill

As the government shutdown enters its third week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is shaking things up with a Thursday vote on the full-year FY2026 Defense Department funding bill.

It’s unclear if Senate Democrats will block the measure. Thune wants to make good on his promises for a bipartisan funding process. And a failed vote would allow Republicans to hammer Democrats for blocking a bill that would restore military paychecks.

But Democrats are looking to keep the shutdown fight focused on health care, with a key inflection point just two weeks away: The start of open enrollment.

“[Republicans] should be thinking about Nov. 1 as a time by which they need to have solved this,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told us.

Open enrollment. Starting Nov. 1, many Americans registering for new health care plans will see higher projected premiums for 2026. Democrats have said Nov. 1 is the effective deadline for congressional action on the expiring Obamacare enhanced premium tax credits. But Democratic leaders also believe missing that deadline will only ratchet up pressure on Republicans.

So blowing past the start of open enrollment isn’t likely to push Democrats to shift their strategy or give in to Republicans’ “clean” CR — a sign that this shutdown could drag well into November.

“It’s still not possible to stop the full impact of the rate increases after Nov. 1,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told us. “If we don’t deal with this before Nov. 1, it becomes trickier to solve legislatively, but the heat gets turned way up by the public to do something.”

This is a major gamble by Democrats, as GOP leaders are showing no signs of buckling. Thune and Senate Republican leaders are continuing to force vote after vote on the House-passed CR that funds the government until Nov. 21 — and now, a Thursday procedural vote on full-year Defense funding.

So Democrats are doubling down on their health care messaging.

“We’re gonna have to make the assessment on what’s going on… with people, with the voting public — how are they taking the fact that Republicans just doubled their premiums?” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said.

Thune’s appropriations move. Thune is clearly eager to pass full-year funding bills. He’s even nodding to the possibility of moving the CR end-date beyond Nov. 21 given how long the shutdown has lasted already.

“There’s an appetite to do other appropriations bills. We’ve said all along that’s our intention,” Thune told us. “We’re gonna see if the Dems want to help us do that.”

Democrats could very well filibuster the Thursday procedural vote, viewing it as an attempt to distract from health care.

Thune may try to package the defense appropriations bill with the Labor-HHS funding bill as a way to appeal to Democrats, an idea pushed by Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine). But that would require unanimous consent, and Thune isn’t likely to get that.

All eyes on Nov. 1. There are a few different things that can happen before the end of the month that could drive lawmakers to quickly end the shutdown, as we noted in Tuesday’s AM edition.

There’s also the next scheduled military payday, which is Oct. 31 — the day before open enrollment begins.

The Pentagon’s decision to cover troops’ paychecks this week by redirecting nearly $8 billion from its research and development account is only good for one pay period. It’s unclear whether the White House is eyeing another funding source for the next paycheck.

— Andrew Desiderio and Briana Reilly

GRANITE STATE

Sununu inches closer to creating contested N.H. primary

News: Former Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) will announce whether he’s running for Senate in the next two weeks, per multiple people familiar with his thinking. It’s widely expected Sununu will enter the race, but the former senator hasn’t made a final decision.

Republicans have been talking a big game about winning New Hampshire’s open Senate seat. But there’s a brutal looming GOP primary featuring Sununu and former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).

The attacks. Democrats have coalesced around Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.). Meanwhile, Brown has spent the past month hammering Sununu for opposing President Donald Trump.

Brown served as Trump’s ambassador to New Zealand during his first term.

“John was the original ‘never Trumper.’ He was going around the state campaigning for John Kasich,” Brown told the Pulse of NH on Sept. 4. While serving as a Kasich surrogate in the 2016 presidential primary, Sununu called Trump “crazy,” “repugnant” and “not presidential,” adding he “just makes things up.”

On Sept. 6, Brown went on Newsmax to remind viewers about Sununu’s January 2024 New Hampshire Union Leader op-ed, titled: “Donald Trump is a loser.” Sununu argued that Trump has “been directly responsible for loss after painful loss” in key elections by backing failing primary candidates.

Earlier in 2024, Sununu also criticized Trump’s reaction to the 2020 election as “completely inappropriate.”

The context. Before Sununu was interested in the race, Senate Republican leadership met with Brown in January and viewed him as a viable choice for the general election.

But we scooped last month that leadership-aligned One Nation circulated a polling memo presenting Sununu as the best-positioned Republican to take on Pappas. Sununu, who hails from New Hampshire political royalty, would enter the race with high name identification.

Brown announced on Tuesday that his campaign, along with a joint fundraising committee, raised $1.2 million in the third quarter. Brown has $900,000 on hand.

We should note that Sununu’s Trump skepticism may prove popular with New Hampshire’s independent voters. And in the 2026 cycle, Trump’s political team has prized winning above all else and may be more willing to overlook past criticism.

— Max Cohen

THE CAMPAIGN

Johnson’s third quarter haul

News: Speaker Mike Johnson has raised $65 million this cycle after a third-quarter haul of $13.1 million.

Johnson has sent $30.8 million to Republicans this cycle — $18.3 million to the NRCC and $12.5 million to Republican lawmakers. In total, Johnson has doled out $36 million to Republican lawmakers and committees this cycle.

Today is FEC filing day, so we’ll get an updated view on the political landscape 13 months ahead of the midterm elections.

– Jake Sherman

PUNCHBOWL NEWS EVENTS

ICYMI: McCormick on skilled labor, federal workers and retirement security

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) said the federal workforce is “bloated” but called for a less aggressive approach to laying off employees during a Punchbowl News event on Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

McCormick also discussed retirement security, how to build a skilled labor force and the Federal Reserve’s independence.

The freshman GOP senator again called for reforms to the nation’s retirement system, particularly for states like his with a big population of seniors. McCormick cited apprenticeship programs, Pell Grants and skill training programs as opportunities to increase skilled labor.

You can watch the full recording here.

— Shania Shelton

MOMENTS

CLIPS