House Republicans are now aiming to pick up a dozen or more House seats in an unprecedented, Donald Trump-backed redistricting drive, looking to head off a Democratic wave in the 2026 midterms and cement the president’s power.
Republicans are hoping to net a minimum of three House seats in Florida, as we scooped Thursday. Add that to the five seats in Texas, one each in Missouri and Indiana, plus two or three in Ohio, where state law mandates a redraw ahead of 2026.
The Supreme Court also has yet to rule in a high-profile Louisiana redistricting case on the 1965 Voting Rights Act that could further alter next year’s congressional landscape.
The Sunshine State effort, officially announced by Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez on Thursday, is only the most recent Republican initiative to cushion the blow from what’s expected to be a difficult midterms for the GOP. Republicans are hoping to redraw three districts in their favor, likely those of Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz in Trump-tending South Florida, as well as Darren Soto in the Orlando area.
Should Florida Republicans feel particularly ambitious, they could even aim to make Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor’s seat more difficult in Tampa or Rep. Lois Frankel’s district redder in Palm Beach County.
Florida is a bit of a unique case for Team Trump. The president, of course, lives in Palm Beach. Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, and James Blair, the president’s deputy chief of staff, are also key players in the Florida political world.
What’s at stake. This nationwide push is nominally about an electorate that’s trending in Republicans’ direction — or was in 2024 at least. But, in reality, it’s also just a bareknuckled power play.
Trump and his top political operatives don’t want a Democratic-controlled House in 2027 and are doing everything they can to avoid it. That outcome would mean endless investigations, spending showdowns and potential impeachments. With Mike Johnson as speaker, a GOP-run House would remain an effective arm of the White House, letting Trump do basically whatever he wants.
And the reality here is tough for Democrats — there’s little they can do to soften this blow.
Democrats are scrambling to counter this redistricting offensive, primarily with a hasty attempt to amend California’s constitution. Yet Democrats can’t come close to matching the potential GOP gains in red states where Trump has enviable approval ratings and compliant legislatures looking to do his bidding.
DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene put it this way:
“Republicans are running scared. They know they can’t win on the issues, so they are resorting to rigging the system in a desperate scheme to save their miniscule majority.
“Democrats everywhere are prepared to fight back, using every tool at our disposal. We refuse to play by a different set of rules while Republicans cave to Trump’s demands to light the rulebook on fire.”
What it means. The fallout from this GOP effort will invite the inevitable Democratic backlash, as well as a tidal wave of lawsuits.
But there’s another critical angle to consider. More moderates in swing districts will get squeezed out of office, making a hyper-partisan Congress even more sharply divided. It will be tougher to pass any compromise legislation as members focus on their chief political hurdle — winning their primary by taking the most extreme, “pure” positions possible.
It may also lead to the near-total disappearance of white Democratic moderates from the solid-red South or centrist Republicans from New York, California and big blue states, a trend that’s been playing out for years. On the other hand, Black and Hispanic Democrats in the South may survive — depending on the Supreme Court.
Democrats have reacted angrily to Republicans’ redistricting moves. But as we’ve reported, it is extremely hard for many of the biggest blue states to redraw their maps because they’ve ceded redistricting power to independent commissions in the name of good government.
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — a 2028 hopeful — is doing everything he can to sidestep his commission, but he’ll need Golden State voters to back his efforts in a special election. This will be extremely expensive and may not work. If it does, the prize could be five new blue seats, which could negate the proposed Texas map.
Where else can Democrats find more seats? Maryland could offer one. But Democrats tried to pass such a map in the 2022 cycle and a court shot it down as an illegal partisan gerrymander.
Oregon is another possibility, although Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic. It’s possible that Democrats could gain a seat out of Illinois, although the Land of Lincoln is already heavily gerrymandered in their favor.
Democrats in other blue states would have to amend their own constitutions in order to get into the redistricting fight. The deadline has passed to do this before the 2026 elections in New Jersey and Colorado. Democrats don’t have the votes in Washington State. New York would require court intervention, and state judges haven’t favored Democrats in redistricting there in recent years.
There’s some chance Democrats could get favorable court rulings in Wisconsin and Utah — but again, this isn’t guaranteed.
So here’s the math: Republicans can get 12 or more new seats fairly easily. Democrats can get two or three without amending a state constitution, and eight if Newsom’s California gambit works. This could mean the difference between a GOP-held House or Democratic.
The one bit of good news for Democrats is that its unlikely Republicans could truly put a majority out of reach if there’s an actual blue wave in 2026. That will depend on the economy and other factors that Democrats can’t fully control, however.
