President Donald Trump and House Republicans thought they had a winning midterm strategy — redraw congressional maps in red states to gain an insurmountable edge heading into 2026.
This would be a huge plus for Trump, who wouldn’t have to face a Democratic-run House or a possible impeachment push. And Speaker Mike Johnson currently holds only a two-vote edge that could easily be swept away if the midterms go badly for Republicans.
But their strategy hasn’t worked out as planned. In fact, it now looks like Trump and House GOP leaders may have been better off not doing anything at all.
That became apparent Tuesday when a federal judicial panel in Texas overturned the Republicans’ aggressive redraw of the Lone Star State’s congressional map, a move that was supposed to give the GOP five new ruby red seats.
In Indiana, a cavalcade of state senators have said they won’t redraw the Hoosier State’s map to erase two Democratic seats, despite Trump’s aggressive pressure campaign.
Meanwhile, Democrats — spurred into action by the GOP push — have faced fewer roadblocks, although they haven’t been successful everywhere.
In California, Democrats easily engineered a ballot initiative that will net them between three and five seats. Democrats also have secured legislative buy-in on a push to gerrymander as many as three more seats out of Virginia.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told us that Democrats will keep pushing blue states to redraw regardless of the final outcome in Texas.
“We are moving full steam ahead,” Jeffries said. “Republican extremists started this gerrymandering fight. We’re going to end it.”
A harsh reality. We’ll note some big caveats here. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who is running for the Senate GOP nomination — has already announced that he’ll appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court, where the conservative super-majority could very well overturn the decision. The GOP is eager for this to happen.
Republicans also will try to maximize a new map in Florida, with GOP lawmakers in the Sunshine State showing an appetite to redistrict. It’s unlikely that Republicans would be able to gain five seats here as they hoped, but one or two may be possible.
“I also remind everybody that it’s not necessarily a simple task, as we saw now in Texas,” cautioned Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, the Republican dean of the Florida delegation. “It’s not something as simple as maybe people think it is.”
And if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in the coming months — as looks possible in a high-profile Louisiana case — the GOP could net several more seats across the Deep South. But timing is everything here, so the House battleground for the midterms remains very fluid.
Let’s consider things as they stand right now.
At Trump’s behest, Republicans started an unprecedented redistricting war. But the biggest weapon in their arsenal, Texas, has very possibly boomeranged on them. Indiana is growing more unlikely by the day. That’s seven seats Republicans were hoping for up in smoke.
Democrats only redrew California to cancel out Texas. That complicated maneuver meant California Democrats had to jam through a statewide referendum in order to temporarily pause their independent redistricting commission. Republicans talked about defeating that referendum, but they got run over. This gives Democrats a shot at netting between four to five seats next year.
It also helped make California Gov. Gavin Newsom a 2028 Democratic star.
The new redistricting math. At the outset of this redistricting contest, Democrats started in a hole, in part because they had redistricting commissions in place in so many blue states.
But it’s not impossible to imagine that they end up netting more seats than the GOP in these mid-decade redraws, a stunning change of circumstances that didn’t seem possible only a few months ago.
Democrats are well on their way to collecting the number of valid signatures needed to force a referendum that would pause Republicans’ gerrymander in Missouri. Republicans in Ohio, fearing a similar referendum push, cut a deal with Democrats for a map that might not net the GOP any seats at all.
The Kansas legislature has said they don’t have the votes to redistrict out Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.). Meanwhile, a Utah court gifted Democrats a new safe seat in the Beehive State.
“Everyone kept saying, ‘You know what? Democrats can’t keep up in this arms fight. They just don’t have enough places to go,’” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said. “And guess what? Somehow we are now winning.”
In a bright spot for the GOP, Republicans have a one-seat pickup in North Carolina. But that state and Florida seem like the only sure bets right now.
All of this has left Republicans questioning whether this redistricting race was too risky of a gamble. Plenty of members secretly hated the idea of getting a new district mid-cycle.
“There was no member of the delegation that was asked our opinion,” Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said.
(Haley Talbot contributed to this report.)
