The Republican-controlled state House in Texas has passed new congressional maps that aim to pad the party’s majority in Washington by as much as five seats in the midterm elections, a move that comes as battles over redistricting spread across the country.
With Texas set to fully enact its new plan as soon as this week, urged on by President Donald Trump, California Democrats are moving quickly to implement a plan carving up their state’s maps in retaliation. Meanwhile, top Republicans in states like Indiana, Missouri and Florida continue to talk about tweaking their maps to create more Republican-controlled congressional seats in the 2026 elections. Ohio’s redraw, which it must do under state law, could benefit the GOP, too.
Governors in Democratic-controlled states are weighing a response too, but in many cases, they’re restrained by procedural hurdles or by other practical limitations — some have already stretched their own gerrymandered maps as far as they could go — that could make a tit-for-tat more difficult.
It’s all expected to come to a head in a matter of weeks, against the backdrop of a race for the congressional majority in Washington that sits on a knife’s edge.
The final outcome in Texas
Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled Texas House passed their map Wednesday, days after Democrats returned from a two-week “quorum break” in which they fled the state to hold up the bill. But they could only delay, not derail, the new Republican maps, which convert three deep-blue districts into deep-red ones and tilt two Democratic-held South Texas districts slightly further toward the GOP, too.
State Rep. Todd Hunter, a Republican who represents Corpus Christi and co-sponsored the new map, kicked off the day with some straight talk.
“The underlying goal is this plan is straightforward: Improve Republican political performance,” he told his colleagues, adding that the crux of the changes to the maps center on five districts that “now trend Republican in political performance.”
“While there’s no guarantee of an electorate success, Republicans will now have an opportunity to potentially win those districts,” he added.
After a handful of lawmakers remained in the chamber overnight to protest House leadership for requiring Democrats agree to police escorts to ensure they don’t attempt to skip town again, Democrats took to the floor to criticize their Republican colleagues over the maps. They questioned whether their Republican colleagues were truly not factoring in the racial compositions of districts, as they claimed, warning Democrats will have “their day in federal court.” They also hit out at their scheduling in the special legislative session, which put redistricting on the calendar ahead of voting on relief for the victims of the July floods in the Hill Country.
“This is Donald Trump’s map. It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows the voters are rejecting his agenda and instead of respecting that rejection, he’s changing the rules,” said state Rep. John Bucy III of Austin, a Democrat. “Instead of listening to the people he’s trying to silence them, and Texas Republicans have been more than willing to help.”
California Democrats move to retaliate
California’s legislature saw an hours-long hearing Tuesday as Democrats there speed toward passing legislation that will call for a fall special election putting redistricting on the ballot. Voters will decide whether to override the state’s independent redistricting commission and approve temporary, Democratic-drawn maps for the rest of the decade.
Those maps are the political inverse of the ones in Texas — endangering a handful of incumbent Republicans and putting Democrats in position to net up to five seats from California’s new map, according to estimates from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
The hearing turned contentious amid interruptions and partisan clashes between lawmakers. Republicans repeatedly accused Democrats of wasting state resources — a statewide special election would cost significant funds — and for bucking the agreement that empowered the state’s independent redistricting panel in the first place.
“California should lead the way — when other states decide to do something else, we shouldn’t react to them, we should prove by example that we can do this better. That we create the foundations for the rest of the nation,” said state Assemblyman David Tangipa, a Republican from the Fresno area, said.
Steve Bennett, a Democratic state legislator from Ventura, lashed out at Texas Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting by comparing it to power grabs by “autocrats” like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We prefer the agreement we all had to play by the old rules,” he said. “But when autocrats change the rules and the norms that we are using to decide who has power, we can either fight back or we can potentially permanently lose the ability ever to fight back again.”
Democrats need to get the maps passed through the legislature soon in order to bring the question to the voters this fall, if they want to enact the maps in time for the 2026 midterms.
Republicans are seeking to delay that, with a group of lawmakers suing this week, arguing that Democrats haven’t given the public the required time to review legislation before voting.
Other states weigh jumping into the fray
While the spotlight remains on California and Texas, redistricting remains a live ball in other states.
Ohio must redraw its lines by law, since the state legislature approved its 2021 map without Democratic support. The timing could work out well for Republicans, who control the legislature there and could stand to gain depending on how the maps are drawn.
Two of Ohio’s three Democratic House members won re-election last cycle by less than 3 percentage points.
In Indiana, the state’s Republican members of Congress have in recent days announced their support for a redraw there, where the party already controls seven of the nine congressional seats.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, hasn’t said whether he plans to call for a special session of the legislature. But Vice President JD Vance traveled to Indiana earlier this month to meet with the governor as the redistricting debate swirled.
In Missouri, Republicans have been cajoling Gov. Mike Kehoe to call a special legislative session for redistricting there, where the GOP controls six of the eight congressional seats.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said this week that people can “anticipate” a mid-decade redraw because there has been a “sea change in demography” since the 2020 census.
Outside of California, where their efforts are subject to approval from voters, Democrats face a smattering of other challenges if they want to redraw maps in other states.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has been vocally supportive of the Texas House Democrats’ attempts to delay the redistricting process in their home state, hasn’t ruled out a redistricting push in his backyard. But Democrats already hold 14 of the state’s 17 congressional districts there.
New York Democrats are also interested in redrawing the lines there, but they face logistical hurdles to change the state constitution, which would likely mean no changes until 2028 at the earliest.
