Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) implied that he would be in favor of gerrymandering out of the Democratic Party’s “need to win” in the 2026 midterm elections.
Booker blasted President Donald Trump for proposing, as Booker characterized it, “gerrymandering” to win more congressional seats. Trump has backed maps to change districts in Texas to win five more seats for the Republican Party.
“I‘m sick of the gerrymandering, but if Donald Trump is going to push to gerrymander Texas, he‘s going to break the rules in order to win,” Booker said Monday on CNN’s Early Start With Rahel Solomon. “He can‘t win by the rules they are right now.”
“For Democrats to sit back and just say, ‘OK, we‘re going to play by the queen’s rules,’ no, I‘m telling you right now, we need to win in the midterm,” Booker said. “We need to stop [Trump] from cheating, from lying, and from stealing the election. If they’re doing something to add their congressional seats, we need to look at our ways of doing that right now.”
When it comes to redistricting, Booker’s own state of New Jersey is among the top three states that gerrymander across the nation, and the Democratic Party has benefited. Nine of New Jersey’s 12 House seats are occupied by Democrats. Democrats won 52% of the presidential vote in 2024, leaving a 23-point gap between their overall state partisan advantage and their advantage in House seats.
ABBOTT THREATENS TEXAS DEMOCRATS WITH REMOVAL FROM OFFICE IF THEY DON’T RETURN BY MONDAY
New Jersey is not among the four states that use independent commissions to determine congressional districts. Less than one-fifth of all U.S. congressional districts are redistricted by independent commissions.
The Democratic Governors Association has also called on state leaders to respond “in kind” to redistricting efforts.