It seems clear that House Democrats would need to net at least three seats in the 2026 midterm elections to win a majority in the chamber, which would provide a toehold of power during President Donald Trump‘s final two years in office. If only the math were that simple.
House Republicans hold 220 of the chamber’s 435 seats. When three vacancies are filled in heavily blue-leaning districts, Democrats will hold 215 seats. Arizona, Texas, and Virginia will hold special elections by November to replace deceased Democratic lawmakers.
So, on the face of it, Democrats would need a three-seat pickup to reach the magic 218 level necessary for a House majority when every seat is filled. Yet court cases and political machinations in several states make it uncertain just what the majority-making number would be.
Republicans could win up to a cumulative five seats through redrawn districts, while Democrats might nab a total of two. It’s also possible that nothing will change from the current situation and that the political calculus will stand as is.
Seventeen months ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, here’s how redistricting could play out in five states and how any changes could benefit one party or the other.
Alabama: +1 Republican seat pickup possible
A long-running federal court battle over the composition of the Yellowhammer State’s seven House districts ended in a 2024 win for Democrats, a rare bright spot for the party in a year that Trump returned to the White House amid rightward voting shifts by almost all demographic groups. Freshman Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL) won the state’s newly drawn 2nd Congressional District, covering parts of Mobile, Montgomery, and the eastern Black Belt, while Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) won reelection to the 7th Congressional District, covering Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and the western Black Belt, which she has held since 2011.
Critics of a prior House map, which favored Republicans 6-1, argued it violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and needed to be redrawn with an additional black-majority district. After years of litigation, the Supreme Court agreed in 2023. The Republican-majority Alabama legislature then approved another red-leaning map, but a federal court rejected it and drew its own version.
Now, Alabama is pushing for a different map for use in the 2026 House elections and beyond, though on May 8, a three-judge federal district court panel in Alabama ruled against Republicans. Judges said the state’s GOP-led legislature intentionally discriminated against black voters when it approved the 2023 map, with only one majority-black congressional district.
Still, Alabama Republicans are likely to appeal the case and will try to take it up to the Supreme Court again. A win there would nix the second House seat in Alabama held by a Democrat, making it more difficult for Team Blue to win the House majority in 2026.
Louisiana: +1 Republican seat pickup possible
The Pelican State’s six-district House map is similarly in play after Democrats picked up a seat in the 2024 elections. Yearslong litigation led to a court order resulting in Rep. Cleo Fields (D-LA) winning the state’s newly redrawn 6th Congressional District, stretching from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, yet court fights potentially threaten his job.
The Supreme Court on March 24 seemed closely divided over a challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map, which added the second black-majority district. Several of the court’s conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.
Like the Alabama battle over its House districts, the Louisiana court case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries. It will be decided on by a conservative-majority Supreme Court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life.
In the early spring Supreme Court argument, Chief Justice John Roberts described the House seat held by Fields as a “snake” that might violate the standard practice of drawing compact electoral districts. A ruling will cap a three-year court fight over Louisiana’s congressional district map. Two maps were blocked by lower courts, and the Supreme Court intervened twice, most recently by ordering the new map to be used in the 2024 election.
That paved the way for Fields to return to the House after a previous 1993-97 stint. A change in maps that makes Republicans more likely to gain a seat would be yet another hurdle for Democrats in their 2026 bid to win a House majority.
Ohio: +3 Republican seat pickup possible
There’s no question the Buckeye State’s House districts will be redrawn ahead of the 2026 election. But the extent of looming changes, and how deeply Ohio Republicans will benefit, is an open question.
Redistricting is usually done every 10 years, after the decennial census, but Ohio faces the task now because voters in 2018 amended the state constitution, and maps are only in effect for four years if they are passed without minority support.
Because state officials adopted a map without bipartisan support in 2022, it was only allowed to stay in place for four years, per the state’s redistricting process laid out in the Ohio Constitution.
The 2018 redistricting ballot measure was a reaction to years of one-sided map-making, with Republicans holding legislative majorities, aggressively “packing” Democrats into a small number of districts and diluting their political strength in more politically competitive areas.
Republicans say their tactics are perfectly fair because Ohio has moved right over the past decade. Trump increased his Ohio vote margins in each election he ran in, rising from a 51%-43% win in 2016 over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, to a 55%-44 % romp in 2024 over then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Ohio’s Republican-led General Assembly will get the first shot at redrawing the state’s new congressional map in the coming months. To pass, it needs the support of at least three-fifths of members in the House and Senate, and at least half of the members of each party.
If the legislature’s map doesn’t have bipartisan support by Sept. 30, the Ohio Redistricting Commission will take over. The seven-member panel would have until Oct. 31 to adopt a bipartisan plan.
If it fails, the General Assembly must adopt a plan by Nov. 30. At that point, the plan could pass with a simple majority and without bipartisan support, but it would need to be replaced after four years.
Legal challenges would be heard by the Ohio Supreme Court, which has a 6-1 conservative majority. The court previously rejected several legislative and congressional maps when Republicans held a slimmer 4-3 majority.
Assuming the Ohio redistricting process plays out along partisan lines, as it has over the past decade-plus, House Republicans could win more seats, though it’s no sure thing. The 10-5 GOP edge in Ohio’s House delegation could rise to a whopping 13-2 advantage over Democrats.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) and Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH) hold politically safe enough seats that it would be difficult for state Republicans to dismember. Beatty easily won reelection in the Columbus-based 3rd Congressional District as Harris there ran far ahead of Trump, 70%-29%. In the Cleveland-based 11th Congressional District, Harris cleaned Trump’s clock, 77%-22%, even while losing statewide in Ohio.
Remaining redistricting targets would be Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) in the Cincinnati-area 1st Congressional District, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) in the Toledo and northwestern 9th Congressional District, and Rep. Emelia Sykes (D-OH) in the 13th Congressional District, home to Akron and Canton.
Yet winning all three, or even a single one, isn’t so easy for Republicans. Kaptur and Sykes staved off well-funded 2024 Republican challenges, while Landsman holds a seat that leans Democratic. Trying to shift around too much territory could backfire on Ohio Republican map-drawers, making some Republican-held House seats more vulnerable in the process. Ohio GOP leaders may opt for the politically safer route and leave House districts largely intact, with only minor tweaks.
Wisconsin: +2 Democratic seat pickup possible
There’s no process in place to change the Wisconsin House map, which Republicans dominate 6-2, but that could change thanks to a pair of Wisconsin Supreme Court wins by Democratic-leaning justices in 2023 and earlier this year.
A lawsuit filed May 8 seeks to have the Wisconsin Supreme Court declare the state’s House maps unconstitutional because they pack a “substantial share” of the state’s Democratic voters into only two of eight districts in a premier swing state where presidential races and statewide contests for governor and Senate are routinely among the nation’s closest.
The lawsuit, filed against the Wisconsin Elections Commission by the Democratic law firm Elias Law Group on behalf of nine Badger State voters, seeks to have the case bypass the lower courts and be taken up directly by the state Supreme Court. The filing came a month after the state elected Susan Crawford to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, maintaining a 4-3 liberal majority on the body until at least 2028.
The battle over congressional and legislative district lines is a long-running one. In 2021, Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) and Republicans in control of the state legislature reached a stalemate in negotiations over new congressional and legislative maps, which required the Wisconsin Supreme Court to step in. The court, then controlled by a 4-3 conservative majority, ruled that it would only consider proposed news maps under a “least change” standard. That meant maps adhering as closely as possible to the maps that Republicans instituted in 2011. Those 2011 maps were considered among the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the country.
Per the Democratic lawsuit, because the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled legislative maps unconstitutional in 2023, it should do the same for current congressional lines. If a redraw goes forward, the most vulnerable House incumbents would be Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) in the southwestern 3rd Congressional District and Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) in the southeastern 1st Congressional District.
Utah: +1 Democratic seat pickup possible
The Beehive State is one of the nation’s most politically conservative, but not everywhere is like that. Salt Lake City, the state capital, is a famously liberal redoubt in a sea of red. And when the state’s four House districts have been drawn compactly and kept communities intact, Democrats can do pretty well there.
That’s the political backdrop of an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit contending that the Utah legislature acted unconstitutionally when it repealed and replaced a 2018 ballot initiative creating an independent redistricting commission.
On Jan. 31, Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson heard more than three hours of oral arguments before taking the matter under advisement.
The hearing was the latest development in a complex court case that has stretched on for more than two years over an issue that dates back even further. It’s also a case that could force the Utah legislature to redraw maps for its congressional political boundaries that it last set in 2021.
In 2018, the anti-gerrymandering group Better Boundaries successfully pursued a ballot initiative known as Proposition 4 to create an independent redistricting commission that would have drawn proposed boundaries for Utah’s congressional, legislative, and state school board districts based on a set of standards that the legislature would be required to consider. Voters narrowly approved that initiative, with 50.3% of the vote.
However, in 2020, the Republican-dominated Utah legislature repealed and replaced Proposition 4 with a law that turned the independent redistricting commission into an advisory body that lawmakers could ultimately ignore. The next year, lawmakers did just that — they ignored the independently drawn maps and adopted their own, despite protests that the maps cracked Democratic strongholds in an otherwise staunchly conservative state. Republicans won a 4-0 sweep in the state’s House delegation.
In 2022, the nonpartisan groups League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government sued, alleging that the Utah legislature violated Utahns’ constitutional right to alter and reform their government when lawmakers repealed and replaced Proposition 4. They also alleged that the congressional map was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander that favored Republicans.
The case wound its way to the Utah Supreme Court, which issued a groundbreaking ruling on July 11, 2024, that prompted celebration from the plaintiffs and dismay from Utah’s Republican legislative leaders.
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That unanimous opinion reversed a previous decision issued by Gibson that dismissed the claim that the legislature overstepped when it repealed and replaced Proposition 4. The Utah Supreme Court’s ruling made clear that lawmakers do not have unfettered power to repeal or change all types of ballot initiatives and that if they make changes that “impair” a “government reform” initiative, they must show it’s “narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest.”
That ruling sent the case back to Gibson’s courtroom. Her decision may or may not be the end of the process. But if Utah’s four congressional districts are redrawn ahead of the 2026 elections, a Salt Lake City-based seat would be politically competitive. House Democrats would have a chance of adding a lawmaker to their ranks.