President Donald Trump‘s pressure on Texas Republicans to redraw congressional maps with more GOP-friendly districts has reignited a sprawling battle that will determine control of the House during the 2026 midterm elections.
Democrats need a net gain of three seats to flip the House, but the GOP is already considering actions to help block Democrats from power ahead of next year’s elections.
By redrawing the congressional maps in Texas, Ohio, and other GOP-friendly states, Republicans could better secure their majority. But the plan could backfire in a wave election by putting more Republicans at risk for losses if their districts become less safe. Meanwhile, California is weighing making more blue districts to counter the GOP’s efforts.
Congressional maps are redrawn every 10 years based on population shifts documented by the census that will next come up in 2030, but by getting ahead of the date, state-level action could influence who is in charge in Washington.
“This is how it works,” Ohio-based Republican strategist Matt Dole said. “If Republicans have control, Republicans get to draw the maps. If Democrats have control, Democrats draw the maps, and it’s a political battle.”
HOW REPUBLICAN EFFORTS TO REDRAW HOUSE MAPS COULD PROTECT NARROW GOP MAJORITY
Texas legislature’s special session to tackle new maps
The Texas legislature is set to meet in a special session next week, when lawmakers will consider new congressional maps after Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) added it to the agenda.
The GOP controls 25 out of the 38 House seats, but that could change if new maps are drawn. Trump reportedly held a call with the Texas congressional delegation, during which he pushed for the state legislature to pursue five new GOP seats.
“Texas will be the biggest one, and that’ll be five,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday as he left for Pittsburgh.
Republicans said Texas has a legal reason to hold the unprecedented mid-decade redrawing. “For Texas, the reason they’re that they’re doing it is because they got a letter from the DOJ saying that some of those were done according to racial guidelines, which is unconstitutional,” said Joseph Vargas, a GOP political consultant in San Angelo, Texas.
Vargas was referencing a DOJ letter last week that warned Texas that four majority-minority districts, the 9th, 18th, 29th, and 33rd Congressional Districts, are unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered.
However, a longtime Republican consultant from Texas who now works on K Street cautioned the Texas GOP against drawing new maps because they could harm themselves in the process.
“The map currently favors incumbents and the only competitive seats are those of Democrats [Henry] Cuellar and [Vicente] Gonzalez, both in South Texas,” the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect candidly on the situation.
“If mapmakers try to make seats like these more Republican, they would then weaken other Republicans nearby like [Monica] De La Cruz and [Tony] Gonzales, who then could be more vulnerable,” the person added. “The entire thing could blow up in their faces.”
The strategist noted that targeting Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX) in Dallas could backfire by endangering Rep. Keith Self (R-TX), while efforts to flip seats held by Reps. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) or Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) in Houston might put Reps. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) and Troy Nehls (R-TX) at greater risk.
Similarly, analysis from the Cook Political Report echoed the warning to the GOP that “demolishing blue seats in Houston and Dallas could put several of their own members at risk.”
Democrats slam the Texas plan for new maps
Congressional Democrats spent this week lambasting the Texas effort to redraw districts as gerrymandering and a violation of the will of the people.
“We know that the courts, ever since we’ve had a Voting Rights Act, have always found this state to be intentionally discriminatory, that is what they are going to do,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) said. “So I need people of color to understand that the scheme of the Republicans has consistently been to make sure that they mute our voices so that they can go ahead and have an oversized say in this. So I fully anticipate that’s exactly where they’re going with this map.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told reporters that “people need to understand the gravity of what the state of Texas is trying to do.”
“They are trying to gut the Voting Rights Act that really governs the entire United States of America, and they’re trying to do it by aggressively flouting the law,” the New York Democrat continued. “They are seeking to redraw their entire maps independent of the census.”
The Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision ended the preclearance requirement under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in states, including Texas, with a history of voting discrimination. The Lone Star State now has more freedom to redraw its maps without federal interference.
Dole slammed Democrats over their alleged hypocrisy on redistricting. “What frustrates me is it seems that the Democrats, more than Republicans, attempt to claim moral authority, and I don’t believe they have that,” he said, pointing to California’s consideration of a new map as “a naked power grab.”
California considers mid-decade maps to counter Texas
Locked out of power in the Texas legislature, Democrats have little recourse to counter the GOP.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), a longtime Trump foe, quickly hit back with threats for California to hold a mid-decade redistricting battle in retaliation against the Texas plan for a new map. But that effort runs afoul of the state’s redistricting commission that voters approved.
Democrats said they are still weighing how to move forward. “Let’s see what Texas actually does, if anything,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner. “But to me, it’s a huge sign Trump’s agenda is that unpopular that they have to resort to extreme redistricting to try and salvage it.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said “all options” were on the table to counter new maps across states.
“As Democrats, we just want fair maps across the country and to the extent that governors in different states throughout the nation conclude that a reevaluation as to whether their current maps are as fair as possible should take place … certainly is a decision that makes sense to me in this environment,” Jeffries told reporters on Thursday.
Jeffries also met with members of the California delegation on Wednesday to discuss redistricting in a state where Democrats control 43 House seats compared to the nine seats Republicans hold. But also said he would defer to Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), and Newsom over what comes next.
Newsom’s plan could face roadblocks
Shawn Donahue, a professor of political science at the University of Buffalo who focuses on redistricting, said future attempts California makes to redraw maps would not be as easy as Texas’s efforts.
“Anything they probably try to do would end up in California’s Supreme Court,” Donahue said.
Even if voters were to pass a referendum allowing for mid-decade redistricting efforts, Donahue was skeptical about whether there would be enough time before the 2026 midterm primaries. And he warned against the referendum possibly failing.
“You would have to think that Republicans would be fired up to vote against it,” he said. “I mean, the question is, would you have Democrats fired up to go vote for it?”
Republicans look to Ohio for more friendly districts
The GOP could also net more House seats in Ohio. Republicans have a supermajority in the state legislature and hold five out of seven seats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
The state must redraw a new congressional map after the current map, created in 2021, passed without Democratic support.
There are 10 Republican representatives from Ohio compared to five Democrats. But a new map could net the GOP two more seats by targeting Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Emilia Sykes (D-OH).
Dole said Kaptur’s seat in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, located in the northwestern part of the state, is “essentially a straight up toss-up seat as it currently sits.”
“So it doesn’t take much to nudge that a few points toward the Republican,” Dole added. Ohio’s 9th Congressional District is one of a few that voted for Trump during the 2024 election and elected a Democratic representative.
Sykes represents Ohio’s 13th Congressional District, which Dole also said “is a near toss-up. And I think you could see that nudged as well.”
How other states could affect control of the House
Both parties will need to keep a lookout for other states that could redraw their maps before 2026.
A 2022 lawsuit in Utah brought forth by the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, and other Salt Lake City individuals against the state’s congressional maps, which were drawn in 2021, is still ongoing. The groups are asking that the map be redone in favor of the citizen-led and anti-gerrymandering Proposition 4’s congressional map. The passage of Proposition 4 in 2018 led to the creation of the Independent Redistricting Commission that would have limited gerrymandering, but the legislature’s passage of Senate Bill 200 curbed the commission’s power to an advisory body.
The Utah Supreme Court reversed a previous decision from Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson that dismissed claims that the state legislature overstepped by repealing Prop 4. The case is now back in Gibson’s courtroom.
Recent court decisions have brought resolution to once-contentious redistricting battles in Wisconsin, Alabama, and Louisiana. In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court struck down gerrymandered legislative maps and approved new ones earlier this year, effectively ending challenges for now after also declining to hear a case targeting the state’s congressional map.
In Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. Milligan that the state’s congressional lines diluted black voting power, prompting the creation of a second majority-black district, an outcome reaffirmed by a federal court in 2025 to remain in place through the decade.
Meanwhile, Louisiana’s redistricting fight remains technically unresolved, but the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a map with two black-majority districts to stand while it prepares to hear rearguments in the next term. All three states will approach the 2026 elections without the immediate pressures of redistricting fights.
DEMOCRATS TARGET SOUTH TEXAS HOUSE SEAT WITH CHALLENGE TO MONICA DE LA CRUZ
But Democrats will remain in a bind if Republicans in Ohio and Texas are successful, experts said.
“If you’re looking at Republicans potentially picking up five seats in Texas, and then maybe another two seats in Ohio, all of a sudden that means that instead of … Democrats needing to gain three seats, now they need to gain 10,” Donahue said.