President Donald Trump asked Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) to call the state legislature in for a special session where they could approve new congressional maps that would redraw district lines in favor of Republicans. That began a partisan back-and-forth, with Democratic states such as California and New York threatening to redraw their maps in favor of Democrats. The process of redistricting is complicated and time-consuming, and not every state that has floated middecade redistricting is legally allowed to do so. This Washington Examiner series, “Power Lines,” will investigate the process, its local implications, and the hurdles the middecade redistricting effort helmed by national political figures will face in court. Part 1 is an in-depth look at how redistricting works in different states. Part 2 investigates why Democrats are disadvantaged in the redistricting battle after the 2010 midterm elections. Part 3 covers the legal considerations of Republicans’ efforts to rewrite Texas’s map. Part 4 looks at the elected House members caught in the crossfire as the standoff escalates.
The summer of redistricting continues, with more states threatening to redraw their district lines to maximize partisan advantage, and more members of Congress caught in the crossfire.
While the national conversation mostly centers on the political makeup of news maps, adding red seats in one state and blue seats in another, myriad careers could end in the process. Each member of the House of Representatives has roughly 760,000 voters, and all were elected to their posts just nine months ago.
At least 22 representatives have had their seats threatened as first Texas, then California, and now at least 10 states are considering an unusual middecade redistricting process.
The House’s partisan makeup has been extremely close during the last two sessions of Congress, with Republicans enjoying a nine-seat advantage in 2023 and 2024 and now an even slimmer seven-seat majority that could easily flip in next year’s midterm elections.
President Donald Trump aims to preserve that edge in part through redrawing Texas maps to include five more Republican seats. While the Lone Star State is following his lead, that effort has led Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) to threaten his own redistricting process that would more or less cancel out what’s happening in Texas.
The dominoes have fallen from there, with both parties pointing fingers at the other as the true culprit. Democrats say they must counter Trump’s corrupt proposals, while the president says the Left has already maximized its advantage through gerrymandered blue state maps and will continue to do so no matter what course the GOP takes.
But ironically, if California and Texas both get their way, the House makeup as it currently stands could be left unaltered, as both target five opposition party members to draw out of the map. Other states that have floated mid-decade redistricting, with the exception of Ohio, have a smaller likelihood of actually getting a new map approved before the midterm elections.
“Republicans will win the political war in Texas, but escalation is real,” Republican strategist Doug Heye said. “What’s to prevent Democrats from drawing out every Republican seat in California? It’s like watching Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd continually pulling out larger weapons.”
Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, had a similar take.
“I don’t think anybody is winning this fight,” Bannon agreed. “First of all, it feels like inside baseball to most Americans. And for the Americans who are actually paying attention, my guess is they see this as more evidence of dysfunction in the political system.”
Nonetheless, the change could be very big for the affected congressmen and congresswomen, and to the millions of voters who elected them, even if the overall map balances out. Below is a state-by-state look at who those people are and what changes could be in store for them.
Texas
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is working hard to redraw maps with five more House Republicans, while Texas Democrats have fled to Illinois for the moment to prevent him from having a quorum.
The Democrats he’s targeting are Reps. Greg Casar (D-TX), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Julie Johnson (D-TX), and Marc Veasey (D-TX).
Five seats will be gained among those six names because the idea is to draw Doggett and Casar into the same district so that only one survives.
That pair makes for an interesting contrast, as the 78-year-old Doggett has been in office since 1995 and is the dean of the Texas congressional delegation, while “Squad” member Casar is 36 years old and the youngest-ever chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Neither wants to go, and both are fighting their ouster along with other Texas Democrats.
“No matter how they draw these lines, they can’t get rid of the people of Austin, they can’t get rid of the people of Texas,” Casar said at a rally outside the governor’s mansion. “So once we send the Greg Abbotts and the Donald Trumps to the dustbin of history where they belong, we will build a new kind of Democratic Party that gets big money out of politics.”
Outside the governor’s mansion tonight with some Texans ready to show him what democracy looks likes pic.twitter.com/8J5pETcTpj
— Greg Casar (@GregCasar) August 4, 2025
Cuellar, a longtime House member whose district scrapes the southern border, predicted that the redistricting effort could backfire if Texas draws its districts too narrowly and Democrats have a good year.
“Republicans are taking a big gamble in South Texas. They are looking at Trump numbers,” Cuellar told KGNS News. “If the lines change, I have almost 95% to 97% of the areas I’ve represented in the past, so those are areas that I’ve represented before.”
Texas has 25 Republicans, 12 Democrats, and one vacancy. It hopes to reach 30 Republicans and just eight Democrats through a new map.
California
Though redistricting will be trickier in California thanks to the state’s history with an independent redistricting commission, Newsom is nonetheless targeting five seats of his own. He hopes to take the Golden State from 43 Democrats and nine Republicans to 48 Democrats against just four representatives for the GOP.
Reps. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), Darrell Issa (R-CA), David Valado (R-CA), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), and Ken Calvert (R-CA) are the targeted California Republicans.
While no one wants to lose their seat, Kiley has made one of the most interesting appeals, filing a bill to call off the dogs nationwide and ban all mid-decade redistricting.
“I am introducing legislation in Congress to stop Newsom’s corrupt scheme to overthrow our Citizens Redistricting Commission and make California a permanent one-party state,” he said in a post on X.
“My bill prohibits congressional districts from being redrawn in the middle of the decade,” Kiley added. “This is already the law in California under our State Constitution, which provides that redistricting is done once a decade by an Independent Commission.”
But Kiley’s bill would also kill the Texas redistricting scheme and require a level of bipartisanship rarely seen in the halls of Congress.
Assuming that doesn’t happen, Bannon, the Democratic strategist, hopes that Newsom moves forward regardless.
“I think that Newsom should go ahead and redistrict California regardless of what happens in Texas,” he said.
New York
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) is another big-state governor who has entered the redistricting fray, though, like California, it will not be an easy process in her state. Doing so would take multiple steps and cannot be completed in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
Nonetheless, Hochul has pledged to squeeze new sets out of her state’s map at some point, to increase the Democratic advantage from 19-7 to 22-4.
“We are at war,” Hochul said. “And that’s why the gloves are off, and I say, ‘Bring it on.’ This will have implications not just in Texas, but for our entire nation and its future.”
One wrinkle in the New York case is that it appears unclear exactly which three GOP-held seats would be affected. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who holds a closely drawn seat in the suburbs of New York City, is one name that has been thrown around so far.
But another high-profile New York Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), isn’t waiting to hear names before slamming Hochul over the effort.
“Kathy Hochul’s pathetic press conference today shows she continues to put New Yorkers LAST, and she truly earns the title of the Worst Governor in America,” Stefanik said in a statement. “In her own words, Kathy Hochul is hell bent on angrily spiting the New York State Constitution, the will of New York voters, good government groups, and the courts by dismantling fair and legal district lines.”
Ohio
The number of seats at stake falls with the size of the state in question. Ohio has 10 Republicans and five Democrats in its congressional delegation at the moment, but could go to 12-3 with a new map. Ohio and Texas are further along in the process than most states because of their unique redistricting systems.
Reps. Mary Kaptur (D-OH) in the northwestern part of the state and Emilia Sykes (D-OH) in the Akron area are the two Democrats who could face the axe.
Both have come out swinging against the idea.
“It is no surprise national and state Republicans in Columbus are scheming to confuse and handpick voters by gerrymandering Ohio congressional districts again,” Kaptur’s political director, David Zavac, said, according to Punchbowl News.
Sykes spokesman Justin Barasky told the same outlet that “special interests” in Washington and Columbus want to “ignore the voters and rig the game.”
Indiana
Vice President JD Vance, formerly an Ohio senator, is visiting nearby Indiana, according to Gov. Mike Braun (R-IN), and a reported topic of conversation is redistricting in the Hoosier State.
Already a reliably red state, Indiana has a 7-2 Republican majority in its House delegation. The aim appears to be making it 8-1, with Rep. Frank Mrvan (D-IN) the odd man out.
Mrvan has released a statement saying that “any attempt to redistrict now is simply an attempt to silence” the voters who elected him.
Missouri
Like Indiana, Missouri is hoping to snag a single seat through a new map, forcing out Kansas City-area Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) to take the state from 6-2 Republican to 7-1 Republican.
Efforts to reach Cleaver were unsuccessful, but he told local news station KBIA, “Someone over at the White House is seemingly committed to fomenting what I call national nastiness as a way of establishing a one-party rule in our country. … And I think it is very dangerous.”
Maryland
Back in blue-state territory, Maryland is considering removing its only Republican in Congress, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who represents the Eastern Shore.
Harris has held the seat since 2011, and his district is rated a solid R+8 by the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Nonetheless, Democrats in the Old Line State believe they can carve it up with portions of heavily left-leaning districts nearby to force Harris out and make Maryland 8-0 in the House.
Other states reported to be in the mix include Alabama and Florida, the latter of which could target five new GOP-held seats.
The ever-expanding push is likely to continue drawing claims of corruption and hypocrisy from both sides, and redrawn maps can create headaches both for voters hoping to contact their local representative and even for the elected officials who don’t stand to lose their seats as they adjust to a new electorate with new local issues.
SUPREME COURT WILL EXAMINE RACIAL REDISTRICTING LAW AS OTHER STATES CONSIDER NEW MAPS
The show goes on for now, and the carousel doesn’t show signs of stopping anytime soon.
“Everyone hates gerrymandering when the other side does it, but it’s all good when they do it,” Heye said, adding a quote from The Godfather protagonist Michael Corleone. “We’re both part of the same hypocrisy.”