A little less than a year ago, Trump began his push for state legislatures in, first, Texas, then other red states, to redraw their congressional district lines, a gambit that, he had apparently been told, would help him hold onto the House in the midterms even as his poll numbers began the long march downward that continues to this day.
Democrats counter-attacked — and, as Khaya Himmelman reports this morning, they are succeeding. (Trump is now telling supporters he believes gerrymandering may be “not good.”) Virginia voters have followed California’s lead, authorizing new, bluer maps for their state. As things stand now, that puts Democrats slightly ahead in this fight.
The overall picture is quite a bit more complicated, however. Here’s some of what we’re keeping tabs on.
- Depending on how you count — and on the extent to which Trump’s 2024 coalition votes Republican in the 2026 midterms — it appears that Democrats may have squeezed one or two more seats out of these fights than Republicans.
- In Virginia, however, the story isn’t over. Republicans filed numerous challenges to the referendum. The state Supreme Court decided to allow yesterday’s election to go forward, and to see if the constitutional amendment was approved before ruling on those challenges. Now it will.
- Florida will now attempt a gerrymander, trying to squeeze a few Republican seats out of its current map (while risking diluting those seats to the point that they become pick-up opportunities for Democrats).
- Legal fights in Missouri and Utah could change things as well. In Utah, the White House is hoping to weaponize a judicial ethics scandal, creating a vehicle, Republicans hope, to undo a court ruling that had the effect of shifting one seat from Republicans to Democrats.
- Republican state legislatures have redrawn their maps (or, in a few notable cases, refused to) amid bullying from President Trump and his top advisors. Democratic states, on the other hand, have put the question before voters, made their case, and let the democratic process choose the path forward. In both states, polling showed that voters initially were skeptical (normal, healthy people don’t typically like gerrymandering) but came around to the new map as a reasonable check on Trump’s red-state-legislature-fueled power grab. It’s a set of facts that considerably complicates the story that “both sides” have rushed straight into the mud. (Hat tip to Mother Jones’ Ari Berman, who made a version of this point last night.)
