The national redistricting battle that began this year with Texas and California is spreading across the country as Democrats seek to keep up with red states looking to bolster their party’s chances at retaining the House majority in the 2026 midterm elections.
Democrats and Republicans are looking to stay on par with each other as legislatures are weighing whether they have the votes to engage in mid-decade redistricting and increase opportunities for their respective party to win additional seats next November.
While Texas and California have already set redistricting in motion, blue states like Illinois, Virginia, and Maryland are eyeing the possibility of drawing new congressional maps to offset any other red states, like Indiana, Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina, that are seeking possible redistricting efforts of their own.
Currently, Democrats need a net gain of three seats to win back the House majority. But a new congressional map in Texas has put five vulnerable Democrats in more conservative seats, making it almost assured that an additional five Republicans will be heading to Washington as part of Texas’s delegation in 2027.
In a few weeks, California is asking its voters to accept Proposition 50, which would allow the Democratic-led legislature to temporarily circumvent the independent redistricting committee. In doing so, the legislature would draw a new map to target five vulnerable House GOP lawmakers in the hopes of evening the playing field with Texas this cycle.
But to counter redistricting, Democrats do not hold trifectas in as many states as the GOP does, especially if Indiana, Florida, and Missouri are successful in drawing new maps. And several blue states have mechanisms in place to counter redistricting, leaving the party with limited options to push back against Republicans.
“I think every single state, every single state that are run by Democrats, should be using every amount of leverage they have to play the same game that Republicans are. We didn’t start this, but we can’t unilaterally disarm,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters on Thursday.
“Republicans are forcing us to squeeze every ounce of juice that we can,” he added. “We’d be fools to observe norms when they’re just destroying them.”
Based on recent news coming out of the states, it seems that Republicans have the upper hand when it comes to the number of the states that could be successful in gerrymandering ahead of 2026 — barring any court interference.
But one GOP state, Indiana, is facing some hesitancy that is causing MAGA conservatives to demand Republican lawmakers get with the program or get out of office.
Illinois cracking the door open on redistricting — but state leaders have warnings for Washington
When Democrats began eyeing blue states that could help with redistricting, eyes swung to Illinois almost immediately. Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) said a new congressional map was “on the table” when state Texas Democrats fled to Illinois as one of their states of refuge during their protest of Texas GOP redistricting.
But Illinois redistricting could have some unintended consequences. Illinois’s Democratic House delegation raised one such concern to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) in September, worrying that a new congressional map might make some Democratic districts in the suburbs more competitive. Under new district lines, they said they are concerned their district would be flooded with new GOP voters, making it more difficult to win reelection — an unnecessary risk given the tough midterm election coming up.
Another risk centers on the representation of black voters in the districts.
The Illinois Senate Black Caucus has made it clear to Jeffries that it will not back any map that thins the black vote in any historically black district. Three of Illinois’s congressional districts are at least 40% African American, and the state has four black representatives to Washington.
It is likely any new congressional map would require these majority-minority districts to absorb rural, majority-white areas in the state that lean or overwhelmingly vote for Republicans.
Democratic state Sen. Willie Preston, chair of the caucus, told the Washington Examiner in an interview that neither he nor other state lawmakers have seen a new map, so there’s “really nothing for us to gage.”
“However, I will not support a map that dilutes black representation, because once we lose power, we never get it back, or it’s very, very difficult to get it back,” Preston said. “I’ve been talking to constituents. They have given me clear instruction that, at all costs, I am to fight for and to protect representation, black representation. That’s what I have to do here, and I’m encouraging my colleagues to do the same.”
The Capitol News Illinois reported this week that Jeffries’s push is getting a rather icy reception from other state lawmakers, with one telling the outlet that there is “next to zero” appetite to do it. Another said, “there is no world where I see this happening.” Party officials told the outlet that most if not all of the redistricting conversations are being initiated by Washington, D.C., with very little interest coming from Springfield.
There are roadblocks and messaging problems that stand in the way of Illinois engaging in redistricting. One is the timeline, as the filing deadline for candidates is Nov. 3.
Another is that in 2022, Illinois redistricted ahead of a competitive midterm cycle. That time, Democrats were looking to protect a slim majority in the House under Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). It was deemed one of the most aggressively gerrymandered maps in the country.
After the new map went into effect, two centrist Illinois Republicans — former Reps. Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger — were written out of Congress as the new maps “eviscerated” their districts. And Democrats lost the House, anyway — serving as a cautionary tale both for Democrats looking to redistrict and the hyper-partisan consequences of redistricting in general.
Preston said the Democratic caucus in Illinois “100% stands behind” Jeffries “to make sure that he preserves and protects democracy” when asked if there’s an eagerness to redistrict among his colleagues.
“The realities are, the Republicans have started this redistricting war that we’re in, and I think Leader Jeffries is putting out fires all over the nation, and Democrats are going to finish it,” Preston said.
“If the President is going to continue to cheat, I think Leader Jeffries has no tools left, but to fight him back or to lay down. He’s not going to do that, and I think he’s got — that’s why Democrats all across the country are standing with him,” the state senator added.
ILLINOIS’S REDISTRICTING IN 2022 SERVES AS A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR CALIFORNIA AND TEXAS EFFORTS
Virginia could be great hope for Democrats
Virginia made a surprise move this week when Democratic state legislators announced their intention to redraw the congressional map to bolster their party with two or three more seats.
If they move forward, it will be the second Democratic state to officially take steps to counter Texas’s new gerrymandered maps; no other state has done so, so far, despite many expecting a wave of redistricting efforts to kick off in the immediate aftermath of Texas adopting its new map.
Of the 11 seats in Virginia’s delegation, six are occupied by Democrats.
Per Cook Political Report, the Virginia delegation were anticipating three competitive congressional races: Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), Rob Wittman (R-VA), and Eugene Vindman (D-VA). Vindman replaced former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is in the slight lead for governor in the 2025 election.
No maps have been drawn, so it is not clear which Republican seats would be targeted. But it’s likely that races for Kiggans and Wittman would become more competitive under a new map.
When the legislature comes back remains to be seen. According to the New York Times, when Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) called a special session in May 2024, the Democrats left it open. So the authority to reconvene the chamber is now in the hands of the House of Delegates speaker and chair of the state Senate’s Rules Committee.
Youngkin has called the redistricting plans a “shameless, reprehensible political power grab.”
On the other side of Washington, national Democrats from the House Democrats’ campaign arm are pressing Maryland lawmakers to redistrict based on a Change Research poll that found a majority of voters responded positively to “to every argument that was tested in support of redistricting,” per Politico.
Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) has signaled he is open to the idea. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said in a post on X that it is a “political and ethical imperative to fight back across America, from coast to coast, from California to the Free State.”
Republicans see opportunities in South but are met with ice from the Midwest and East
Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping they can build on Texas’s success with redistricting in Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina.
In Missouri, Gov. Mike Kehoe (R-MO) signed a revised map into law at the end of September, which targets the district of longtime Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (R-MO) by funneling in more Republican-leaning areas and reducing the amount of minority voters.
In North Carolina, the GOP state House approved a new map targeting Rep. Don Davis (D-NC on Wednesday. Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) cannot veto redistricting maps, per state law.
But in New Hampshire, GOP state Sen. Dan Innis removed his bill from consideration to redraw the state’s two congressional districts after Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said she wasn’t “supportive” of mid-cycle redistricting. Ayotte told local outlet WMUR that the “timing is off” and even pressure tactics from President Donald Trump and his allies wouldn’t change her mind.
Indiana could possibly be headed down that same route. The Hoosier State’s redistricting efforts are in a hesitant phase, after the Senate leader’s spokesperson said they do not have the GOP votes to pass a mid-decade map despite a pressure campaign from the White House.
“The votes aren’t there for redistricting,” said Molly Swigart, spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray.
Gov. Mike Braun (R-IN) is inclined to call a special session to redraw the state map’s, per Politico, telling the outlet that he is “confident the majority of Indiana statehouse Republicans will support efforts to ensure fair representation in congress for every Hoosier.”
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), who has been intimately involved in the discussions and was present for Vice President JD Vance’s meeting with state lawmakers, told the Washington Examiner that the closer Indiana gets to a special session, “if the House passes it, and if there’s a lot of pressure on the Senate to take it up and deal with it. I think they pass it.”
When asked if he supported conservatives’ efforts to primary state Republicans who don’t support redistricting, he said that the White House “has said they will support those in tough primaries that support these efforts.”
Stutzman admitted that lawmakers are “definitely dragging their feet” and aren’t eager to redistrict, mostly due to concerns over setting a precedent.
“Just like the U.S. Senate doesn’t want to change the 60 cloture vote [threshold] to reopen the government,” Stutzman said. “It’s the same thing. It’s like, we’ve never done it like this before. There’s a precedent we’d be breaking.”
TRUMPWORLD HINTS AT RETALIATION FOR INDIANA LAWMAKERS OPPOSED TO REDISTRICTING
He added that the talks have been “cordial conversations.” For his part, he has warned his state GOP colleagues of the consequences if Indiana doesn’t redistrict and Republicans lose the House by a handful of seats.
“This is now a team sport. This is a team play here, because Democrats are favoring themselves by redistricting where they can, and Republicans need to do the same thing,” Stutzman said. “I mean, this is about policy at the end of the day, but it’s to get to the policy we want. We have to work through the politics first, and that’s why we need to do this.”
Ramsey Touchberry contributed to this report.
