Republicans and Democrats in states across the U.S. are battling to gain an advantage in the struggle for House control—or at least, to keep each other from getting one. Legislators in several states have already taken the rare step this year of redrawing their congressional maps in the middle of the typical cycle in hopes of boosting their parties’ chances of winning additional seats in the 2026 midterms, and leaders in still more states are looking to join the scramble.
Redistricting is normally performed just once a decade following the Census. But President Donald Trump spurred what has become a sprawling fight to implement new, gerrymandered maps by urging Republicans over the summer to begin the process in order to bolster the party’s electoral chances. Historically, the President’s party loses seats in the midterms, and the GOP has few to spare as it works to maintain its already razor-thin House majority.
As multiple Republican-led states have passed redrawn maps ahead of next year’s elections, Democrats have also called for redistricting to counter the potential losses.
They notched a key victory on Tuesday in California, where voters approved new congressional maps in the state that could net the party several additional seats. But the possible gains fall short of those Republicans stand to make with the redistricting moves they’ve pushed through. And while other Democratic-led states are also taking steps, their constitutions and the independent redistricting commissions they’ve established present complicated obstacles.
Here’s what to know about where things stand.
Democrats
Californians have approved a ballot measure to amend the state’s constitution so that new maps creating more blue-leaning districts can be implemented, marking Democrats’ first significant victory in the ongoing redistricting battle.
The passage of Proposition 50, which will allow the gerrymandered maps proposed by state Democrats to remain in place through 2030, improves the party’s chances of winning as many as five additional seats.
“It is all on the line, a bright line, in 2026,” Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters in Sacramento as he cast the California vote, noting that Democrats could “end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it” with a House majority.
Newsom championed the measure in response to Texas Republicans redistricting, at Trump’s urging, to similarly improve their odds in five districts.
California’s new maps will replace those drawn by the independent commission typically tasked with carrying out redistricting in the state each decade after the Census.
Republicans have already filed a lawsuit in an effort to block them from being used.
Though other blue states have introduced measures to move toward redistricting. California is so far the only one to have secured approval for new maps this year..
Republicans
Texas, at the behest of the President, was the first state to fire a shot in the redistricting battle.
Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature to discuss redistricting, among other items, in August. State Democrats banded together and left the state in a bid to thwart the effort, but the new maps passed two weeks later after the lawmakers—facing threats from Abbott that they would lose their seats or even, he hinted, be hit with felony charges—returned to Texas.
Republicans stand to gain up to five congressional seats from the redrawn maps.
“I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats,” Trump said in an interview in August after the maps were proposed.
Not long after they passed, Missouri Republicans also succeeded in approving redistricting. Gov. Mike Kehoe signed new congressional maps into law in September that Republicans hope will allow them to attain one additional House seat.
Several lawsuits have been filed in state courts arguing that the mid-decade redistricting violates the Missouri constitution.
Read more: The Difference Between Gerrymandering and Redistricting, Explained
Republicans in North Carolina approved new congressional maps the following month that could enable the party to win one additional House seat.
Phil Berger, the State Senate leader, issued a joint statement with Destin Hall, the speaker of the State House of Representatives announcing that they would be taking steps to protect Trump’s agenda and bolster GOP control of Congress.
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein cannot veto the redistricting plans, according to the state constitution.
“North Carolina Republicans will not sit quietly and watch Democrats continue to ignore the will of the people in an attempt to force their liberal agenda on our citizens,” Berger wrote on X in October.
New maps approved by Ohio’s redistricting commission in late October could also allow Republicans to pick up one or two additional House seats.
Ohio differs from the states that have redrawn their maps in the redistricting scramble, however, because it was already required to do so this year. The state’s previous maps, which were drawn in 2021 after the most recent Census, did not have bipartisan support and were therefore only valid for four years, as opposed to the ten they would have stood if they had secured backing from both parties in the state legislature.
Other states look to jump in
Beyond the states that have already approved new maps, several others have taken steps to do the same.
On a conference call late last month, Trump implored Republican lawmakers in Indiana, where the party holds a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature, to redraw their maps ahead of the midterms. Gov. Mike Braun then called a special session last week to consider redistricting.
“I am calling a special legislative session to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair,” Braun said in a statement.
Virginia Democrats have begun advancing plans to redistrict their own state, where a bipartisan commission currently holds the power to redraw congressional maps. The constitutional amendment they have proposed, and which the state legislature advanced last week, would allow lawmakers to bypass that commission to redraw the maps. But first it will need to pass the legislature again next year and then be approved by voters.
Governors in other blue states, including New York and Illinois, have also expressed potential support for joining the fray, but lawmakers haven’t yet begun taking active steps toward redrawing their maps.
In Maryland, state Senate President Bill Ferguson said in a letter to his Democratic colleagues in the chamber that he would not take up redistricting, citing a difficult timeline and legal concerns, as well as personal objections to such efforts. Moore, however, told reporters a day later that “one person cannot stop a process” and “a special session is not off the table, regardless of what anyone else says.” This week, Moore announced the creation of a redistricting advisory commission.
Leaders in other red states have also discussed potentially making moves. GOP legislators in Florida, for instance, created a new redistricting committee after Gov. Ron DeSantis voiced support, but has not yet proposed any new maps.
Republicans in Kansas and Nebraska, meanwhile, have said they do not have enough votes in their state legislatures to implement new maps ahead of the midterms.
The post Who’s Up and Who’s Down in the Partisan Redistricting Fight? appeared first on TIME.
