Momentum in the nation’s redistricting battle swung toward Republicans this week as the Supreme Court upheld a GOP-friendly map in Texas and Indiana lawmakers pushed one through the state House on Friday.
The developments marked a change of fortune for President Donald Trump’s push to redraw maps, which had faced recent setbacks. Democrats were doing better than initially expected at counteracting the GOP efforts and a three-judge panel last month sidelined Texas’s new map.
But the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday restored Texas’s map so it can be used next year, and Republicans across the country took the decision as a sign they could redraw more lines as they seek to retain a fragile majority in the U.S. House next year.
“This may be the new normal of what the law allows us to do,” Indiana state Rep. Ben Smaltz (R) said Friday amid debate on a map that would likely give Republicans two more House seats.
He acknowledged Democrats in Illinois could quickly retaliate by drawing a new map in response to Indiana’s actions but appeared to embrace an indefinite tit-for-tat. It’s rare for states to draw new maps outside the normal once-a-decade census process and lawmakers had refrained from doing so in the past for fear that voters would accuse them of gaming the system.
“This may be what states can do and may do over the next several cycles,” Smaltz told his colleagues.
Trump kicked off the redistricting war this summer in hopes of hanging onto the Republicans’ narrow majority next year, despite his plummeting popularity. Over the next four months, GOP state lawmakers heeded his call and made nine districts more favorable to them across four states. They could secure several more in Indiana, Florida and possibly other states.
How much of an upper hand the GOP has remains uncertain. There’s no guarantee the new map in Indiana will pass the state Senate, and Democrats are seeking new districts of their own. California voters adopted a map that could give Democrats as many as five more seats there, and a judge in Utah approved a map that will likely give them another one. Virginia Democrats have initiated a process that could give them two to four more seats there.
Republicans have more opportunities than Democrats because they control more states and face fewer state laws that limit how lines are drawn. But Democrats have made clear they’ll do anything they can to mitigate the GOP gains.
“This is now a cold war,” said Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, the leader of the Democrats in his house. “If you launch a missile, the other side is going to launch as well. Every blue state now has to do something. It is no longer acceptable to sit on your ass.”
The next battleground is Indiana. For months, the White House has pushed reluctant Republicans to adopt new lines there and threatened to back primary challengers to Republicans who don’t fall in line. Republicans in the state House on a 57-41 vote approved the new map Friday, but it’s unclear if their counterparts in the state Senate will go along with them next week.
Many GOP state senators have spoken out against the plan, and 19 of them joined with Democrats last month to end a legislative session without taking up a new map. Their leader later agreed to bring them back next week to revisit the issue.
“I think it’s dead on arrival in the Senate,” said Indiana state Rep. Ed Clere, a Republican who opposes the new map. “I think it’s becoming pretty clear that the pressure campaign from the White House is backfiring in the Senate.”
Indiana state Rep. Craig Haggard, a Republican who is running for Congress, said he’d like to see national rules on when and how lines can be drawn. But until then, he said, Indiana should approve a map that will give Republicans more seats and counteract Democratic leaning maps in other states.
“We should use every legal, constitutional rule in the rule book to win,” he said. “You may not like the rules, you may not like the battlefield, but this is the battlefield that’s been given us.”
Regardless of what happens in Indiana, more states plan to change their maps. Florida Republicans want to redraw their map, though they are divided over whether to act now or wait until spring. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has said the state should wait because he believes the Supreme Court will issue a Voting Rights Act ruling soon in a Louisiana case that would give GOP-led states a much freer hand to redraw districts in Black and Hispanic areas.
The Supreme Court is expected to act by summer. The later it rules, the less time states will have to redraw their districts in time for the midterm elections. Republicans hope to get two to five seats out of Florida.
In Missouri, opponents are seeking to reverse a map that Republican state lawmakers approved in September that gives Republicans one more seat. They plan to submit petitions next week that would restore the old map until a referendum can be held on the new one. Court battles over the possible referendum are already underway and more litigation is likely.
“All we’re asking for is for voters to be able to make the final decision here,” said Richard von Glahn, the executive director of People Not Politicians, the group leading the referendum effort. “What’s very telling to me is that is what they are most afraid of — voters having the final say.”
Around the country, nearly all of the maps have been challenged in court. But the Supreme Court’s decision in the Texas case shows the difficulties those suing over maps face. Democrats and voting rights groups argued the Republicans in Texas had impermissibly considered race in drawing their map, and a divided 3-judge panel last month determined they were likely to win and blocked the use of the map in 2026. The Supreme Court restored the new map, finding Republicans appeared motivated by political considerations, not racial ones.
The law allows states to redraw their maps for political reasons, even blatant ones, but restricts what they can do when race is a factor.
While the decision is bad for Democrats, it may help them keep their new map in California. Republicans have sued over California’s map, arguing it is a racial gerrymander. Democrats say they were driven by politics, not race, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion in the Texas case that both states’ maps were drawn for “partisan advantage pure and simple.” Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch joined Alito’s opinion.
In a social media post, Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the ruling upholding Texas’s map, writing, “Federal courts have no right to interfere with a State’s decision to redraw legislative maps for partisan reasons.”
The press office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was quick to respond: “So you gonna drop your lawsuit against us right, Pam?”
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