A group allied with Colorado Democrats is beginning a drive to tear up the state’s House map for the 2028 and 2030 elections and hand the party more seats, in a sign that the nation’s gerrymandering wars are likely to go on for years.
A ballot measure backed by the group would ask voters this November to suspend the state’s independent redistricting commission for two election cycles and install a map with as many as three more Democratic-leaning seats. Colorado’s House delegation currently includes four Democrats and four Republicans.
The group, Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, is framing the effort as a response to Republicans’ moves on redistricting that started last year. It argues that the proposal would be only temporary, with the state’s independent commission restored after the 2030 census.
“No one wanted to have to take this action — independent redistricting is the ideal,” Curtis Hubbard, a spokesman for the group, said in a news release. “We can sit back and do nothing, or we can take action to approve temporary maps that will help keep our elections on a level playing field.”
The group said it would need to gather roughly 125,000 signatures before an Aug. 3 deadline to place the redistricting measure on the ballot in November.
The group has the backing of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and its chairman, Eric H. Holder Jr., the former U.S. attorney general. It is expected to receive funding from, among other groups, the House Majority PAC, the main super PAC for House Democrats.
The push in Colorado is the latest indication that the nationwide arms race to draw partisan congressional maps will not subside after this year’s midterm elections. Last year, Democrats in New York unveiled a plan to change their redistricting process by 2028, and Gov. Kathy Hochul quickly signaled her support.
Both Colorado and New York are unable to redraw their maps in time for 2026 because of state laws that were enacted to prevent gerrymandering from spiraling across the country in recent months. A handful of states — mostly run by Democrats — have adopted independent redistricting commissions to draw their maps in an attempt to take politics out of the map-drawing process.
But those laws have put Democrats in a bind since the gerrymandering fight escalated last year. Over the summer, in a move encouraged by President Trump, Texas Republicans took the unusual step of redrawing the state’s House map in the middle of the decade — instead of after the census — with the aim of giving Republicans five more seats in Congress.
Similar efforts quickly spread across the country. Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina drew new, more G.O.P.-friendly maps, and a previously scheduled redistricting process in Ohio eliminated more Democratic districts. Democrats wiped out Republican seats in California, and they are pursuing a similar plan in Virginia. Republicans in Florida have indicated that they plan to draw new maps this year.
In its news release, the Colorado group pointed to a looming Supreme Court decision on the fate of the Voting Rights Act. If the court strikes down a critical provision of the act, Democrats could lose about a dozen majority-minority districts across the South, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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