A large number of states are drafting new congressional districts in an unusual round of mid-decade redistricting. Democratic and Republican state leaders alike hope the efforts will give their party an edge in November’s midterm elections.
It remains to be seen how much of a factor redistricting will be in determining who controls the House next year. But, in part thanks to a rash of retirements amid the primary contests, it will almost certainly help reshape the House into an even more partisan, ideologically engaged chamber with fewer lawmakers ready to work across the aisle, no matter which party is in the majority.
That became clear after Tuesday’s initial round of primaries.
In Texas, primary voters knocked out Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R), a four-term lawmaker who has at times gone against the political grain and been critical of President Donald Trump. A onetime Navy SEAL, Crenshaw focused on national security issues and on the state’s energy industry.
But Texas’s new maps put Crenshaw in a safely GOP district that encompassed the home base of a staunchly conservative state representative, Steve Toth.
Toth ran to Crenshaw’s political right, promised to be forcefully supportive of Trump and gained the endorsement of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He won.
Texas Democrat Colin Allred offers another example of a partisan shift. First elected to the House in 2018, Allred sat in the political middle of the Democratic caucus and challenged Cruz in 2024, running as a moderate, get-things-done Democrat.
After losing, he entered this year’s Senate contest expecting to run a similar race but found himself trailing, so he decided instead to run for a new House seat around Dallas. Now Allred has abandoned some of his moderate style and sounds a bit more like a liberal firebrand, as he runs in a district that Trump lost by more than 30 percentage points in 2024. He’s in a primary runoff against Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) after finishing about 10 percentage points ahead of her.
Meanwhile, the retirement announcements from Reps. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) and Ryan Zinke (R-Montana) highlight the changing nature of the House, which is drifting toward younger, more fiery personalities. And Owens’s race shows how retirements and redistricting can intersect in a way that encourages partisanship.
Owens, 74, a former NFL player and Super Bowl winner, is a three-term lawmaker who generally served as a workhorse and did not seek the spotlight. His retirement announcement Wednesday highlightedhis work on infrastructure projects and constituent services.
His decision frees up space in Utah, where a redistricting battle has ended with a judicial ruling that will create one strong Democratic seat and keep three GOP seats. With Owens bowing out, Utah’s three younger Republican incumbents can probably claim the GOP seats without having to endure a fierce member-versus-member primary race.
The Democratic-leaning district is colored so blue that a centrist former representative, Ben McAdams (D) — who lost to Owens in 2020 — is now likely to face a tough primary challenge from the left, in a manner that will, even if he wins, force him to mind his liberal flank in the years to come.
Zinke’s retirement has little to do with redistricting and more to do with the 64-year-old, who has been in and out of public office since 2009, wanting to move on. The former interior secretary has vast experience in Western lands issues and has been a reliable supporter of most Republican leaders since winning his first House race in 2014.
For his successor, Zinke embraced a talk radio personality, Aaron Flint, who was quickly endorsed by Trump and most leading Montana Republicans. Some local media outlets have called Flint “Montana’s Trump,” for his fiery on-air presence.
As of Friday, 34 House Republicans had announced their plans to retire at the end of this year, with many seeking higher office and others seeking greener pastures. At least 22 House Democrats have also decided to retire at year’s end, some seeking other political office.
That type of retirement wave — almost 13 percent of the 435-member body — usually happens only at the start of each decade, after the reapportionment of seats among the states and the redrawing of district lines that follow a new census.
More retirements could be coming, with the chance that 2026 tops the redistricting-driven binge of retirements in 1992, 65, still the record.
Currently, the GOP has a 218-214 House majority in which two Republicans can defect and block Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) if he is trying to pass something without any Democratic support.
In a previous era, such narrow margins might have empowered the speaker to send olive branches to the other side of the aisle and almost govern the House in a coalition style.
Instead, Trump and House GOP leaders set off the mid-decade redistricting wars by encouraging Texas Republicans to attempt to gain up to five seats.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) immediately announced that he would lead an effort to create new maps so that Democrats could offset Texas with up to five new liberal-leaning seats.
As far back as August, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-California) blasted both Newsom’s move and the Texas GOP and pleaded for Johnson to advance his legislation that would ban mid-decade redistricting designed clearly for political outcomes.
“Newsom’s scheme is an unprecedented assault on democracy and good government in our state. But gerrymandering is a plague on democracy wherever it occurs,” Kiley said then.
Kiley had his own interest in mind, as his Northern California district had a slight lean toward Republicans and his moderate brand meant he outperformed Trump by several points. But even before his seat got obliterated by the new maps, Kiley warned that “redistricting wars” would eliminate lawmakers who are focused on good government and increasingly leave behind only political show horses.
In recent years, a trend has emerged: The newer the lawmaker, the more likely he or she is to embrace an aggressive style that does not comport with quietly negotiating policy details.
According to an annual CQ/Roll Call study, 2025 was the most partisan year ever by its “party unity” measure: More than 85 percent of all House and Senate votes combined saw a majority of Republicans on one side of a roll call and a majority of Democrats on the other side.
That’s a full 10 percentage points higher than the previous record for partisanship, set in 2023.
And those numbers could grow even more stark if next year’s freshman House class moves deeper into their left and right corners, as has happened in recent years.
These shifts do not bode well for those looking for a more bipartisan Congress in the near term.
And there’s still time for more workhorse lawmakers to decide to retire — as well as 48 more rounds of primary balloting in which voters could side with fighters over dealmakers.
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