Democrats are on the verge of neutralizing President Donald Trump’s push to redraw the nation’s congressional maps to help his party keep power in the November midterm elections.
Republicans around the country have long been looking to Florida — which has been biding its time and is gearing up to act this spring — to help the party pull ahead.
But some Republicans in the state are tamping down expectations that they can deliver the kind of bonanza that would give the party significant breathing room.
“One thing that needs to be made clear: We are not picking up five seats,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R), dismissing a number others in the party have floated. “Drawing five new seats would put others in danger.”
Republicans’ aggressive ambitions for redistricting are colliding with a tough political environment in which dramatic redraws could make existing GOP seats more vulnerable. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) prides himself on his record of aggressive redistricting that helped his party flip the House in 2022, and he has signaled big ambitions for another redraw. He has delayed acting in hopes that the Supreme Court, which has been reviewing the Voting Rights Act, will give states even more latitude to change lines.
But some Republicans worry that trying to squeeze too many new red seats out of the state will backfire — watering down safe seats in a tough year.
“On our best day,” Cammack said, the state could see three new GOP seats. She thinks two is more realistic.
Republican states, at Trump’s direction, have embarked on a rare effort to change congressional districts outside the usual 10-year cycle in hopes of preserving the party’s narrow advantage in the House. Trump has worried openly that a Democratic-run House would investigate him, impeach him or thwart his agenda.
Nationwide, Democrats have canceled out much of the GOP’s recent redistricting gains with their own moves.
In a worst-case scenario for Republicans – in which they fail to flip several of the red districts they carved out – Democrats could gain more from redistricting in the end. Democrats have been dramatically overperforming in special elections and hope a backlash to Trump will help them hold on to seats the president once won handily.
Democrats are pressing ahead with a redraw meant to net four blue seats in Virginia, ramping up the pressure on Florida to give the GOP a boost.
“They’re the last crown jewel” in the party’s redistricting hopes, said Alex Patton, a GOP strategist in the state.
Trump set off a redistricting scramble last summer when he pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their maps with five new red-leaning seats before the 2026 midterms, ahead of the normal schedule tied to the Census. Republicans in North Carolina, Missouri and Ohio also drew maps more favorable to the party, while Democrats in California passed a ballot measure to hit back with five more blue-leaning seats.
Early voting, meanwhile, is underway in Virginia for a Democratic plan to override the normal redistricting process and allow the state legislature to carve out four more blue-leaning districts. Virginia’s U.S. House delegation currently has six Democrats and five Republicans; under the new plan, the state could elect 10 Democrats and one Republican.
Some in the GOP said they have been caught off guard by the lengths Democrats have taken to counter their redistricting push.
“There was some naiveté across the board on how well [Democrats] would be able to quickly mobilize,” said a Republican operative, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to give a candid opinion.
The redistricting scramble has frustrated many sitting Republicans in Congress who could be pushed out under the new maps or have seen their longtime districts change. In Indiana, GOP state legislators rejected intense pressure from Trump to draw more red seats, reluctant to cast aside the normal process for partisan gain.
Now the tit-for-tat could work out to something close to a draw.
“We should just call a truce on it and just say mid-cycle redistricting is a bad idea,” said Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation, who would be targeted in a redraw there.
A Democratic plan to eliminate Harris’s seat has stalled, and any further moves in Maryland would likely impact the 2028 elections rather than this year’s midterms.
A Supreme Court ruling later this year could upend the redistricting wars and pave the way for new Republican seats nationwide. The court is weighing a case that could curtail the use of race in drawing legislative maps and undermine the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law meant to combat discrimination that helped minority voters elect their preferred candidates.
But the ruling could come too late for most states to take advantage of it before the midterms, leaving the biggest impacts to 2028 and beyond. The court may not issue its opinion until the summer, when many primaries and qualifying dates to run have passed.
DeSantis has called a late April special session on redistricting — over objections from Republicans in the statehouse who wanted to move sooner — because he is waiting on the Supreme Court, betting it may rule earlier. Florida officials pushed back qualifying dates for candidates as a result.
“We want to give the court time to be able to issue that decision,” the governor said of the Supreme Court on Fox News in January.
GOP leaders in Florida think they can get at least two or three new red seats through redistricting and are aiming for four or five, according to a person familiar with their thinking. A Republican close to the redistricting process echoed that three-to-five range. But some in the party have long viewed the upper end as a stretch that could threaten other seats, especially in a blue wave year.
Republicans worried about Democrats’ overperformance in a slew of recent local races will be watching a special election this month for a competitive state Senate seat in Florida, one official in the state said. The race, which will fill a seat vacated by now-Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins (R), could reinforce fears about an aggressive redraw backfiring.
“Florida is already so gerrymandered,” said CJ Warnke, a spokesman for the House Majority PAC, which supports Democratic congressional candidates. Republicans, he argued, risk creating districts that Trump won but that could flip back to Democrats in a blue wave.
The GOP could run up against other challenges in Florida, too. DeSantis has a rocky relationship with the Republican Speaker of the state House, leading some Republicans to wonder if they will clash over the details of a new map.
The Florida Constitution also has a “Fair Districts” amendment, adopted by voters in 2010, that says districts may not be drawn to favor a political party. Whatever map Republicans might pass is likely to end up in court.
The Florida Supreme Court, which is largely appointed by DeSantis, rejected a challenge to Republicans’ previous 2022 redraw.
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