The redistricting arms race sparked by President Donald Trump’s push to draw new congressional lines in Texas has both parties scrambling to rethink the political map.
Republicans in four states — Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — have adopted maps more favorable to their party since this summer. Democrats have responded by drawing a friendlier map for themselves in California and kicking off a lengthy process to do the same in Virginia.
Officials in six other states are also considering adopting new districts, including Indiana, where a divided Republican legislature kicked off a session in early December under heavy pressure from Trump.
A judge recently approved a new map for Utah that will likely give Democrats a seat there, and courts are considering challenges elsewhere.
The Supreme Court weighed in on one of the biggest prizes — Texas — in early December, clearing the way for the map to take effect after a three-judge panel had previously ruled against it. The high court ruling was a victory for Trump and his party.
Implementing new maps is easier said than done. Many states are bound by laws that dictate when and how redistricting can happen. States typically draw new district lines once a decade, after each census, or if a map is struck down in court. There is also a tight timeline to get changes into place before the midterm elections in 2026.
Republicans hold a 220-213 House majority, with three vacancies, and any change to the congressional map could determine which party controls the House next term.
Here’s a look at some of the targets and the steps involved to change political boundaries in these states. And whether the districts leaned toward Trump or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Texas
The redistricting battle began with Texas, where Trump pressed Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to draw congressional boundaries with more safely red seats. Republicans complied and approved a map that could give them up to five more seats. Voting rights groups sued, and a three-judge panel struck down the new map as a racial gerrymander. The Supreme Court ruling ensured the new map will take effect.
Republicans control 25 of Texas’s 38 House seats. The new map is more partisan and includes 30 districts that recorded double-digit vote margins for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Two Democratic House members from Texas — Rep. Henry Cuellar in the 28th District and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in the 34th — represent districts that split the ticket and favored Trump in 2024. Both districts have been redrawn to shift further to the right.
California
California was the second state to jump into the redistricting battle. In response to the potential Republican pickups in Texas, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and state Democrats proposed a new map that would potentially turn five House seats blue, evening the score with the actions in Texas.
Approving new federal and state district maps wasn’t as easy as in Texas. California normally uses an independent commission to draw congressional and state legislative districts, which was put in place to make map-drawing less political. Lawmakers sought permission to sidestep the commission to adopt a new map, and voters signed off on the idea in November.
The map California used in the 2024 elections was already deeply blue, with Democrats holding all but nine of the state’s 52 House seats. But many of the districts were considered competitive. In 2024, the presidential vote margin in 15 congressional districts was 10 points or less. The new map shifted most of the state’s competitive districts toward the left.
North Carolina
Republican state lawmakers in October approved a new map that will probably give them another district. Already, Republicans hold 10 of the state’s 14 districts.
Republicans control both houses of the legislature, and they quickly approved the new map. North Carolina’s constitution does not give the governor the power to veto redistricting plans, so Gov. Josh Stein (D) was unable to block the map.
A group of voters sued, but, in a November decision, a panel of three federal judges allowed the new map to be used.
Missouri
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) called a special legislative session beginning Sept. 3 to push through a mid-decade congressional redistricting plan, dubbed the “Missouri First Map.”
The plan cleared both chambers and was signed by Kehoe. The new map would squeeze an additional red seat by carving up the 5th District, held by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D). This solid-blue district, which includes Kansas City, heavily favored Harris in 2024.
Dividing Kansas City for a new GOP seat leaves only one solid-blue district in Missouri — the 1st District around St. Louis. That is a majority-minority district and protected by the Voting Rights Act.
Utah
A judge in November ordered a new map for Utah that will likely give Democrats one of the state’s four congressional districts. Her ruling came after an earlier decision found the state’s map violated the Utah Constitution by improperly splitting Salt Lake County.
Ohio
Ohio’s bipartisan redistricting commission approved a new map on Oct. 31, giving Republicans better odds in winning two more House seats.
With bipartisan approval in the commission, the map does not need approval from the Republican-held state legislature. The state was required to create a new congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms after the state Supreme Court struck down the map drawn after the 2020 Census. In 2022, the Ohio Redistricting Commission adopted a map that could be used only until 2026.
Republicans control 10 of the 15 seats in Ohio, and will have better odds in two seats under the new compromise map. The 1st District, represented by Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman, will slightly favor Republicans. The 9th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, will have a larger Republican advantage than it already does. The 13th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes, will lean slightly Democratic.
Indiana
Republicans in Indiana’s state House plan to approve the map in early December, but some of their counterparts in the state Senate have resisted the idea. The state Senate’s leader initially declined to bring senators to the floor but later said they would convene on Dec. 8 to decide whether to approve a new map.
The map Republicans have proposed would likely allow them to win all nine of the state’s congressional districts. Currently, they hold seven of them.
The most vulnerable seat is likely in the 1st District, which includes the edges of suburban Chicago. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan (D) won reelection there by eight points in 2024, but the district favored Harris by less than half a percentage point in the 2024 race.
Illinois
Illinois jumped into the redistricting story when Gov. JB Pritzker (D) invited Texas Democratic lawmakers in August to stay in suburban Chicago when they fled their state to stall the Republican redistricting efforts.
Pritzker has been vocal about the redistricting battle nationally, and Illinois state lawmakers have full control of the map-drawing process. But the impact of any map changes could be limited here — Democrats hold 14 out of the state’s 17 House seats, and the map is already carved largely in Democrats’ favor.
Florida
Florida’s congressional map has shifted in favor of Republicans in recent years. The GOP picked up four seats after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) pushed state lawmakers to redraw the map in 2022.
Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez (R) told state lawmakers he is creating a “select committee” on congressional redistricting, and a few more districts could shift toward the GOP. The committee will meet early this month and the legislature could take up a map after that.
The state constitution has a “Fair Districts” amendment that says districts cannot be drawn to favor any one political party, and any changes to the map could be challenged in court. Five congressional districts had 2024 presidential vote margins within 10 points, and all of those seats are held by Democrats.
Maeve Reston, Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this report. Data analysis by Lenny Bronner. Presidential results for the proposed new districts are from a Washington Post analysis of 2024 precinct election results and data from Redistricting Partners.
correctionAn earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of the U.S. representative for Texas’s 28th Congressional District. It is Henry Cuellar, not Cueller.
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