Thousands gathered in cities across the country on Saturday to protest President Trump’s plan to keep control of Congress after the 2026 midterms by pushing Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps in favor of Republicans.
The president’s push for the rare and aggressively partisan redistricting, while centered on Texas so far, has set off a furious response among many Democratic state leaders and party activists. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that he was moving forward with a plan to redraw his state’s lines, and allow voters to approve it in November.
On Saturday, progressive activists, labor groups and pro-democracy organizations put together more than 300 political events and rallies, looking to galvanize voters who may be angry at the Trump administration but may view the process of redrawing district lines as opaque and unrelated to their concerns.
“We need to have as many protests in this country as possible,” said Cheryl Merzel, 72, a retired public health professor who attended a rally outside a Trump hotel in Manhattan.
The biggest event appeared to be at the Texas Capitol in Austin, where a two-week-long walkout by dozens of Democratic state representatives has temporarily prevented Republican lawmakers from passing a redrawn map.
Crowds packed together in the August heat to hear from activists and lawmakers, including a pair of Democratic U.S. House members from Austin, Lloyd Doggett and Greg Casar. The two members would find themselves competing for a single Austin congressional seat under the proposed Republican map. Organizers said several thousand people took part.
“Do not allow this moment to pass without a fight,” Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman, told the crowd.
Earlier in the day Mr. O’Rourke announced that his organization, Powered by People, had given more than $1 million over the last few weeks to several Texas Democratic groups, including the state’s House Democratic Caucus, which led the walkout.
Those donations have been the subject of a lawsuit by Texas’ Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, who accused Mr. O’Rourke and his organization of illegal activity around fund-raising and spending in support of the absent Texas Democrats. This month, a Tarrant County court issued a temporary restraining order against Mr. O’Rourke that prevents his organization from “raising funds for nonpolitical purposes, including to fund out-of-state travel.” Mr. O’Rourke has denied any wrongdoing.
“The cabal of Democrats who have colluded together to scam Texans and derail our Legislature will face the full force of the law,” Mr. Paxton said in a statement.
But many of those Democrats appeared ebullient and undeterred on Saturday. At a rally in Chicago, several Democratic lawmakers, including those from Texas, spoke to a crowd of hundreds in Millennium Park — some chanting “Texas! Texas!” — amid searing temperatures.
Dozens of Texas Democrats sought refuge in Illinois after they walked out on a special session of the State Legislature, halting its activity. They were planning to return soon, claiming victory for drawing national attention to redistricting and helping to push Democratic states like California to act.
“We could not have done this without you,” State Representative Gene Wu of Houston, who led the Democratic walkout, told the crowd. “We could not have done this without millions of Americans across this country who have simply had enough.”
After about 30 minutes, the Texas Democrats led the crowd on a brief march through the downtown streets carrying a banner that read “Rise up, fight back” and chanting “Donald Trump has got to go.”
In New York, hundreds of protesters gathered at the southwest corner of Central Park near the Trump International Hotel, with local politicians leading chants of “Stand up, fight back” and attacking the president’s policies.
State Representative Robert Carroll, a Brooklyn Democrat, criticized the harsh tactics of federal immigration agents in New York and around the country. He said that if protests were not effective, “we need to start shutting down federal buildings — let’s stop being polite.”
Like Mr. Newsom, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has supported responding to the Texas redistricting with a partisan redrawing of her state’s lines to more heavily favor Democrats in U.S. House races. But because of legislative and state constitutional hurdles, any redrawn map would not be in place until after the 2026 midterms.
Still, Saturday’s protests reflected “the anger and fear that people are feeling, and their desire to fight back,” said State Representative Micah Lasher, a Manhattan Democrat, in an interview afterward.
Events were registered in dozens of cities, including Oakland, Minneapolis, Las Vegas and Washington, with tens of thousands of people signing up to attend, said Jonah Minkoff-Zern, co-director of the democracy campaign at Public Citizen, a nonpartisan consumer advocacy group. Dozens of liberal and progressive groups organized the protests, including Indivisible, Common Cause and Planned Parenthood, with support from the Democratic National Committee.
“Our goal is to build movement and awareness to challenge Trump and his billionaire allies who are working to undermine our democratic process,” Mr. Minkoff-Zern said.
The proposed map in Texas would redraw five districts currently held by Democrats so that they would favor Republicans in next year’s elections. The proposal in California, created in reaction to Texas’ map, would create five Democratic districts out of those currently held by Republicans.
Asked about California’s plans, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas attacked the California plan and Mr. Newsom at a news conference in Austin on Friday.
“It’s a joke,” Mr. Abbott said, referring to the difficult legislative and political path the California proposal would have to pass through before taking effect. “He’s posturing for the presidency and doing nothing more than that. He’s all talk and no action.”
Republican lawmakers in Texas were preparing to move forward on their redrawn map on Monday, when the absent Democrats lawmakers were expected to return to the Texas House and take part in a second special session called by Mr. Abbott.
California lawmakers were also set to take up their proposed map for the first time next week.
Robert Chiarito contributed reporting from Chicago, Luke Caramanico from New York and David Montgomery from Austin.
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
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