WASHINGTON — Last summer, Texas Republicans kicked off a nationwide redistricting war when they followed President Donald Trump’s request to redraw the state’s congressional map mid-cycle to deliver five additional seats to the House GOP.
The effort appears to have yielded a stalemate, at best, for national Republicans.
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Texas’ unusual move unearthed a wave of resistance from blue-state Democrats, who were initially thought to be handicapped from retaliation by independent redistricting commissions. Instead, voters in California and Virginia decided to temporarily suspend their commissions via ballot referendum in favor of new maps drawn to yield Democrats up to a combined nine seats.
In deep-blue California, the successful “Yes” campaign romped to victory in November, replacing the state’s map, which currently has 43 Democratic-held districts and nine Republican seats, with a new configuration in which Democrats are favored to win 48. And in light-blue Virginia, where Democrats hold a 6-5 advantage in the state’s congressional map, voters on Tuesday narrowly approved a new map where Democrats are favored in 10 of the state’s 11 districts.
The results of Virginia’s referendum were temporarily blocked by a judge, but that decision will be appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. And an expected redraw from Florida could change the redistricting math again. But the end result could be a net advantage for Democrats, depending on how the fall elections play out.
“I think Trump really screwed them up,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, whose seat was redrawn to more heavily favor Republicans.
The majority of the Texas Republican delegation was privately skeptical of the redistricting effort when it was first proposed last summer, with some frustrated over a lack of input.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Waco, noted this week that the effort reshaped the seats of numerous members and forced them into retirement — both consequences that are “not oriented to continuity.”
“I think that that change, just like it would be in Indiana or wherever you are from, it changes up the mix of members,” Sessions said. “What has happened as a result of this is, I think, an unforeseen desire by others to be competitive.”
After Texas lawmakers passed the new map in August, Republicans rejoiced and defended the merits of partisan redistricting done outside the usual once-a-decade timeline. But on Wednesday morning, it was Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his caucus who were triumphant, and Republicans grumbling about the unfairness of a mid-decade redraw.
Jeffries told Punchbowl News he warned Republican Speaker Mike Johnson in July, as Republicans were proceeding with the Texas redraw, that he was pursuing a treacherous path. And in a statement, he said Democrats were committed to “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”
“Last July, Donald Trump demanded that Texas draw five new Republican seats in the middle of a decade, igniting a chain reaction of corrupt MAGA state legislators attempting to rig the midterm elections,” Jeffries said. “While many expected Democrats to roll over and play dead, we did the opposite. Democrats did not step back. We fought back. When they go low, we hit back hard.”
Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, demurred when asked by reporters whether the redistricting war had been worth it.
“It’s not for me to decide that,” Hudson said. “Wasn’t my decision.”
When asked if they had any second thoughts, most Texas Republicans stood by their state’s decision and trained their ire on Virginia.
“The fact that Virginia now is going to have one red seat in all of Virginia just goes to show you that’s kind of ridiculous,” said Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston. “We didn’t do that. We just made it more equitable in terms of what the actual demographic representation is, from a political standpoint, in Texas.”
Hunt also noted that Texas is expected to gain seats in Congress after the 2030 census due to population growth, while several blue seats are projected to lose seats.
“This was — I guess we’d call it retribution — but we got ours,” Hunt said. “And we have to continue to work more, and work toward having the majority. But I don’t think this is going to hurt us.”
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond, said Texas’ mid-decade redistricting effort was different from Virginia’s, because Virginia’s map was more extreme. And he disagreed with the idea that the two redraws could be equated.
“Texas, we don’t have that — I mean come on,” Nehls said. “We have more of a majority there, but it’s not like — there’s nobody like Virginia. They’re out of control.”
Reps. Chip Roy, R-Austin, and August Pfluger, R-San Angelo, both pointed the finger at Democratic states that have little to no Republican representation, especially in New England, saying that Texas’ mid-decade redistricting was done to reach equilibrium with them.
“There’s not a single Republican in all of New England,” Pfluger said. “President Trump won 45% in many of the states in New England, and you’re telling me that this is retaliation. They started this whole thing, and have been doing this for years. It’s really sad.”
While some states were forced by the courts to redo their maps enacted after the 2020 Census, Texas was the first state to take up a redraw mid-cycle without a court order. California’s and Virginia’s new maps will expire in 2030 and their temporarily suspended redistricting commissions will return in time for the next round of census-mandated redraws.
Democrats in those blue states have been unequivocal in stating that their new maps were drawn specifically to counteract Texas.
“Donald Trump and his power grab to try to maintain unchecked control of the Congress is why we’re here right now,” said Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, one of the Democrats who pushed for the referendum. “And when the Texas delegation got to Boston [for a legislative summit during their quorum break], and we found out what was going on — hell yeah, we’re in this fight. And we’re going to help them win it.”
Many Republicans held out hope that Virginia courts would overturn the map — the same tack Texas Democrats took once their state’s map was passed into law. And others said they would reserve judgment until after Election Day.
“We don’t know yet,” said Rep. Keith Self, R-Plano, when asked if Texas redistricting was still worth it. “The proof is in the pudding in November. It’s an impossible question to answer.”
As for whether Republicans foresaw the potential for retaliation when they passed their map last summer, Sessions said, “I think it was seen that we were starting something that maybe we don’t know the end of.”
Rep. Brian Babin, R-Woodville, said he didn’t bring up those concerns. But Roy said he wasn’t surprised.
“This has been a part of the conversation from the beginning,” Roy said when asked if anybody had raised the prospect of blue-state retaliation. “It’s like, if you’re going to start this, then each state is going to be doing whatever they’re going to do. But that’s the way it’s been.”
James Blair, a former White House deputy chief of staff who now runs Trump’s political operation, argued the redistricting war was started by Democrats suing over Republican-drawn maps in other states. But he conceded that, if he had known judges in California and Virginia “would just let them break the law, maybe we would have a different consideration.”
In addition to the nine new seats Democrats expect to win in California and Virginia, a court-ordered redraw in Utah facilitated the creation of a new blue-leaning seat in Salt Lake City.
Outside Texas, meanwhile, Republican legislatures redrew maps to pick up one seat each in Missouri and North Carolina. A court-ordered redraw in Ohio led to a bargain between the parties there that gave Republicans an advantage in 12 seats rather than the current 10, though the two seats that were made redder are still considered winnable for their Democratic incumbents.
But Republicans in Indiana resisted a push from the White House to redraw the state’s 7-2 map, voting down a proposal in the state Senate. And Republican legislatures in Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire did not take up mid-decade redistricting despite overtures from Trump’s political team.
And the GOP’s five-seat pickup in Texas is far from guaranteed. Trump would have won three of the new districts — all majority-Hispanic — by a 10-point margin, giving Democrats hope that Hispanic voter shifts and a history of overperformance by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Gonzalez can keep those seats blue. Jeffries predicted that Republicans would only win two or three of the Texas seats, an outcome that would make the redistricting math more lopsided in Democrats’ favor.
The remaining wild card is Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has called a special legislative session for redistricting. A successful redraw in Florida could rebalance the scales. But the end result of the redistricting war that Texas kicked off appears to be a draw, or close to it, regardless.
Already, Jeffries has pledged that Democrats will target eight GOP incumbents in Florida, arguing that a new map would spread Republican voters too thin and make the party’s existing representatives vulnerable.
Gonzalez said that one side effect of the Texas redistricting is the loss of incumbents and senior members to retirement — and that it reflected poorly on Republicans that they had traded that away for a redistricting war they seem unlikely to win.
“[Gov. Greg Abbott] sold out his entire delegation to their own detriment, and it’s been devastating,” Gonzalez said. “But also, they should have spoken up. We’ve lost some very reputable members.”