Tuesday’s election results gave Democrats renewed confidence in their party’s ability to take control of Congress next year. And this changing dynamic could affect calculations on both sides of the aisle as unprecedented redistricting efforts unfold in states across the country.
At least two states received votes directly related to Democratic redistricting. In California, Proposition 50, the ballot measure allowing state lawmakers to counter Republican redistricting efforts in other states and establish a new congressional map with five selection options for Democrats, passed by more than 27 percentage points. And Virginia, where Democrats increased their majority in the House of Delegates, is now likely to seek voter approval for a redrawn map that could net Democrats up to three additional seats.
But Tuesday’s results could also prompt Republicans to rethink the wisdom of creating aggressive new maps that would eliminate Democratic districts — but also dilute heavily Republican ones — in order to create more Republican-leaning districts. If the Democratic turnout and vote margins seen in this week’s election are an early preview of next year’s midterm elections, then Republican efforts to reorient themselves toward a more secure majority in the House may not go as planned.
Why we wrote this
Some Republicans might be wary of creating gerrymandering opportunities that would make some Republican seats slightly less safe; others might feel more motivated now to redraw the lines. Democrats might feel emboldened to push for redistricting in states other than California, or perhaps conclude they can win without it.
“Republicans are pursuing a very risky redistricting strategy,” Justin Amash, a former Republican congressman and independent from Michigan, wrote in an article on [Democratic] ride a bike.”
Experts say it seems unlikely that Republicans will end up creating a “dummymander” — the term for when one party redraws a map too aggressively and it backfires, allowing the other party to gain seats. In Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, the four states where lawmakers have already redrawn the maps to add a total of nine new Republican-leaning districts, Republicans are unlikely to fare any worse than if they had not redistricted at all.
But they could end up winning fewer of these new districts than they had hoped, says David Wasserman, senior election analyst for the Cook Political Report. And other states that have faced pressure from the White House to redistrict, like Indiana, Florida and Kansas, may now be dissuaded from doing so. Incumbent Republicans in districts that President Donald Trump won by 20 points could turn to new districts where Mr. Trump’s margin of victory was less than double digits — still a difficult climb for a Democratic challenger, but not impossible in a wave election. And they might not want to go that far.
“Even that might not be acceptable to Republicans in these circumstances,” said Mr. Wasserman. “Republicans could use more caution.”
Competitive districts in Texas
Congressional maps are typically redrawn every 10 years, following the release of updated population estimates by the United States Census Bureau. But an unprecedented mid-cycle redistricting effort took off last summer after Mr. Trump urged Texas Republicans to create five additional Republican-leaning districts.
Texas adopted its new map in August, following a walkout by Democratic lawmakers, who decamped to Chicago in protest for about two weeks before returning home. And while the new map definitely gives Republicans an edge, not all of Texas’ new seats are locks for the GOP — especially if Democratic turnout is high.
Two of the five newly created congressional districts are solidly Republican: the 9th and the 32nd. The latter went from a district that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris by a 24-point margin in 2024 to one that Mr. Trump would have won by 18 points.
Then there’s the new 35th District, which was redrawn without parts of Austin and now extends into rural and suburban areas southeast of San Antonio. The district had voted for Ms. Harris by 34 points in 2024, but under its new boundaries it would have voted for Mr. Trump by 10 points. “If Democrats find a good candidate, it’s not an unwinnable seat,” says Kyle Kondik, editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Finally, there are the 34th and 28th districts in South Texas. Currently represented by Democratic Reps. Vincente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, respectively, these are districts that Mr. Trump won in 2024 by five and seven points. Under the redrawn lines, Mr. Trump’s margin of victory in both cases would have been about 10 points, according to calculations by the Cook Political Report.
But there is no guarantee that the Republican candidate in any of those districts will perform as well next year as Mr. Trump did in 2024. In the last two districts in particular, the president has seen some of his biggest changes in the country because of the gains he has made among Latinos, who make up 83 to 90 percent of voters there. And Tuesday’s election results suggest those gains may not hold. In New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, seen as a test of Mr. Trump’s standing among Latino voters, Democrat Mikie Sherrill more than doubled Ms. Harris’ 2024 margins in majority-Hispanic cities.
“Some Republican gains among Latinos will last, but not all,” said Mr. Kondik, suggesting that these two districts could be “more defensible” after this week’s results. “In 2018, Democrats won a handful of seats that Trump had won by double digits, and I think it’s entirely possible that they will do that next year, and that Cuellar or Gonzalez could survive.”
More motivated to redraw the lines
The fate of these Texas districts, as well as those in other Southern states, could also be affected by the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the Voting Rights Act challenge. Passed during the civil rights era to ensure equal access to the ballot box, the law also prohibits voting practices that dilute the votes of minority communities, such that they are effectively excluded from power. Texas’ new map immediately sparked accusations of Voting Rights Act violations, as the new districts break up Latino communities. But if the court rules it unconstitutional to intentionally create majority-minority districts, Republicans could redraw as many as a dozen seats in their favor across the South.
Some analysts suggest the Republican Party may be more motivated to pursue mid-cycle redistricting following Tuesday’s results. Democratic victories across the board could make Republicans “more desperate,” Mr. Kondik says, and conclude that gerrymandering might be their only chance to keep control of the House. At a news conference Thursday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana cited redistricting as a reason he still feels optimistic about his party’s ability to maintain control of the lower chamber.
But Democrats might also be more motivated.
Virginia, where Democrats lost 13 seats in the House of Delegates, appears poised to follow California’s lead by redrawing its map, adding two or even three Democratic seats to counter Republican efforts. The newly elected House of Delegates must approve the move before a constitutional amendment is presented to voters.
Yet others appear to be drawing different conclusions from Tuesday’s election results. The president of the Maryland State Senate posted on X that this week’s blowout victories demonstrate that Democrats can win without needing to “rig the system.”
On Tuesday, Kansas’ Republican chairman announced he did not have the votes to call a special session to address redistricting, although the issue could still come up later.
“A lot of people are looking for a reason to stop” the redistricting arms race, says Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, an anti-gerrymandering organization. While Indiana lawmakers are a “cautious bunch” and wary of push from the White House to redraw the state’s two Democratic districts from blue to red, she said, Republicans are expected to consider new maps in the first two weeks of December.
Still, Ms. Vaughn predicts they will think carefully about what follows Tuesday’s results.
By trying to eliminate Democratic seats, “they might go overboard and make life more difficult for Republican incumbents in other parts of the state. … On Tuesday, that kind of thinking will weigh on people’s minds here,” she said. “It’s a ball here in Indiana. You squeeze it and it [Democratic] voters have to go out somewhere.
