Redistricting Wars Kicked Off by Trump Poised To Linger Well Into 2028 Election Cycle

The redistricting battle kicked off by Texas Republicans last summer is not likely to end any time soon, with both red and blue states preparing for additional gerrymandering efforts beyond this year’s midterm elections. New ballot initiatives, moves in state legislatures, and a potential landmark U.S. Supreme Court case are all expected to set off a mad dash headed into the 2028 cycle in order to lock in as many seats as possible for both parties. The effort to gerrymander states across the country started in the middle of last summer after President Trump demanded the GOP-led Texas legislature redraw the state’s congressional maps. Republicans are hoping to pick up as many as five additional seats this year, though that is looking less and less guaranteed as Hispanic voters shift away from Mr. Trump after he made major gains with the demographic in 2024. That kicked off retaliatory measures in California, Virginia, and possibly Maryland, where the House minority leader, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, is now pushing Democrats in that state to eliminate their lone GOP congressional seat. Well before the results of this year’s midterm are known, Democrats and Republicans across the country are ready for a prolonged battle which could officially kick off early next year. One of the Republican-led states to follow Texas’s lead in redistricting last year was Missouri, where lawmakers carved up a deep-blue, Kansas City-based district long held by Democrats. The city was split between three red districts in order to give Republicans the chance to pick up one seat. Democrats were quick to react, however. Under the Missouri constitution, citizens have the ability to challenge some of the legislature’s actions by collecting signatures and forcing a statewide vote. A Democratic-aligned group began collecting signatures last year to repeal the gerrymandered map in a ballot initiative come 2028. In December, the group behind the effort, People Not Politicians Missouri, announced that it had garnered more than three times the number of signatures necessary to kill the new map. “The citizens of Missouri have spoken loudly and clearly: they deserve fair maps, not partisan manipulation,” the executive director of People Not Politicians, Richard von Glahn, said in a statement at the time. “We are submitting a record number of signatures to shut down any doubt that Missouri voters want a say.”The old congressional map keeping the blue Kansas City seat could still be used for this year’s midterm, however, given that the redistricting law passed by the legislature could be put on hold after signatures are verified. A lawsuit is also pending in state court challenging the legislature’s ability to redraw maps in between the decennial census. A mirror effort by Republicans is happening in the state of Utah, where a state judge ordered the legislature to draw a new congressional map guaranteeing that Democrats get one deep-blue district based at Salt Lake City. All four districts are currently represented by Republicans. The basis for that ruling was that the legislature ignored a successful 2018 ballot initiative establishing an independent redistricting commission, which would have almost certainly assured that Democrats would get one of the state’s four U.S. House seats. That victory for Democrats ensuring that they pick up one seat in Utah now faces challenges on two fronts — a federal lawsuit from two of the state’s four members of the U.S. House, as well as a Republican-led effort to repeal the 2018 independent redistricting commission ballot initiative result. Republicans have also appealed the judge’s ruling to the state supreme court, though that court, which is made up entirely of Republican appointees, issued a unanimous ruling in a previous legal challenge that defended the independent redistricting commission and said the legislature must abide by the results of the 2018 statewide vote. A host of Democratic states are preparing for their own mid-decade redistricting beginning in 2027. Washington could eliminate one or both of its state’s two GOP districts, or shore up some of the more evenly divided seats which Democrats have won by narrower margins. Colorado Democrats who control all levers of state government may also push forward with a gerrymandering move. A group advocating for such a scenario, Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, could successfully nix one or two of the state’s four GOP-held seats. A real disaster scenario for Democrats could be looming, however. The Supreme Court is currently considering a case which could strike down a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires that states — most of which are in the deep south — draw a number of majority-Black congressional seats. If the court does declare that provision unconstitutional, a number of analyses predict the Democrats could lose as many as 20 U.S. House seats across the southern United States.

Redistricting Wars Kicked Off by Trump Poised To Linger Well Into 2028 Election Cycle

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