Welcome to Washington: The Redistricting Wars Are Just Getting Started

When voters go to the polls on Tuesday, they will decide control of the 120th Congress. The House and Senate are on the ballot, though the makeup of this Congress could be dramatically different than the next, regardless of how the 2028 elections go, because several states are ready for another redistricting battle. Welcome to Washington, where the political outlook for Republicans is grim, with President Trump’s approval rating hovering in the high thirties and Americans in an anti-incumbent mood. One of the most important stories within the Democratic Party — which is unpopular even with many of its own voters — is what these columns have called the Democratic Tea Party.This has come about, in part, because base voters do not believe that their party is fighting hard enough against the president, against Republicans, and against the strictures of modern American politics. As the presidential race kicks off, Democrats will be looking for a fighter to take on one of those challenges. Democratic governors may be able to distinguish themselves in the redistricting war. Mr. Trump kicked off the protracted conflict in the summer, when he demanded Texas Republicans gerrymander their state’s congressional maps to hand the GOP five additional seats in the House. The White House actively looked to other states like Indiana, Missouri, Florida, and Ohio, among others, leading Governor Gavin Newsom of California to launch his own effort. Voters later approved a ballot measure allowing Democrats to gerrymander the Golden State to hand their party five seats in return. Ultimately, though, Republicans are unlikely to gain as many seats as they would have hoped this year. The two Ohio seats they wanted to target are now favored to stay in Democratic hands. Another redraw in North Carolina may not pan out, now that the Democratic incumbent targeted by Republicans has kept a strong polling lead. The Texas and Florida gerrymanders may backfire, with the possibility of a “dummymander” — meaning a gerrymander that actually spreads partisans too thinly, leading to the loss of seats — becoming more likely. Republicans are still favored to pick up between five and ten seats in the House thanks to redistricting, though that is not nearly as many as they had hoped. If those Republicans who helped kick off the redistricting war believed that it would stop with their own measures, then Democrats have caught those operatives off-guard. In Maryland, Governor Wes Moore and Democrats are hoping to get a statewide ballot measure approved on Tuesday that would allow them to gerrymander the state and eliminate Maryland’s lone GOP-held district. Virginia Democrats, too, could kick off a new redistricting process next year after the commonwealth’s supreme court blocked their recent attempt.Governor Abigail Spanberger, in an interview with the New York Times, has called that discussion “outrageously premature.” New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, seems prepared for the fight, however, as the legislature has already approved a proposed constitutional amendment which could go to voters by next fall if Democrats choose to get aggressive. That measure alone could result in an additional four seats for Democrats. Much of this will be dependent on how Mr. Trump and Republicans choose to move early next year. After Indiana state senate Republicans blocked Mr. Trump’s preferred gerrymander to hand his party two more seats, the president and his allies went after GOP state senators who rebuked him. This year, eight Republican-held state senate districts will likely flip to pro-gerrymandering Republicans from anti-gerrymandering Republicans. Of the ten anti-gerrymandering GOP lawmakers in the Indiana state senate who sought renomination this year, six were defeated by those favoring the gerrymander and two retired and are expected to be succeeded by those who want to redraw the maps. Those eight flips alone would give Mr. Trump enough breathing room to pass the gerrymander. If Indiana Republicans do move forward — as the governor, house speaker, and new senate president have supported — then one could see Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois do the same, especially if he is spending his time eyeing the White House next year. “We’re watching what Indiana does,” Mr. Pritzker said last year when asked if he would pursue mid-decade redistricting — an ominous sign for Republicans who may push Illinois Democrats to move. “We may have to react to that.” Mr. Pritzker added that “it’s certainly something that people have considered here, and the legislature has considered.”

Welcome to Washington: The Redistricting Wars Are Just Getting Started

Welcome to Washington: The Redistricting Wars Are Just Getting Started

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