President Donald Trump and Republican allies have pushed to redraw congressional maps in Republican-controlled states to potentially gain up to five House seats. Texas Republican leaders advanced plans to reshape districts, and Trump publicly encouraged the effort. California Democrats passed a plan to abandon nonpartisan redistricting and craft maps that could add five Democratic seats, countering Texas. Other states, including Missouri and Florida, are considering similar moves. The fights raise concerns about fair representation and partisan control of Congress. Redistricting is the practice of drawing election district boundaries and is typically updated every ten years to reflect population.
President Donald Trump and his allies have kicked off a redistricting fight in the United States as the country's two main political parties angle for advantage in the 2026 midterm elections. In an effort to maintain control of Congress, Republican leaders in the right-wing stronghold of Texas have pushed to redraw the state's congressional districts in a way that would net the party as many as five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.
The Democratic-leaning state of California responded in kind by passing a plan on Thursday to abandon nonpartisan redistricting and create new congressional maps that could bring the Democrats five more seats, negating the effort in Texas. Party leaders in other states, including Missouri and Florida, have also indicated they may seek to rejigger their districts to pick up more seats. The standoff points to larger questions about how to ensure fair representation in Congress and how Trump has sought to exert wide-reaching control over the country's political system.
With Trump's approval rating slipping to about 40 percent, Republicans risk losing their narrow, 219-person majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives in the midterm races. So what is redistricting? And what could it mean for upcoming elections? We answer those questions and more in this quick explainer. Simply put, the practice of redistricting refers to drawing the boundaries of an election district. Ideally, districts should be designed as an accurate and proportionate reflection of the area's population.
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