Nov. 7, 2026, 7:02 a.m. ET
Republicans’ redistricting war win didn’t stand a chance against the blue tsunami.
Ahead of the 2026 midterms, at the direction of President Donald Trump, a handful of Republican-led states undertook an effort to redraw congressional district boundaries and create more seats that favored GOP candidates. The rare mid-decade move was aimed at defending and bolstering their narrow House majority.
Democratic-led states joined the “redistricting war,” and lawsuits flew on both sides. By the time the gerrymandering blitz was over, Republicans were projected to have gained a nine-seat advantage over the 2024 lines.
On Nov. 3, however, most of those seats stayed in the hands of Democrats.
And even if they hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered. Democrats’ projected House majority far outstripped those nine seats.
“When you’re up against one of the greatest waves in American history, it’s hard for these things to work out,” political expert Kyle Kondik from Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia told USA TODAY.
Still, that wave may have also hidden lurking dangers for Democrats.
“I guess you could sort of take a step back and say the overall House map is still a bit more Republican based on the 2024 presidential numbers than it has been prior to the remap, and maybe that has consequences for the future,” Kondik said.
Dems gain ground after Texas launches redistricting war
Legislators in Texas kicked off redistricting craze, redrawing the state’s lines to create five additional seats that favored Republicans.
It was an unusual move. States normally redraw their lines once every 10 years, after the decennial census, to reflect population shifts. And it was risky. Shifting lines to make some districts more red inherently makes others less so.
In this case, it backfired.
Democrats defended four of those seats: the 28th District in the state’s border area, the 35th District in the San Antonio metropolitan area, the 9th District in the greater Houston area and the Rio Grande Valley’s 34th District.
Republicans are likely to pick up one seat in the Dallas-area 32nd District, but it is offset by Democratic flips in the border-area 15th and 23rd districts.
And Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who led the charge on redistricting, also found himself caught up in the blue wave. He lost to Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa in the midterms.
Further redistricting efforts flail
Florida, North Carolina and Ohio made similar moves. Louisiana eliminated one of its majority-Black districts after the Supreme Court ruled this year it constituted an illegal racial gerrymander; Alabama and Tennessee followed suit.
In Florida, Democrats held onto the state’s Tampa-area 14th District, South Florida/Palm Beach-area 22nd District and Miami-area 25th District. The fourth seat Republicans hoped to flip, in the Orlando-area 9th District, has not yet been called, but Democrats hold a slight lead.
In Alabama, Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures was reelected despite running in a district that voted for Trump by 14 points.
In Ohio, Democratic Reps. Greg Landsman, in the Cincinnati-area 1st District, and Marcy Kaptur, in the Toledo-area 9th District, held onto their GOP-targeted seats.
Similarly in North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Donald Davis held onto his seat in the 1st District. The race in the state’s GOP-leaning 3rd District was indirectly impacted by the redistricting and has not yet been called, but it remains tight.
Tennessee’s only Democratic-held seat in the Memphis-area 9th District fell into GOP hands after being redrawn. Still, the pickup may be negated as Democrats seem poised to flip the state’s 4th District, just southwest of Nashville, which has not been called yet.
Finally, Republicans hoped for a pick-up in Louisiana’s new 6th District, which surrounds the capital city of Baton Rouge. The race will head to a runoff between Democrat Chauna Banks and Republicans Blake Miguez.
Democratic redistricting succeeded
Democratic redistricting, however, appears to have been more successful.
California and Utah successfully joined the redistricting battle as Democratic-lead states attempted to counter Republican efforts ahead of the midterms.
California redrew maps to pick up five seats, and Democrats succeeded in all five districts: the northeast 1st District, Sacramento-suburb 3rd District, San Joaquin Valley-area 22nd District, Coachella Valley-area 41st District and San Diego-area 48th District.
Utah’s four seats were previously held by Republicans, and after a redraw to tilt the state’s Salt Lake City-area 1st District in the favor of Democrats, it has flipped by a margin of 71.9% Democratic votes to 24.9% Republican votes at about 70% of votes counted.
In Virginia, Democrats were denied in court from using new maps ahead of the midterms that would have favored their party by four seats. Still, the party was able to flip two red seats to blue, even without the redrawn maps.
The open question is whether the redistricting wars will continue after the midterms.
Kondik pointed out that the midterms resulted in more split-party state governments, which could halt such efforts and perhaps lead to a positive solution – though he thinks it’s unlikely.
“(States) could reach some sort of compromise on a redistricting commission or something and try to end the redistricting wars,” Kondik said. “But again, that’s like you’ve got to believe in Santa Claus to believe something like that would happen.”
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