Republicans are plowing forward with plans for redistricting in several other states now that Texas is poised to approve its newly redrawn maps.
The Lone Star State kicked off the redistricting arms race when Republicans in the state Legislature agreed to move forward with rewriting their congressional lines at the insistence of President Trump.
Now, as Democrats in California look to counter Texas with their own redistricting plan, the GOP is setting its sights on states from Florida to Indiana to Missouri, signaling a new phase of the fight.
“There’s not much more Democrats can do at this point, which is kind of part and parcel of the Republican reason behind doing this,” said Missouri Republican strategist Gregg Keller. “The question is whether or not we are going to unilaterally disarm as a party in the face of what they have done.”
Texas may have been the start of this year’s escalating redistricting battle, but it’s far from the end. National attention swung to the Lone Star State after Trump’s call on Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to take the rare but not unprecedented step of calling a special legislative session to conduct mid-decade redistricting.
With as many as five likely pickup opportunities in the proposed map for next year, Texas Republicans are better positioned than those in any other state to increase their party’s chances of holding control of the House.
But if California voters approve a ballot measure to let the state Legislature redraw its map for the rest of the decade, Democrats could also pick up as many as five additional seats there in the midterms. That raises the stakes for states that may only be able to add on one or two extra seats but could prove critical to next year’s election results.
Florida is the other state potentially comparable to Texas in terms of pickup opportunities.
Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) originally wanted to try to have the GOP pick up more seats during the most recent redistricting process but faced some resistance. But a ruling from the Florida Supreme Court upholding the current map along with advocacy from Trump should embolden DeSantis to pick up those extra seats this time.
O’Connell said he could imagine Republicans trying to pick up somewhere between one and five seats, most likely targeting Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz, for example.
He noted California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) calls for Democrats to “fight fire with fire” in response to Texas, but he said that is what Republicans are doing in response to previous Democratic gerrymanders in states like Illinois and Massachusetts.
DeSantis has been consistently behind mid-decade redistricting, and the membership of a redistricting committee will be announced next month.
“The overall takeaway is DeSantis wanted to do more back in the beginning of the redistricting here in 2020,” O’Connell said. “Now, because of that court decision and the political reality at the moment, he’s going to be able to do what he thinks should have been done in the beginning.”
Ohio, another red state, is in its own category, as it is required to redistrict ahead of the midterms under state law because the current map passed along party lines without the necessary supermajority. But in practice, Republicans stand to gain from that process just as they do with other states redistricting by choice.
The process will get started in the fall and could net the GOP two or three currently Democratic-held seats, jeopardizing at least Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who has served in Congress for decades, and Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio).
Ohio Republican strategist Mark Weaver said Kaptur and Sykes are already in competitive districts without the lines being redrawn. But their districts could end up much more conservative-leaning after a new map is in place.
He said even if it’s only a few seats, that number could be critical to determining which party will win control of the House. The chamber’s split has been razor-thin for the past few sessions of Congress.
“Every state matters when it comes to a House majority that’s this close,” Weaver said.
The Trump administration has been pushing this strategy strongly, looking for chances anywhere it can get.
A source close to the White House told The Hill that the pressure is on Republican governors to take similar steps to Texas after Abbott’s seeming success. They said former President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder (D) have raised money to push for gerrymandering quietly in past years, but Trump “doesn’t do things in the shadows.”
“He’s just come out and made it pretty direct,” they said.
While most GOP leaders in the key states appear to be on board with Trump’s position, Indiana has been a bit of an exception, with a few Republican lawmakers in the state Legislature coming out against redistricting. The current congressional breakdown is seven Republicans and two Democrats, and some are eyeing picking up one more seat.
Indiana state GOP lawmakers are set to come to D.C. this coming week for a meeting with the White House. The meeting was set weeks ago, before Vice President Vance visited the state to discuss redistricting.
An invitation for the meeting does not explicitly mention redistricting and says the discussion will instead focus on ways to enact Trump’s agenda at the state and local level.
One Trump ally told The Hill that the White House’s message to state lawmakers on redistricting will be, “You want the America First agenda to continue? This is the best way to make sure it happens. And oh yeah, this is legal and right.”
Some Trump allies have also talked about the potential of primary threats against state lawmakers who do not fall in line, another sign the White House is looking to use its full political might to get as many states as possible to act.
“We will support primary opponents for Republicans in the Indiana State Legislature who refuse to support the team and redraw the maps,” Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, posted on the social, platform X.
Republicans expressed confidence that the efforts would generally go through.
Keller said some murmurs of Missouri redistricting started a few months ago, but “everything changed” when Trump became personally involved, calling Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) to urge him to go forward.
The issue is likely to come up next month during a veto session of the Legislature, when lawmakers discuss any vetoes they want to try to override but will also have a chance to advance a new map. The target of the effort is expected to be Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), from the Kansas City area.
That would leave just one Democratic House member in the state.
“The composition of our legislature for Republicans is not quite as conservative, and certainly not as anti-establishment, as where Republican voters in the state are,” Keller said. “However, when the president and the White House got involved in this, everyone kind of hopped to pretty quickly. Conservative and moderate Republicans as well as … even moderate Republicans are largely going to fall in line.”
As further evidence of the administration’s interest, the White House and Republican National Committee are reportedly working together to draw the new map.
And in one possible data point on the effectiveness of the pressure campaign, Indiana state Rep. Craig Haggard (R) had initially expressed skepticism about redistricting and whether his constituents want it, only to change course and declare his support for it days later.
Republicans also said they expect members to be on board even if that requires some safer Republican districts to become somewhat less safe in the interest of adding more seats to the total.
“If you’re in a red state, the red folks may have hand-wringing behind closed doors, but they’re not going to walk out there and say X, Y and Z,” one Republican said, adding “everyone understands what the mission is.”
Alex Gangitano and Brett Samuels contributed.
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