With a lot riding on the upcoming 2026 midterms, President Donald Trump has been doing his best to sway Republicans in red states like Texas and Missouri to reevaluate their district maps. But Democrats in several states are promising their own redistricting methods, which is bound to shake the political tables.
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In many cases, this means Democrats are prepared to use the same Republican gerrymandering scheme to change their own congressional maps in favor of the Democrats. If it sounds like a complicated process… that’s because it is. Still, Democrats in Virginia have officially taken a serious first step to get the job done.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, headed by former Attorney General Eric Holder, reportedly donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a redistricting plan in the state, Fox News reported.
“I think that responsible Democrats in other states have to take into account the threat to our democracy, the need to preserve our democracy, so that we can ultimately try to heal it,” he said, according to ABC News. “And I would hope that they will take steps that are, again, as I said, temporary but responsible.”
The first step would be to change the state’s constitution, which can only be done through a vote by state residents. That’s why in states like California, new legislation has already been proposed for voters to decide. California’s Proposition 50 “would override the commission’s lines used for congressional districts in the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections,” according to UCLA.
Traditionally, redistricting is done only to coincide with the census, which is done every 10 years, we told you. But since the president is changing the ballgame, Democrats have to be more creative.
But while Democrats are leading the charge in Virginia and California, a lawsuit in New York is simultaneously turning heads big time. On Oct. 27, an election law firm filed a lawsuit hoping to redraw the lines of the only congressional district in New York City represented by a Republican, AP News reported. They argued the current district lines are unconstitutional because they don’t properly represent the power of Black and Latinx voters.
This past summer, dozens of Democrats in Texas fled the state in order to protest the Republican-led redistricting efforts, The Root previously reported. Representatives in Texas were set to vote until the Democrats– the scarce minority– fled to blue states.
The two-week protest was in effort to deny the quorum for voting on the redistricting plan. If the suit is successful, Democrats in New York would be able to move forward with their own redistricting plan.
This is all bad news for Trump, whose approval rating continues to steadily decline after his immigration mandate, cuts to SNAP benefits, trade wars with our allies, the ongoing government shutdown and more continue to rock Americans. With that, the country has a vital decision to make before the midterms arrive: Will they replace the current Republican-led House of Representatives and vote more Democrats in control or not?
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