FROM THE HILL: 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.
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.
“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 Gregg Keller, a Republican strategist. “The question is whether or not we are going to unilaterally disarm as a party in the face of what they have done.”
Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) is calling for Democrats to “fight fire with fire” in response to Texas, but he Republicans are currently looking at maps in response to previous Democratic gerrymanders in states like Illinois and Massachusetts.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been an advocate for mid-decade redistricting.
“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, on the other hand, is required to redistrict ahead of the midterms under state law because the current map was passed without the necessary supermajority. Even so, Republicans will likely gain from that process as well.
Still, in a separate report, The Hill notes that the Republican effort to defend their “razor-thin House advantage” is no guarantee, as election experts say “a number of other factors leave Democrats well positioned to seize the chamber.”
The report claims that the “national mood currently favors the more energized Democrats” and that the republicans have “little room for slipups.” It also notes that “historic trends predict significant midterm losses for the party of the sitting president.”
“Democrats won 235 seats in 2018 on a map that was a little bit more skewed towards Republicans than the one that is in place currently,” David Wasserman, the senior elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, told the outlet. “And we’re looking at a political environment that’s similar to 2018, based on the enthusiasm gap between the parties and the offyear election results so far.”
Republicans shift focus to states beyond Texas in redistricting fight https://t.co/MnmPwkqcsW
— The Hill (@thehill) August 24, 2025
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