With Democrats having ended their melodramatic two-week walkout intended to thwart a Republican congressional redistricting plan, the Texas House of Representatives swiftly approved the controversial new district boundaries on Wednesday evening. Enactment of the gerrymandering plan is now seemingly inevitable — but California is moving toward a remapping of its own that promises to offset the Texas gains seat-for-seat.
The Texas redistricting map sailed through by an 88-to-52 margin, right along party lines. With the Texas Senate having already approved a similar map on Sunday, a final version should be ready for Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature by week’s end. (For a detailed map of the new boundaries, zoomable down to street level, click here.)
The new map is expected to hand Republicans a net gain of five seats in the Texas US House delegation that will be elected in next year’s midterms. Texas Republicans currently control 25 of the state’s 38 congressional seats; the new map would likely give them 30 (a 79% share), all of which Mr. Trump carried by at least 10 percentage points in 2024. The GOP holds a narrow 219-212 majority in the U.S. House, with four vacancies, and party leaders see Texas as central to preserving their legislative agenda.
On Truth Social, President Trump hailed the map’s adoption by the Texas House, and spoke optimistically about the potential for similar moves in other red states. By combining gerrymandering with his push to eliminate mail-in voting and voting machines, Trump said “we will pick up 100 more seats, and the CROOKED game of politics is over.”
Democrats across the country have been howling about the Texas plan — assailing it as the latest threat to Our Democracy®. Meanwhile, conservatives scoffed at Texas state legislators’ choice of Illinois as their state to run to during their walkout, because Illinois arguably has the worst gerrymandering in America. In 2024, Democrats won 53% of the popular vote in Illinois House races, but took 82% of the seats (14 out of 17).
On Tuesday, former President Obama endorsed California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pursuit of a ballot measure to redraw the state’s own districts, with a goal of moving five more districts into the Democrat column — thereby negating the Texas redistricting. Of the Golden State’s 52 US House seats, Democrats own 43 today. The new goal for the 2026 elections: 48 of 52 (92.3%). While California normally uses an independent redistricting commission, Newsom’s plan centers on putting a new map in front of voters in a special election on November 4. California lawmakers debated the legislation over several house on Tuesday and a vote is expected soon.
According to Politico and AP, here’s what Obama told fellow leftists at a fundraiser in Martha’s Vineyard:
“I believe that Governor Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time.
[If Democrats] don’t respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy…We cannot unilaterally allow one of the two major parties to rig the game. And California is one of the states that has the capacity to offset a large state like Texas.”
Obama characterized Newsom’s approach as restrained, given it doesn’t seek to “completely maximize” Democrats’ share of the California delegation, instead shooting for a mere 92.3%. (Gee, that sounds reasonable.) A Democratic pollster this week said 57% of California voters support the redistricting proposal; 35% oppose it and 8% are undecided.
While California and Texas are the top heavyweights, watch for action in other states too. Ohio is going through a redraw mandated by state law, while GOP leaders in Florida, Missouri and Indiana are talking about their own moves to boost Republican power on Capitol Hill. Democrats’ ability to keep countering GOP redistricting is limited by the fact that they’ve already gerrymandered the %$#@ out of their blue states.
The Texas redistricting drive, which came at the urging of President Trump, was particularly controversial because most redistricting efforts happen following the end of a decade, informed by the latest decennial census. Mid-decade changes have happened elsewhere, however — Colorado chose to redraw its maps after the 2002 elections, for example. As with the latest Texas re-draw, Colorado was not compelled to do so by a court order springing from legal challenges to existing maps.
The adoption of the new Texas map is particularly bad news for Houston Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett: It moves her residence out of her 30th Congressional District. She said Republicans went so far as to axe her ask her to confirm her current address before they drew the new boundaries. Bad news for Crockett is good news for America:
