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Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

It’s highly unusual for states to redraw their Congressional maps mid-decade, rather than after the decennial census. But when President Trump all but ordered Texas to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the 2026 midterms, state Republicans complied. Texas’s new maps, passed over the vociferous objections of Democrats — who fled the state for two weeks in protest — are thought to guarantee up to five more seats for Republicans in the race for the House. Now Trump is pressuring Indiana, Missouri, and more red states to follow Texas’s lead, though it’s unclear how successful he’ll be. California Governor Gavin Newsom has struck back for Democrats, pushing (temporary) new maps through the state legislature, overturning a state commission tasked with drawing fair maps. (The proposal must be approved by voters in November.) Beyond California, though, the party has fewer options to work with than Republicans, thanks to a combination of state laws — many Democratic states have instituted anti-gerrymandering measures — and voter distribution.

Democrats need to flip only a few seats to retake the majority next year, and they remain favored to do so, given typical midterm patterns, President Trump’s low approval ratings, and Democrats’ now-established propensity to do well in lower-turnout elections. But could that change if Republicans dominate the map wars? To find out, I spoke with Dave Wasserman, a senior editor and elections analyst at the venerable Cook Political Report.

**A lot of things are in flux right now. What is your sense regarding how many more states can and will transform their maps from here on out, and how many seats would that put in play?**To me, the big question is Florida, because Indiana and Missouri would only be one seat each. Texas we already know is three to five seats, and California would be three to five seats. Ohio is most likely two, although it’s possible Republicans can target a third. But Florida could be three. And it depends on DeSantis’s willingness to replace what looked like a maximal gerrymander in 2022 with something even more aggressive.

**Why wouldn’t DeSantis do that? He has some antipathy toward Trump, but the pressure will be enormous. And typically Republicans just cave to what Trump wants to do in these circumstances.**This has become a very ego driven mid-decade brawl, and everyone is vying to be the biggest bully on the block. In the case of Florida, DeSantis is only really constrained by what Republican incumbents would tolerate. I think it’s fairly straightforward for Republicans to combine the two Orlando Democratic seats into one — that would be the easiest get. And it’s pretty straightforward to draw a Trump-leaning district in South Florida. The question is, do you try to target two of the three South Florida white Democrats? And if you do, you would need to make more significant alterations. There are ways to make it happen, but it’s more disruptive to the delegation.

**Other than California, all the states you mentioned are red. So is it fair to say that if California doesn’t succeed in this redistricting push, Democrats might have a major problem taking back the majority?**California and Florida are the two biggest question marks. Let’s say that Republicans get everything they want in Texas, Florida, and Ohio, but the voters don’t embrace setting aside the commission in California. That would certainly cause me to second guess whether Democrats are the favorites for the majority. But if it’s a middle outcome, then I would say Democrats still have an excellent opportunity for the majority.

So the nightmare scenario for Democrats would be about an additional deficit of eight to 10 seats? Depending on California, it’s either a gain of five to six for Republicans or eight to 10.

**Pretty big difference there.**That is a big difference, given the low number of truly competitive seats in the House right now. Now, it’s possible we are underrating the vulnerability of a lot of Republican seats. There are a lot of Republican seats in the house that don’t look especially endangered based on the last election result. But considering we’re talking about a different political environment right now, a lot of those seats could end up being much more competitive.

**And this will be a different electorate for the midterms — likely a much more Democratic electorate.**Correct.

In Texas, they’re redrawing districts that are majority Hispanic, and counting on the fact that the trends from 2024 are going to hold in those places — that Hispanics will continue to drift to Republicans, which is a big gamble**. Is that the same dynamic going on in a place like Florida where it might not work out the way Republicans want it to?**They have to be worried about that, because keep in mind, there were these two special elections in Florida in April where Democrats outran Harris’s margin by, I believe, 15, and 22 points respectively. So if Republicans draw a bunch of districts that are Trump plus eight, or Trump plus 10, Republicans can’t automatically feel safe about them heading into the midterms. Which is why I think Republicans could squeeze two more seats out of Florida, but beyond that, it gets riskier.

Nate Cohn of the New York Times recently wrote **that before the new Texas maps, the national congressional map was “arguably the most balanced since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.” Do you agree with that?**I don’t know that I agree with the entire arc of that timeframe, but it’s certainly a more equitable house map than the one that existed 10 years ago.

I think there are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that a decade ago, Democrats were winning a lot of their urban districts 80 to 20, or 90 to 10, while the rural Republican districts were more like 60-40, or 65-35. Today, Trump is winning a lot of rural areas 75-25, and he’s also cut into a lot of nonwhite working class voters in strongly Democratic districts. So that has reduced the pro-Republican geography bias of House districts. The other thing is that Democrats have made great strides among college-educated whites who tend to be overrepresented in the battleground suburban districts. And so that’s also reduced the pro-Republican skew of the House. So, I think it’s just as much about those dynamics and the electorate as it is about changing the way district lines have been drawn. Yes, I think Democrats were successful in getting more commissions instituted in Michigan, Colorado, Virginia before 2021 than they were in the last decade But maps on balance were also a little less friendly to Republicans.

**So even though we might be headed back toward maximalist gerrymandering, the natural voting patterns that you just mentioned might favor a slightly fairer map anyway.**Right. And also the point in time at which these maps are drawn matters a great deal. Take the 2021 Texas map. It was passed on the heels of Biden coming within six points of winning the state, and Republicans had no choice but to shore up a lot of these seats that had almost voted for Joe Biden, so they focused on shoring up their own incumbents rather than going after Democrats. Whereas this year, Republicans are drawing a map on the heels of Trump winning the state by 14, and they also have drawn close to even among Hispanic voters. So, that emboldened Republicans to be more aggressive in dismantling democratic districts. That would not have been an advisable strategy in 2021.

**Is there anything stopping states from continuing to draw new maps later in the decade?**I don’t see what’s stopping Republicans in many of these states, especially given that state Supreme Courts are increasingly partisan. Florida has robust anti-gerrymandering provisions in its state constitution because of the Fair Districts Amendment, but the Florida Supreme Court is almost entirely conservative.

**It’s one of those norms that legislators have been sticking to for decades. But it turns out they don’t need to — and they’re wringing every last drop of partisan advantage out.**Correct.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Nightmare Redistricting Scenario for Democrats

The Nightmare Redistricting Scenario for Democrats