National Republicans are ramping up their efforts to squeeze more GOP-friendly congressional seats forward of the 2026 midterm elections outside of the five seats they hope to gain in Texas.
Allies of President Donald Trump have referred to as on state leaders in Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina and Missouri to goal the handful of Democratic districts remaining within the states. In Florida, Republicans took a first step towards as attainable mid-cycle redistricting by launching a House committee to look at the problem. Vice President JD Vance visited Indiana on Thursday to meet with the state’s Republican leaders.
The push to choose off these remaining seats marks the most recent part in a redistricting arms race sparked by Trump, who’s taking extraordinary measures in hopes of stopping Democrats from successful again the House subsequent 12 months.
The effort can also be the most recent check of Trump’s capability to persuade state and federal lawmakers to enact his agenda even at their very own expense.
GOP state lawmakers have a number of causes to resist drawing new maps, from the extra prices of holding particular classes to the truth that new maps would change the districts of incumbent Republicans, probably making them more aggressive and undermining Trump’s aim for the midterms. Efforts to goal some seats may additionally draw authorized challenges, together with potential violations of the Voting Rights Act.
In some instances, Republican legislatures already thought-about more partisan maps in the course of the conventional once-a-decade redistricting cycle however opted towards them.
Republicans management the governorship and legislatures in 23 states – in contrast to simply 15 held by Democrats – giving them a longer checklist of maps to goal. But in a number of states, Republicans have already efficiently left Democrats few, if any, seats.
Here’s the place the president and his allies are looking for to achieve further seats.
Outside of Texas, Ohio represents Republicans’ finest probability of gaining further seats. Under state regulation, Ohio should approve a new congressional map by November 30 as a result of the present strains drawn by Republicans handed with none Democratic help.
Republicans may achieve a further two to three seats within the state by focusing on Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Emilia Sykes and Greg Landsman, in accordance to an analysis by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Democrats at present maintain 5 of the state’s 15 House seats.
But the method isn’t clear-cut. Under guidelines backed by voters in 2018, Republicans should first try to cross a map with bipartisan help. If Republicans find yourself passing a map alongside occasion strains, Democrats may probably ask voters to strike the map down by way of a statewide referendum.
Republicans are hoping to flip one, presumably two, districts in Indiana, the place the occasion at present holds seven of the state’s 9 House seats. A brand new map would seemingly goal Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan, who represents the state’s northwest nook, or, probably, Rep. André Carson, who represents a lot of Indianapolis.
Republican Gov. Mike Braun and GOP legislative leaders have expressed restricted curiosity in redistricting, partly due to the prices of holding a particular session in addition to considerations of undermining Republican incumbents.
“You can spread out your Republican vote a little too thin so that every few cycles, seats are going back and forth,” Indiana Sen. Todd Young told Punchbowl News final month. “And that can sort of cut both ways.”
Braun remained noncommittal after the assembly with Vance.
“We listened,” Braun mentioned when requested if state officers and the vp reached a consensus, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican who just lately launched a marketing campaign for governor, has referred to as on state lawmakers to draw maps that may give the GOP all seven seats within the state. That would come on the expense of longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s lone Democratic member of Congress.
“We have Republican supermajorities in South Carolina. Let’s use them to create more competition in our congressional seats,” Norman told Fox News. “I have no doubt Republicans can be successful in every part of our state.”
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who can also be working for governor, disagreed.
“I think our lines are good,” Mace informed reporters forward of an occasion in Myrtle Beach Wednesday. “We did a great job.”
Mace argued that a 7-0 map would face constitutional hurdles.
Democrats would nearly definitely problem any efforts to dismantle Clyburn’s seat – the one majority-Black district within the state – as a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Missouri’s Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe informed reporters Tuesday that he would work with state leaders to “see if there’s a path” to redrawing the state’s congressional map.
“We want to keep the House in Republican control,” he mentioned, according to the Kansas City Star.
Republicans management six of the state’s eight districts. A brand new map would seemingly goal Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City seat. Cleaver has vowed to problem any new map focusing on his seat in court docket.
Trump allies have been lobbying leaders within the state. Republican Rep. Eric Burlison told the Star final month that he spoke with a member of the Trump marketing campaign who mentioned the Cleaver seat was a missed alternative over the last redistricting cycle. Missouri House Speaker Chad Perkins mentioned White House employees reached out to him after he informed a native outlet that mid-cycle redistricting could be “out of character with the way” the state operates.
“They said ‘Well, we’re really going to try to do that,’ and that might change the dynamic of it,” Perkins told the Missouri Independent last month.
Republicans already maintain all three seats in Nebraska however lawmakers may redraw the map to make the state’s swingy 2nd District much less aggressive. US Rep. Don Bacon, who introduced in June he gained’t search reelection to the seat subsequent 12 months, informed the Nebraska Examiner that there have been conversations about redrawing the maps, however “nothing serious.”
Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez despatched a memo to lawmakers Thursday asserting the launch of a Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting, marking the primary concrete step in direction of redrawing the state’s US House maps off-cycle.
The Select Committee comes a month after the state Supreme Court upheld the 2022 congressional map drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ workplace. Opponents mentioned the map violated the state structure’s “Fair Districts” provision, which prohibits lawmakers from favoring one occasion or diminishing the political energy of minorities, by dismantling a majority-Black seat. The state Supreme Court dominated that the district was a racial gerrymander that violated equal safety rights beneath the US Constitution, an interpretation that weakened the “Fair Districts” rule.
The choose committee Perez created will additional look at how lawmakers ought to view the supply.
“Exploring these questions now, at the mid-decade point, would potentially allow us to seek legal guidance from our supreme court without the uncertainty associated with deferring those questions until after the next decennial census and reapportionment,” the memo reads.
Republicans at present maintain 20 of the state’s 28 House seats. Five of the state’s eight Democrats gained their 2024 races with lower than 60% of the vote: Reps. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor, Lois Frankel, Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
NCS’s Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.