The battle over who gets to draw the lines that shape American democracy is heating up once again, with Republican-led states moving aggressively to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The latest flashpoints: Texas, Indiana, and Florida, where high-profile visits, legal maneuvers, and public protests have put redistricting back at the center of national politics.
On August 7, 2025, Vice President JD Vance paid a private visit to Indiana Governor Mike Braun at the state Capitol, signaling the White House’s growing interest in maximizing GOP advantages through redistricting. According to the Associated Press, the meeting was part of a broader push by President Donald Trump, who has called for a new federal census that would exclude non-citizens, permanent residents, and undocumented immigrants—a move that would upend longstanding constitutional practices and potentially reshape the balance of power in Congress.
Meanwhile, in Florida, state House Speaker Daniel Perez announced plans to kick off redistricting efforts this fall through a special committee. While Governor Ron DeSantis hasn’t committed publicly to the plan, he told Floridians to "stay tuned," hinting at more changes to come. The developments in both states are unfolding against a backdrop of intensifying partisan maneuvering, with Trump’s allies seeking to replicate the hardball tactics first deployed in Texas.
Texas remains ground zero for the current redistricting drama. Republican lawmakers there are pushing to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, aiming to lock in a larger GOP majority in the U.S. House. Trump, who carried Texas with 56% of the vote in 2024, has argued that Republicans are "entitled to five more seats" based on his margin of victory. If the new maps are adopted and voting patterns hold, Republicans could control as much as 79% of Texas’s congressional delegation, up from the current 65%—a significant jump that could help the party maintain control of the House in 2026, according to AP reporting.
The fight has not been without resistance. Dozens of Texas Democratic lawmakers have fled the state to deny Republicans a quorum needed to vote on the redistricting plan. These lawmakers now face $500 daily fines and legal warrants for their return, as well as a new legal challenge: on August 7, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a request in Illinois seeking to enforce Texas warrants against Democrats camped out in Chicago. U.S. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, said that FBI Director Kash Patel had agreed to involve the agency in efforts to bring the lawmakers back, though the FBI has not detailed its intended role.
The Texas standoff is inspiring Democrats in other states to consider their own countermeasures. California Governor Gavin Newsom has floated the idea of Democratic gerrymandering if Texas Republicans succeed, though such a move would require voters to bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, both of whom have welcomed Texas Democrats to their states, have also signaled their willingness to redraw maps if necessary to counter Republican gains.
For many observers, the current round of redistricting is a test not only of Trump’s influence over the GOP but also of the resilience of American federalism—the delicate balance of power between Washington and the states. Indiana Governor Mike Braun, a staunch Trump ally, has so far avoided making public promises about redistricting in his state. Still, he acknowledged the national stakes, telling reporters, "It looks like it’s going to happen across many Republican states." After his meeting with Vance, Braun highlighted Indiana’s successes but sidestepped any commitment to redistricting, contrasting with Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s enthusiastic embrace of Trump’s demands.
Not everyone in Indiana is taking the developments quietly. About 100 people protested at the Capitol on August 7, warning against efforts to disenfranchise voters. "I’m 75, and I never, never thought I had to worry about our democracy being taken apart from the inside," said Linda Linn of Indianapolis, holding a sign aimed at Governor Braun. Indiana’s Republican legislative leaders have praised the state’s current boundaries, adopted four years ago, and with a 7-2 Republican-to-Democrat ratio in the state’s U.S. House delegation, there’s limited room for further GOP gains. Still, the party’s supermajority in the General Assembly means Democrats have little power to block changes if Republicans decide to move forward.
State Senate minority leader Shelli Yoder summed up the Democratic dilemma: "Statehouse Dems will do everything within our power to work with Hoosiers to make sure the checks and balances remain and we remain to be the firewall not just for Indiana but for the entire country," she said, conceding that the party’s options are limited.
The redistricting battles are not just about raw numbers—they also raise deeper questions about representation and fairness. As AP analysis shows, in 41 of 44 states with more than one congressional district, the party of the winning presidential candidate holds a larger share of congressional seats than its share of the presidential vote, often by at least 10 percentage points. This mismatch is sometimes the result of gerrymandering, but not always. In states like California, where an independent commission draws the lines, Democrats hold 83% of House seats despite Vice President Kamala Harris winning only about 59% of the vote in 2024. The lopsided result is partly due to population clustering, not partisan map-making.
Florida offers a different story. After the state Supreme Court upheld Governor DeSantis’s redistricting plan in July 2025, Republicans now control about 71% of the state’s 28 House seats, even though Trump won only 56% of the statewide vote. DeSantis has since suggested there may be more "defects" in the map that need to be addressed before the next census. The state’s delegation has swung dramatically over the years, reflecting both population shifts and political hardball.
New York, meanwhile, remains constrained by its own constitution: despite Democrats holding 73% of the state’s 26 House seats with nearly 56% of the 2024 presidential vote, any new redistricting would have to wait until at least 2028. In North Carolina, a closely divided state, Republican-controlled redistricting in 2023 turned a 7-7 congressional split into a 10-4 GOP advantage, even as Trump’s margin there was just 51%.
At the heart of the debate is Trump’s call for a new census that would exclude non-citizens—a proposal that flies in the face of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which requires House seats to be apportioned based on "the whole number of persons in each state." During Trump’s first term, the Supreme Court blocked his attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but the idea has resurfaced in his second presidency, raising fresh constitutional and legal questions.
As the clock ticks toward the end of Texas’s special session on August 19, and with other states poised to follow suit, the fight over redistricting shows no sign of abating. The outcome could shape not only the 2026 midterms but the very nature of American political representation for years to come.
