8 States, 40 Seats: The Midterm Redistricting Plan That Failed
Republicans redrew dozens of districts to secure a House majority, but voters flipped the targeted seats back to Democrats.
By Marco Whitaker ·
The plan did not work.
At the urging of President Donald Trump, Republicans in eight states redrew the boundaries of dozens of congressional districts over the past year. The goal was to secure an edge that would help the party hold a slim House majority in a difficult midterm election. Instead, the strategy fell flat. Republicans lost most of the Democratic-held seats they targeted for flipping. They also lost other seats they had banked on retaining. A Democratic surge, fueled by voter dissatisfaction with Trump, the economy, and the war with Iran, swept the party out of power.
The redistricting effort failed in Alabama, Florida, and Texas. In Missouri, courts scuttled the plan before voters could weigh in. In California, a retaliatory Democratic redistricting effort offset Republican gains by flipping previously Republican-held seats. Eric Holder, chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in an election night statement that the Trump plan “was systematically dismantled.” He noted that voters chose to elect a new Democratic majority when given the opportunity.
Congressional voting districts are typically redrawn after a census at the start of each decade. Trump spurred an unusual mid-decade battle last year by urging Texas Republicans to reshape U.S. House districts. This move aimed to give the GOP a shot at winning five additional seats. A cascade of redistricting followed, spurred by a Supreme Court ruling that weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for majority Black districts. Republicans hoped their redistricting could net as many as four more seats in Florida, two in Ohio, and one each in Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee. According to Associated Press estimates, Trump would have carried over 54% of the vote in all but one of those revamped districts had they been in place for the 2024 election.
In Texas, Republicans reconfigured three heavily Latino districts in the Rio Grande Valley to boost their chances of unseating Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez. Both won reelection on Tuesday. Democrats instead unseated Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz. Her district is sandwiched between theirs. Although De La Cruz’s new district retained the same percentage of Trump-inclined voters as the 2024 version, about three in five voting-age residents were new. This made it harder for her to compete against Democratic challenger Bobby Pulido. Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said Republicans had “unrealistic assumptions about a shift in Latino voting” remaining in their favor.
In Florida, Republicans tried to tilt four more House seats to the GOP. Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz was among their targets. He decided to run anyway in one of the redrawn districts and won reelection on Tuesday. Moskowitz said after his victory in Florida’s 25th Congressional District that opponents “spent $26 million trying to beat me.” He added that they “lit that money on fire tonight.” Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor also won reelection despite redistricting that changed about two-thirds of the voting-age residents in her district. Democrat Pia Dandiya won an open seat in southern Florida that Republicans had reshaped for an advantage.
In Alabama, a Supreme Court ruling allowed the Republican-led Legislature to revert to a map the GOP considered friendlier. Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures won reelection anyway, defying Republican plans. In North Carolina, Republicans redrew two congressional districts in the east with the goal of unseating Democratic Rep. Don Davis. They brought thousands of voters from the 3rd Congressional District into Davis’ district. In exchange, they reassigned thousands of Democratic-leaning areas to the district held by Republican Rep. Greg Murphy. The advertising battle for Davis’ seat cost well over $50 million, according to AdImpact. It ranked among the most expensive House races nationally. Davis held a slight lead on Tuesday night. The race between Murphy and Democratic challenger Raymond Smith was particularly close.
