North Carolina is now the latest state to join a mid-decade redistricting gambit that could shake up next year’s midterms, following similar moves by Missouri, Texas and California to redraw their House maps, along with a separate court-ordered effort in Utah.
The redistricting push began with President Trump’s call for Texas Republicans to find more seats. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation in August to redraw the state’s districts and create five GOP-friendly seats, launching the first salvo in a push that has drawn national attention. It led to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s own campaign to redraw the map to help Democrats, which was approved by voters on Election Day by a 29-point margin.
In Missouri, state lawmakers redrew their map earlier this month to edge out Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver from his Kansas City district. Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, signed the legislation on Sunday. In October, North Carolina Republicans targeted a single Democratic district as well, passing a map that redraws the 1st Congressional District to make it lean more heavily Republican.
Utah lawmakers also reworked their state’s map after a judge ruled the current districts violated restrictions on gerrymandering. All four of the state’s House districts are represented by Republicans, but a judge in November threw out the GOP-controlled legislature’s map and ordered one that will create a Democratic-leaning district in Salt Lake city.
Challenges remain in all states. The NAACP filed a lawsuit challenging Kehoe’s authority to create the new map outside of a census year, and three other lawsuits have been filed. Civil rights groups are also suing in Texas, claiming the maps are racially biased. Despite getting the seal of approval by voters in California, state Republicans filed a lawsuit against Prop 50 after Election Day.
Congressional maps are normally redrawn every 10 years after the U.S. Census reveals population shifts. But this rare mid-decade redistricting push was kicked off as Republicans seek to maintain — or even expand — their razor-thin majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Historically speaking, midterms are often a rebuke of the party in the White House.
Abbott then called a special session of the Legislature with redistricting on the agenda. But two weeks into the 30-day special session, Texas Democrats fled the state to deny a quorum and prevent the legislation from coming to the floor.
The Democrats ultimately returned after two weeks, and the legislation was passed, but they garnered significant national attention. Although California requires congressional maps to be approved by voters, Newsom vowed to redraw the state’s districts to garner up to five seats for Democrats to counter Texas.
Amid this push, other states have also started to discuss redistricting efforts, including Indiana and Florida, which could net Republicans several more seats.
Although both parties are trying to rig their states’ congressional districts to be favorable to themselves, the outcome is far from guaranteed.
“Computers and technology do give us a lot more ability to to make predictive statements about outcomes, but we’re doing it — I think it’s fair to say — in a very volatile environment politically, where things that we have seen as trends are sort of being turned on their heads,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based the Brennan Center for Justice.
Crayton noted several current issues that could factor heavily into voters’ decisions, and called it “folly to assume that just because people showed up and voted for the current president of the United States, that people want to show up for a member of Congress, particularly … a new candidate in a district that hasn’t been created before.”
See maps of how Texas, California and Missouri’s push could play out, based on the 2024 election results:
Texas has 38 congressional seats, 25 of which are currently held by Republicans. The other 13 are held by Democrats.
Texas Republicans have invested heavily in the Rio Grande Valley, once a Democratic stronghold but Mr. Trump and the GOP have made gains here in the past few years.
In 2024, two of the three Rio Grande Valley House seats voted for Mr. Trump but reelected their Democratic member of Congress. The new maps are trying to add to those gains and box out those two Democrats.
Texas Democrats have recently made gains in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Houston’s Harris County. The new maps reshape Democratic Rep. Al Green’s Houston district in the rural areas, making a district that was 72% Democratic into one that is 40% Democratic. The proposed map also changes Rep. Julie Johnson’s Dallas-area district from 62% to 41% Democratic. Rep. Marc Veasey’s district in Dallas-Fort Worth remains a Democratic stronghold, but he would no longer live in the district.
Liberal Austin is further dissolved into neighboring districts. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who was first elected in 1994 and whose district gave former Vice President Kamala Harris her largest margin of victory in all of Texas, announced in August that he would not seek reelection if the proposed maps are upheld by the courts, avoiding a primary with Rep. Greg Casar, also of Austin.
California has 52 House representatives, nine of whom are Republicans and 43 are Democrats.
In 2020, Republicans flipped three Democratic-held seats for the first time since 1994. They’ve held two of them, including Rep. David Valadao’s 22nd District in the Central Valley.
Under the proposed map, Valadao’s district would go from being 47% Democratic in 2024 to 49% Democratic, making him slightly more vulnerable. And GOP Rep. Darrell Issa’s 48th District near San Diego would change from 42% to 52% Democratic.
In Southern California, Rep. Ken Calvert’s 41st District in Riverside would be redrawn further toward Los Angeles, shifting it from a district that was 47% Democratic in 2024 to one that is 57% Democratic under the proposed maps.
In Northern California, GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s District 1, which includes the most northeastern part of the state, would shift further south toward Marin County and the northern part would be absorbed in the 2nd District, home to heavily Democratic Eureka and the northern Pacific coast. Rep. Kevin Kiley’s district, which snakes along the California-Nevada border through Death Valley, would instead move further toward heavily Democratic Sacramento. Republican Rep. Tom McClintock’s 5th District would be shifted to include the southern portions of what was Kiley’s district.
Kiley, whose district would go from one that was 48% Democratic in 2024 to one that is 55% Democratic, has been an outspoken critic of redistricting, even introducing legislation in the House to ban mid-decade redistricting.
After Texas and California’s redistricting efforts, Kehoe called a special session of Missouri’s legislature to take up redistricting. Missouri currently has two Democratic representatives in Congress: Rep. Wesley Bell, who represents St. Louis and was first elected in 2025, and Cleaver, who has represented the Kansas City area since 2005.
As Missouri has trended toward Republicans over the past 20 years, Cleaver’s district has been a target of the GOP, especially in the 2021 redistricting when several lawmakers pushed for what was called the “7 to 1 map” that would have redrawn the 5th Congressional District to be more Republican. Lawmakers ultimately decided against that plan. St. Louis’ NPR station reported that Republicans worried that the short-term gains from carving up the district could lead to long-term problems in the neighboring suburban districts.
Nonetheless, the Missouri GOP joined the redistricting effort in 2025. Under the new map, Cleaver’s district transforms from one that is 62% Democratic to one that is 41% Democratic. Cleaver says he still plans to run for reelection.
The neighboring 4th and 6th Districts both become slightly bluer, to 39% and 36% Democratic, respectively, but they are still safely Republican.
By expanding the 2nd District south and west, GOP Rep. Ann Wagner’s district becomes redder, going from 46% Democratic in 2024 to 44%. While Wagner has maintained her grip on the district, Mr. Trump won by only 100 votes under the previous lines in 2020. In the 2021 redistricting, Wagner’s district lost some of the Democratic-leaning St. Louis County.
North Carolina has 14 congressional seats, 10 of which are held by Republicans. But the state is not as solidly red as that breakdown would suggest — it’s closer to a 50/50 state at the presidential level these days, and the state’s governor and attorney general are both Democrats.
In the redistricting push undertaken this fall, North Carolina Republicans are targeting a single seat: Rep. Don Davis’ 1st Congressional District. Davis’ win in 2024 in the northeastern part of the state was a rare bright spot for Democrats, especially after Republicans were able to flip congressional three seats in North Carolina that year.
In the map passed by the North Carolina Assembly on Oct. 21 and 22, Davis’ district boundaries move further south, into the current 3rd District. That changes the makeup of the district from one that was 48% Democratic to one that is 44% Democratic.
Utah redistricting
Utah’s redistricting is different from the other states’ campaigns, starting with the fact that the state does not have any Democratic members of Congress. The redistricting push also wasn’t kicked off by Mr. Trump and Republicans or in retaliation for moves by other states. Utah’s 2025 redistricting was put in motion this summer when a judge ruled the current districts were in violation of a voter-approved measure to prevent partisan gerrymandering.
The GOP-controlled legislature put forward four maps for public comment, and ultimately on Oct. 6 approved a map that would be the least competitive for Democrats. The legislature proposed a map that will split Salt Lake County into two districts, which would make Districts 2 and 3 more competitive for Democrats.
But a district court judge in Utah on Nov. 10 rejected redistricting maps selected by the Republican-controlled legislature and instead instead selected a map that would create a Democratic-leaning congressional district in Salt Lake City. The map approved by the legislature “does not comply with Utah law,” wrote 3rd District Court Judge Dianna Gibson in her opinion. She continued that “based on the evidence presented,” the Legislature map “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.”
Utah currently has four representatives in Congress, all of whom are Republicans. Both senators are also Republicans.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-californias-redistricting-maps/
