Beginning in July 2025, several U.S. states have redrawn or have attempted to redraw their congressional districts ahead of the 2026 United States House of Representatives elections, with multiple other states planning to draw new maps before the 2028 elections. These efforts mark the largest coordinated attempt to redraw congressional districts between decennial censuses in modern American history.
The redistricting began when Texas gerrymandered its congressional map to benefit Republicans upon President Donald Trump's request. Republican-controlled legislatures in Missouri and North Carolina soon followed by enacting new congressional maps with the aim of gaining more Republican seats. In response, Democratic-led states began the process of gerrymandering their own congressional maps to counter Republican gains. California was the first, with voters enacting a constitutional amendment to redraw the state's congressional map to benefit Democrats. Virginia voters followed and passed an amendment to redraw their districts as well; however, it was subsequently invalidated by the Virginia Supreme Court. Furthermore, Ohio was required to redraw its districts since the previous map did not receive bipartisan support in the General Assembly as required by the Ohio Constitution. Likewise, Utah was required to redistrict due to the Utah Supreme Court striking down its previous map as an unlawful partisan gerrymander.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which limited challenges to gerrymandered maps using the Voting Rights Act of 1965, several more Southern states began to consider redistricting. The Florida Legislature convened in a special session for redistricting in anticipation of the ruling, and it passed a new map immediately after the Court's decision was released. The states of Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama subsequently enacted new maps.
In July 2026, an electoral analyst Kyle Kondik expressed an opinion that the overall seat biases are similar to 2018, in which Democrats won a total of 235 out of 435 seats. Therefore, in his opinion, the overall net gain for Republicans alone is very likely not enough to determine control of the House of Representatives.
Background In the 2024 elections, the Republican Party achieved a trifecta by winning a 220–215 majority in the United States House of Representatives in addition to winning control of the United States Senate and the presidency. Since the beginning of Donald Trump's second presidency, Trump had wanted to protect the narrow Republican House majority in the 2026 midterm elections and prevent Democratic gains in the House, which he believed would hamper his administration's ability to carry out its plans. He sought to accomplish this by encouraging states with Republican-controlled legislatures to redraw their congressional maps to pick up more Republican seats, offsetting potential Democratic gains in other states. Planning among Trump's advisors began even prior to his inauguration, spearheaded by James Blair in contact with Adam Kincaid, the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. Blair presented the idea to Trump in April, and he quickly agreed to it.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee had also begun preparing for the possibility of Republicans redrawing maps mid-decade after Trump's victory in November 2024, harkening back to the aggressive gerrymandering Republicans performed under REDMAP after the 2010 elections. In June, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had called on the Republican leadership in the state of Texas to redistrict the state's legislative boundaries in order to draw more Republican leaning districts. The plan elicited concern from some Texas Republicans, who argued that it could hurt incumbent Republicans. As the plan began to take action, reporters asked Trump how many Republican-led states would be redistricted; Trump replied with "four of them".
Redistricting mid-cycle, meaning not in response to a census, is extremely rare, and is usually done because courts have thrown out the previous maps for legal reasons. From 1970 until 2026, only two states redrew their congressional districts between censuses for partisan advantage.
Louisiana v. Callais In the 2026 Supreme Court case Louisiana v. Callais, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which required majority-minority districts, was partially overturned. The ruling is expected to allow southern states to eliminate these districts, which could allow Republicans to swing multiple seats by 2028. The timing of the decision was not expected to have a significant impact for the 2026 general election, as it was issued after multiple states had already begun the primary process, though expected to impact the 2028 election as states would have time to pass new maps. For example, Florida had already been in the process of a redistricting change as part of the larger national push to add more Republican districts prior to the ruling and their primaries. The new maps were passed by the state the day of the decision.
Some states had indicated they would seek to suspend their 2026 primaries to institute maps that reflect the Callais decision. Louisiana governor Jeff Landry and attorney general Liz Murrill announced the day after the decision that they were suspending the state's primary set for May 16 to give time for the legislature to draw a new map that would be compliant with the ruling, despite that mail-in ballots had already been sent to overseas and early voting residents.
Finalized redistricting plans
Overview of passed redistricting
Date enacted State Partisan advantagea Ballot measure? Ballot measure results Blocked by court? Enacted by court? August 29, 2025 Texas 5 seats September 28, 2025 Missouri1 seat b b b October 22, 2025 North Carolina1 seat October 31, 2025 Ohio 2 seats November 4, 2025 California 5 seats 64.42 - 35.58 November 10, 2025 Utah 1 seat April 21, 2026 Virginia 4 seats 51.61 - 48.39 May 4, 2026Florida4 seatsMay 7, 2026Tennessee1 seatMay 29, 2026Louisiana1 seatcJune 2, 2026Alabama1 seatNet9 seatsN/A
a Red indicates Republican; blue indicates Democratic.
b The Missouri Supreme Court blocked the new map from being used in the 2026 elections, but a ballot measure will be voted on in November 2026 to determine whether the new map will be used in the 2028 elections.
c After Louisiana's previous map was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Callais decision, the Louisiana State Legislature convened to enact a replacement map.
Texas
On July 9, 2025, Governor Greg Abbott called for a special session of the Texas Legislature to discuss redistricting. The action was expressed as being a response to a letter from the United States Department of Justice citing a need to remedy supposedly racially discriminatory districts in the current congressional map. The action received backlash from Democratic leaders including Ken Martin and began talks to discuss a response to the proposed redistricting, including the possibility of Democratic state representatives walking out of the session to delay the process.
The first special session began on July 21. A new map was redrawn in the session as state Democrats vowed to prolong the redistricting effort and walked out of session preventing quorum from being reached in the state house. On August 18, the special session had expired, and state Democrats returned to the state after viewing the prevention of a new map in the first session and the national coverage of the incidents a "victory". A second special session was called on August 18 by Abbott. A proposed congressional map drawing 5 new Republican-leaning districts passed both the state house and senate and was signed on August 29, 2025.
On November 18, 2025, a federal court in El Paso, Texas, ruled that the maps consisted an illegal racial gerrymander, and as a result, barred their use in the 2026 midterm elections. On November 21, the U.S. Supreme Court approved a request filed by Texas to temporarily block the lower court ruling. On December 4, the Supreme Court stayed the District Court ruling in a 6–3 decision that allows Texas to use the map in 2026, concluding that the District Court had "failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature" in finding that the map was racially gerrymandered, and had "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign" because it issued its ruling after the candidate filing period had begun. The dissenting opinion, written by Elena Kagan and joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the majority was not following the appropriate standard of review for questions of fact, stating, "We are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision."
California
Multiple Democratic leaders, including Hakeem Jeffries, began to push California Governor Gavin Newsom to respond to redistricting in Texas by redrawing California's congressional districts; however, the state's use of an Independent Redistricting Commission was the primary obstacle to achieving the goal. To bypass the commission, the state house and state senate passed an amendment putting a referendum on the November ballot to redraw the state's districts. The new congressional map made 5 Republican districts and several competitive districts much more Democratic to offset the gains made by the Texas map.
The measure, titled 2025 California Proposition 50, was approved by voters in the November 2025 election, enacting the proposed redistricting plan. Following the vote, the California Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit against Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, alleging that the new maps violate the Voting Rights Act by favoring Latino voters and asked a federal court to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent Proposition 50's maps from going into effect. The U.S. Justice Department joined the California Republican Party's lawsuit. In January 2026, a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Central District of California upheld the use of the map by the state, rejecting the California Republican Party's claims that the map was racially gerrymandered.
On February 4, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an application for an appeal of the Central California U.S. District Court panel ruling by the California Republican Party. The order was issued without comment or dissent, with legal commentators noting the Court's reasoning in its ruling the previous December on the Texas map after concluding that it was a partisan rather than racial gerrymander and allowed the map in Texas to stand.
Missouri
On August 29, 2025, Governor Mike Kehoe announced a special session to redraw the state's congressional districts and place Kansas City Democrat Emanuel Cleaver in a much more Republican-leaning district. The Missouri House of Representatives voted to advance the new map that would give Republicans another seat, which was approved in the Missouri Senate, where it also advanced. The new map was signed into law by Kehoe on September 28.