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When President Donald Trump launched his redistricting war in order to insulate House Republicans’ majority ahead of a potentially bruising midterm election, it may have looked like a canny partisan move by a political figure known for violating all norms.
But it’s not looking like such a great idea right now. After moving five Democratic-held seats in Texas into the GOP column, Trump’s redistricting campaign has suffered setback after setback as Democrats responded in kind, and some Republican-led states refused Trump’s pressure campaign.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, got voters to approve a ballot initiative that counters Texas’ gerrymander by adding five Democratic-leaning seats in the state. Efforts to pressure GOP legislatures to redraw maps in states like Indiana and Kansas ran aground while Virginia Democrats announced their own plan to redraw their state’s map ― potentially flipping up to four seats from the GOP. Then a state court in Utah required the state to draw one safe Democratic seat. And on Tuesday, a federal court struck down Texas’ new map as a racial gerrymander.
That decision could be stayed or reversed by the Supreme Court, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the state will appeal. But if it isn’t, Trump’s redistricting war will have been a massive miscalculation. Those five seats will be taken off the board while California will have added five Democratic seats ― so long as its map survives a similar legal challenge brought by Republicans. With the one seat gained in Utah and another potential two to four added in Virginia, Democrats will have added at least eight seats compared to the four seats altered by Republicans in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio.
