President Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hold hands during a roundtable event at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville, Texas, on July 11, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s push to bolster the GOP’s narrow congressional majority in next year’s elections has prompted a rare nationwide mid-decade redistricting battle that has rapidly taken shape over the past weeks.
Indiana GOP lawmakers’ White House visit this week highlights how the race to redraw congressional districts for partisan advantage may soon expand beyond Texas and California — two states that have reached new stages in their dueling redistricting efforts. Missouri could also be on its way to redrawing its map to favor Republicans.
“Drawing districts to put your thumb on the scale is almost as old as the country,” said David Niven, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati who conducts research on gerrymandering, elections and voting rights.
“The revolutionary twist is: Almost all of the history of gerrymandering has been about personal gain and about advancing your friends’ interests — this is a real dramatic turn toward using gerrymandering for national political control.”
The national scuffle originated with Trump urging Texas to draw a new congressional map to defend the GOP’s razor-thin control of the U.S. House. The map could give Republicans five new congressional seats in the 2026 midterms.
The GOP has 219 U.S. House seats, with Democrats holding 212 spots and four current vacancies — a slim margin that has created hurdles for U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, as he tries to enact Trump’s agenda and cater to both the demands of the president and the GOP conference’s factions.
As Republicans in the Hoosier State face mounting pressure to join in on the redistricting fight, Indiana GOP state lawmakers are headed to the White House on Tuesday.
The meeting was scheduled before Vice President JD Vance’s Aug. 7 meeting with Indiana GOP leadership as part of the administration’s redistricting push but after redistricting was added to Texas’ special legislative session agenda in July, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
As of last week, Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Braun remained noncommittal about whether he would call a special session to redraw the state’s lines, per the Capital Chronicle.
California, Texas redistricting battle heats up
The Indiana lawmakers’ visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. comes as Lone Star State Republicans inch closer to adopting a new congressional map and California Democrats fight back with their own effort.
The Texas Senate on Saturday approved the new map, which Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would “swiftly” sign into law.
Texas lawmakers approved the new congressional map after two weeks of delays following widespread opposition from Texas’ Democratic legislators.
But the Golden State is ramping up its retaliatory efforts against Texas Republicans.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a legislative package Aug. 21 that calls for a special election, in which voters will decide the fate of a new congressional map that could give Democrats five more seats in the U.S. House.
Newsom has framed the effort as pushing back against political hardball by Trump.
“We got here because the president of the United States is struggling,” Newsom said shortly before signing the legislative package.
“We got here because the president of the United States is one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history. We got here because he recognizes that he will lose the election. Congress will go back into the hands of the Democratic Party next November. We got here because of his failed policies,” he said.
The California governor added that Texas “fired the first shot.”
“We wouldn’t be here if Texas had not done what they just did, Donald Trump didn’t do what he just did.”
Meanwhile, Trump said Monday that the Department of Justice will file a lawsuit over Newsom’s redistricting efforts.
More states could follow
Missouri could also soon follow in Texas’ redistricting footsteps to give the GOP more of an advantage in the upcoming midterms.
Trump took to social media Aug. 21 saying “the Great State of Missouri is now IN,” adding that “we’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!”
The administration has put pressure on Missouri in recent weeks to redraw their lines to help defend Republicans’ majority in the U.S. House by eliminating one of two Democratic districts in the state.
Though Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe said no decisions about calling a special legislative session had been made, a spokesperson for the Republican said he “continues to have conversations with House and Senate leadership to assess options for a special session that would allow the General Assembly to provide congressional districts that best represent Missourians,” according to the Missouri Independent.
Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore said Sunday he is considering redistricting efforts in the state, where the GOP currently holds just one of eight congressional seats.
“I want to make sure that we have fair lines and fair seats, where we don’t have situations where politicians are choosing voters, but that voters actually have a chance to choose their elected officials,” Moore told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“We need to be able to have fair maps, and we also need to make sure that if the president of the United States is putting his finger on the scale to try to manipulate elections because he knows that his policies cannot win in a ballot box, then it behooves each and every one of us to be able to keep all options on the table to ensure that the voters’ voices can actually be heard, and we can have maps.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
