Redistricting wars threaten to make Congress more partisan – Washington Examiner
The article discusses the escalating conflict over redistricting in the United states, which is contributing to increased partisanship in Congress. Key battlegrounds include Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott aims to redraw congressional maps to create five or more additional Republican seats, and California, where Democrats are planning mid-decade redistricting to counteract Texas’s efforts. This tit-for-tat approach risks eliminating competitive swing districts, further polarizing the House of Representatives.
The struggle reflects broader political tensions, with Republicans defending their efforts by pointing to historically gerrymandered Democratic states, while Democrats accuse them of attempting to “cheat” to maintain power. The reduction in swing districts and the redrawing of boundaries have already marginalized centrist lawmakers, pushing Congress toward greater ideological extremes and gridlock.
Experts warn that these redistricting battles may lead to “warped populations” and chaotic, confusing congressional maps that hinder voters from connecting with their representatives. The stakes are high as the control of the House hinges on just a few seats, and future elections could be profoundly impacted by how districts are manipulated. the article highlights concerns that partisan redistricting conflicts threaten democratic fairness and exacerbate political divisions in the U.S.
Redistricting wars threaten to make Congress more partisan
A widening battle to win control of the House is threatening to make Congress more partisan as red and blue states undertake redistricting efforts that could wipe competitive battleground districts off the map.
At the heart of the redistricting battle is Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) seeks to redraw congressional maps to add five or more GOP seats. California Democrats have pledged to counter Texas’s plan, which they call a political sham, by doing mid-decade redistricting of their own.
“We are at a flashpoint set by President Donald Trump, and Texas Republicans who see the writing on the wall, because if their draconian legislative actions were to take place, they’ve seen the same polls we have,” California Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire said during a press conference on Friday. “They’re not going to win the midterms in swing seats. So what do they have to do? They have to cheat to win.”
Republicans, for their part, have pointed to heavily gerrymandered states, including Illinois, in a bid to tamp down the political controversy surrounding the redistricting efforts. At stake is control of the House of Representatives next year, where Republicans hold a slim, three-seat majority.
“The escalation [is] like watching Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd continually pulling out larger weapons,” said Republican strategist Doug Heye.
But, he added, “things are only partisan when the other side does it.”
“There’s an irony to Democrats being holed up in Illinois; it wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were saying, ‘There should be more Adam Kinzingers,’ while drawing him out of his district. Rodney Davis, too.”
States like Ohio, Missouri, and New York are also engaging in conversations about redistricting. New maps in California and Texas would conceivably cancel each other out, though California will have a harder time circumventing an independent commission set up for that purpose.
The redistricting “race to the bottom” has strategists worried that the ramifications would be an even more divided and uncompromising Congress.
“It will cause chaos and confusion and make things in Washington, God forbid, any worse. Worse than they are now,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said of the competing redistricting plans. “I just think Americans look at all this and just see it as more partisan gamesmanship instead of dealing with the real problems facing the nation.”
Centrists dwindle in the face of redistricting
Centrists are already hanging on by a thread as they seek to prevent Congress from devolving into partisan gridlock, often battling against their parties’ respective left and right flanks. Hardly any Republicans are left from the crop who were outspoken against President Donald Trump during his first term, and Democrats are seeing an uptick in progressive Democrat firebrands like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jasmine Crockett (D-TX).
In 2023, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report considered only 82 of the 435 districts that make up the House “swing seats,” down almost 50% from 1999, when there were 164 purple districts.
The trend away from swing districts can be attributed to redistricting and a broader political realignment among voters, according to a Cook Political Report analysis of data from 1997 to 2023.
“Life always seems to be the hardest if you’re a moderate member from a marginal seat,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor with Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Ahead of the 2022 elections, Democrats were working to hold on to their slim majority and looking for a chance to gain seats wherever they could.
Illinois redrew its maps to bolster the party, creating entirely new constituencies for lawmakers, especially Republicans. The newly drawn maps pit Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), a Trump supporter, against then-Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) supported an investigation into the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.
Davis’s district, which pre-2022 had a constituency that leaned toward a centrist candidate, now had a far more conservative electorate. With an endorsement from Trump, Miller sailed to a 15-point victory, and Davis left Capitol Hill.
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the most vocal critics of Trump in the Republican Party, was also drawn out of his district, and he opted to retire instead of running for reelection.
So Illinois Democrats “tossed out two well-liked Republicans” while still losing the House in 2022, Heye said.
For his part, Bannon expressed concern that voters will have greater trouble getting to know their lawmakers due to the frequently shifting congressional lines.
“We should do what the Constitution says we do, which is redistrict every 10 years to reflect population shifts and also give voters a chance to get to know their representatives,” Bannon said.
Redistricting battles risk ‘warped populations’
Abbott is pledging to hold as many special sessions as necessary to pass the new congressional maps. The current maps call for five seats, but the governor is threatening to expand to as many as eight new GOP seats if Democrats, who have fled the state to deny Republicans a quorum, don’t return to Texas.
California, in turn, is planning to call a special election so voters can decide whether to enact “emergency” maps that would eliminate five Republican-held districts in the Golden State to offset any changes made in Texas. Maps are expected to be public as soon as next week.
Republicans such as Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) are opposing this plan from the state’s Democratic supermajority, arguing that two wrongs don’t make a right. Strategists are inclined to agree.
“This has the potential to be a redistricting apocalypse, and it’s enabled by the intense partisan sorting of voters in each state,” said Dave Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst at Cook Political Report. “It makes it easy for partisans to control the process, to manipulate the boundaries in their favor.”
Wasserman added that in the end, unconventional redistricting will eradicate avenues for the minority party to achieve any congressional power. In South Carolina, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) is pushing for his state to redraw lines to force out longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the sole Democrat in South Carolina’s delegation.
With a razor-thin majority, every seat in the House counts. Ahead of the 2024 election, redistricting in North Carolina caused a handful of Democrats to lose their seats, which heavily factored into Republicans’ ability to maintain the gavel. Without the new maps, Democrats may have the majority right now.
The same rules apply in the 2026 midterm elections. Democrats only need a net gain of three seats to take the majority. Historically, the House flips opposite the party in control of the White House in nonpresidential years. Though California and Texas’s plans may ultimately be in vain, Democrats do not have enough seats to counter redistricting if states like Indiana, Florida, and Missouri decide to alter their maps.
“We’ve never seen the potential for such warped proportions from state to state,” Wasserman said.
Some Democrats are worried about the outcome of a cross-country redistricting battle.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) told the Washington Examiner he has concerns about the “redistricting wars” because it is “bad for our country and bad for democracy.”
But others argue the Republicans started this fight, and now they have a responsibility to respond.
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN CHALLENGES MIKE JOHNSON OVER REDISTRICTING: ‘SHOW SOME LEADERSHIP’
“We are not in an ideal world where both parties are operating under the same rules and expectations,” former Texas Democratic Rep. Erica Lee Carter told the Washington Examiner.
“The call for mid-decade redistricting by the President that has led to a map cracking over five districts in Texas deserves a response, IF it passes. The Democrats must do what it takes to expand opportunity districts for communities of interest to repair the harms being forced upon voters by the GOP,” Carter said.
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