Redrawing Congressional Battle Lines

Every 10 years, following the U.S. Census, states redraw their congressional boundaries in a constitutionally mandated process known as redistricting.

This has become one of the most powerful tools in American politics because drawing district lines can determine which party controls Congress and, ultimately, the direction of national policy.

In 2025, an unprecedented wave of mid-decade redistricting has swept across several states, fundamentally altering the political landscape ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Texas and North Carolina have emerged as prime examples of how redistricting can be used to consolidate political power. Their cases illuminate both the mechanics of redistricting and its implications for American democracy.

Redistricting involves redrawing electoral boundaries to ensure roughly equal populations in each district, based on the principle of “one person, one vote” established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s. Some states gain congressional seats, some lose seats, and some stay the same. In most states, the legislature controls this process, giving the party in power significant influence over how districts are drawn.

When redistricting benefits one political party over another, it becomes gerrymandering. Modern gerrymandering employs two main strategies: “packing,” which concentrates opposition voters into a few districts they win overwhelmingly while limiting the reach of their party, and “cracking,” which splits opposition voters across multiple districts to dilute their influence.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that gerrymandering based on pure partisan advantage is an issue left to the states, redistricting that discriminates based on race violates the Voting Rights Act.

The 2025 redistricting cascade began in Texas and quickly spread to other Republican-controlled states including Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. Democrats responded with their own redistricting push in California, creating what some observers have called a “gerrymandering arms race.” President Donald Trump is actively pressuring state legislatures to redraw maps for Republican advantage, creating a scale and coordination that depart drastically from historical norms.

Texas

Texas, the nation’s second-most populous state, with 38 congressional seats, conducted its regular post-Census redistricting in 2021. But last June, Trump publicly called for redistricting in the Lone Star State. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott convened a special session in July with the explicit goal of drawing new maps that would deliver five additional Republican congressional seats. The trigger for this redistricting effort was threefold: Trump’s political pressure, a 2024 U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Petteway v. Galveston County that struck down 36 years of precedent regarding “coalition districts” under the Voting Rights Act, and a letter from Trump administration officials suggesting that existing Texas districts violated federal law. A coalition district is an electoral district where two or more minority groups together form a majority of the voting population, though no single minority group constitutes a majority on its own.

The new Texas congressional map, passed in August, employs sophisticated redistricting techniques. It specifically targets Democratic representatives in major metropolitan areas and South Texas. For example, Rep. Al Green’s Houston district was transformed from 72% to 40% Democratic by reshaping it to include more rural areas.

The redistricting has drawn immediate legal challenges. Civil rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers argue the new map constitutes racial gerrymandering that dilutes the power of Black and Hispanic voters. The state defends the redistricting as legally permissible, claiming it was conducted in a “race-blind” manner purely for partisan advantage, a defense the Supreme Court has allowed.

A federal court in El Paso began hearing challenges in October, with plaintiffs arguing that the Department of Justice’s involvement and the speed of the process reveal racial motivations disguised as compliance with federal law. The outcome of these legal battles could determine not only which maps are used in 2026 but also set precedents for how courts evaluate redistricting in an increasingly multiracial America.

North Carolina

North Carolina represents a different case. Unlike deep-red Texas, statewide elections here often swing on razor-thin margins. Democrats have won the governorship and other statewide offices in recent cycles, even as Republicans have maintained control of the legislature and congressional delegation through favorable district maps.

Before the latest redistricting, North Carolina had already redrawn its congressional map seven times since 2016 and five times in this decade alone. Most previous redistricting occurred under court orders in response to findings of partisan or racial gerrymandering. However, a 2023 ruling by a newly Republican-majority North Carolina Supreme Court reversed earlier decisions and declared that state courts lack authority to curb gerrymandering based on partisan advantage, opening the door for the legislature to more aggressively redraw any future map.

North Carolina Republicans announced their latest redistricting plans in October, clearly stating the goal of converting their 10-4 congressional majority to 11-3. The 1st Congressional District in northeastern North Carolina was the clear target, as it is the state’s only competitive congressional district and has elected Black representatives continuously since 1992. Six coastal counties that typically vote Republican were moved from the 3rd Congressional District into the 1st while four counties with a substantial Black population were moved from the 1st to 3rd districts.

The GOP introduced the new map on Oct. 16 and passed it through both legislative chambers by Oct. 22. Under North Carolina law, Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, has no veto power over redistricting legislation. The abbreviated timeline—with limited public hearings and just days of debate—drew sharp criticism from Democratic lawmakers and civil rights organizations, who argued it prevented meaningful public input and violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power in eastern North Carolina.

Taking in Missouri and Ohio as well, Republicans could gain eight to nine seats in Congress should their redistricting plans stand. Meanwhile, Democrats in California stand to collect up to five congressional seats after voters there backed a new district map. The potential for further efforts in states such as Illinois is unclear but not impossible.

In an era of narrow majorities, where a handful of seats separate the parties, mid-decade redistricting might be the newest tool for maintaining power.