Republicans draw a roadmap to change more US House seats outside of Texas

CNN

6 days ago

National Republicans are ramping up their efforts to squeeze more GOP-friendly congressional seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections outside of the five seats they hope to gain in Texas.
Allies of President Donald Trump have called on state leaders in Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina and Missouri to target the handful of Democratic districts remaining in the states. In Florida, Republicans took a first step toward as possible mid-cycle redistricting by launching a House committee to examine the issue. Vice President JD Vance visited Indiana on Thursday to meet with the state's Republican leaders.
The push to pick off those remaining seats marks the latest phase in a redistricting arms race sparked by Trump, who is taking extraordinary measures in hopes of stopping Democrats from winning back the House next year.
The effort is also the latest test of Trump's ability to persuade state and federal lawmakers to enact his agenda even at their own expense.
GOP state lawmakers have several reasons to resist drawing new maps, from the additional costs of holding special sessions to the fact that new maps would change the districts of incumbent Republicans, potentially making them more competitive and undermining Trump's goal for the midterms. Efforts to target some seats could also draw legal challenges, including potential violations of the Voting Rights Act.
In some cases, Republican legislatures already considered more partisan maps during the traditional once-a-decade redistricting cycle but opted against them.
Republicans control the governorship and legislatures in 23 states – compared to just 15 held by Democrats – giving them a longer list of maps to target. But in several states, Republicans have already successfully left Democrats few, if any, seats.
Here's where the president and his allies are seeking to gain additional seats.
Outside of Texas, Ohio represents Republicans' best chance of gaining additional seats. Under state law, Ohio must approve a new congressional map by November 30 because the current lines drawn by Republicans passed without any Democratic support.
Republicans could gain an additional two to three seats in the state by targeting Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Emilia Sykes and Greg Landsman, according to an analysis by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. Democrats currently hold five of the state's 15 House seats.
But the process isn't clear-cut. Under rules backed by voters in 2018, Republicans must first attempt to pass a map with bipartisan support. If Republicans end up passing a map along party lines, Democrats could potentially ask voters to strike the map down via a statewide referendum.
Republicans are hoping to flip one, possibly two, districts in Indiana, where the party currently holds seven of the state's nine House seats. A new map would likely target Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan, who represents the state's northwest corner, or, potentially, Rep. André Carson, who represents much of Indianapolis.
Republican Gov. Mike Braun and GOP legislative leaders have expressed limited interest in redistricting, partly due to the costs of holding a special session as well as concerns of undermining Republican incumbents.
'You can spread out your Republican vote a little too thin so that every few cycles, seats are going back and forth,' Indiana Sen. Todd Young told Punchbowl News last month. 'And that can sort of cut both ways.'
Braun remained noncommittal after the meeting with Vance.
'We listened,' Braun said when asked if state officials and the vice president reached a consensus, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican who recently launched a campaign for governor, has called on state lawmakers to draw maps that would give the GOP all seven seats in the state. That would come at the expense of longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state's lone Democratic member of Congress.
'We have Republican supermajorities in South Carolina. Let's use them to create more competition in our congressional seats,' Norman told Fox News. 'I have no doubt Republicans can be successful in every part of our state.'
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who is also running for governor, disagreed.
'I think our lines are good,' Mace told reporters ahead of an event in Myrtle Beach Wednesday. 'We did a great job.'
Mace argued that a 7-0 map would face constitutional hurdles.
Democrats would almost certainly challenge any efforts to dismantle Clyburn's seat – the only majority-Black district in the state – as a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Missouri's Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe told reporters Tuesday that he would work with state leaders to 'see if there's a path' to redrawing the state's congressional map.
'We want to keep the House in Republican control,' he said, according to the Kansas City Star.
Republicans control six of the state's eight districts. A new map would likely target Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City seat. Cleaver has vowed to challenge any new map targeting his seat in court.
Trump allies have been lobbying leaders in the state. Republican Rep. Eric Burlison told the Star last month that he spoke with a member of the Trump campaign who said the Cleaver seat was a missed opportunity during the last redistricting cycle. Missouri House Speaker Chad Perkins said White House staff reached out to him after he told a local outlet that mid-cycle redistricting would be 'out of character with the way' the state operates.
'They said 'Well, we're really going to try to do that,' and that might change the dynamic of it,' Perkins told the Missouri Independent last month.
Republicans already hold all three seats in Nebraska but lawmakers could redraw the map to make the state's swingy 2nd District less competitive. US Rep. Don Bacon, who announced in June he won't seek reelection to the seat next year, told the Nebraska Examiner that there have been conversations about redrawing the maps, but 'nothing serious.'
Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez sent a memo to lawmakers Thursday announcing the launch of a Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting, marking the first concrete step towards redrawing the state's US House maps off-cycle.
The Select Committee comes a month after the state Supreme Court upheld the 2022 congressional map drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis' office. Opponents said the map violated the state constitution's 'Fair Districts' provision, which prohibits lawmakers from favoring one party or diminishing the political power of minorities, by dismantling a majority-Black seat. The state Supreme Court ruled that the district was a racial gerrymander that violated equal protection rights under the US Constitution, an interpretation that weakened the 'Fair Districts' rule.
The select committee Perez created will further examine how lawmakers should view the provision.
'Exploring these questions now, at the mid-decade point, would potentially allow us to seek legal guidance from our supreme court without the uncertainty associated with deferring those questions until after the next decennial census and reapportionment,' the memo reads.
Republicans currently hold 20 of the state's 28 House seats. Five of the state's eight Democrats won their 2024 races with less than 60% of the vote: Reps. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor, Lois Frankel, Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
CNN's Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.