For generations, states redrew congressional district lines after the decennial census. There were exceptions, but in nearly all of those instances, mid-decade redistricting only happened when courts told states that their maps were unlawful and needed to be redone.
The idea that politicians would simply choose to start redrawing maps, in the middle of a decade, in pursuit of partisan advantage, was practically unheard of — for the most part.
Texas Republicans broke radical ground with a mid-decade redistricting scheme in 2003, and last summer, at Donald Trump’s behest, GOP officials did it again: Fearing an electoral backlash in the 2026 midterms, the party decided to give itself a buffer, creating a new map designed to give Republicans five additional U.S. House seats, more than a year before voters cast a ballot.
At that point, the president and his allies seemed quite pleased with themselves. There was one angle, however, that Trump and his party neglected to appreciate: Democrats weren’t just going to sit back, capitulate and grumble about how frustratingly impressive the GOP’s hardball tactics are.
On the contrary, Democrats had the capacity to fight back — and they did.
After the president and Texas Republicans effectively launched a partisan arms race, California Democrats approved a comparable plan to give their party five more seats of their own. GOP officials, again at Trump’s behest, added a handful of additional seats to their gerrymandering tally in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, while Democrats in Utah gained an advantage in Utah after a failed Republican gambit.
All of which set the stage for a dramatic showdown in Virginia. MS NOW reported:
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Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that would allow the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The amendment will temporarily give Virginia’s Democratic-controlled General Assembly the authority to redraw congressional districts, overriding the current bipartisan redistricting system adopted after the 2020 census.
As a result of the narrow victory, Democrats are slated to control 10 of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts, up from their current total of six. (The state Supreme Court might yet stand in the way if the justices find there were procedural missteps, but most observers tend to see this as unlikely.)
So where does this leave us in terms of the overall national landscape? While there’s still some question about what Florida Republicans might do, as things stand, the partisan arms race, which Trump and his allies apparently didn’t see coming, will likely be a wash, with a net difference of roughly zero for the parties.
After the results from Virginia were announced, political scientist Jacob Levy noted via Bluesky, “The midterm gerrymandering war and the Iran war alike show Trump’s inability to imagine that the people he’s picking fights with have any agency, any ability to respond.”
Ideally, the president would now know better, but given that he’s slow to learn lessons, it’s tough to be optimistic.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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