Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. The gerrymander war is the big news of 2025.
Jake Sherman at Punchbowl News:
Republicans are hoping to net a minimum of three House seats in Florida, as we scooped Thursday. Add that to the five seats in Texas, one each in Missouri and Indiana, plus two or three in Ohio, where state law mandates a redraw ahead of 2026.
The Supreme Court also has yet to rule in a high-profile Louisiana redistricting case on the 1965 Voting Rights Act that could further alter next year’s congressional landscape.
The Sunshine State effort, officially announced by Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez on Thursday, is only the most recent Republican initiative to cushion the blow from what’s expected to be a difficult midterms for the GOP. Republicans are hoping to redraw three districts in their favor, likely those of Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz in Trump-tending South Florida, as well as Darren Soto in the Orlando area.
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California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — a 2028 hopeful — is doing everything he can to sidestep his commission, but he’ll need Golden State voters to back his efforts in a special election. This will be extremely expensive and may not work. If it does, the prize could be five new blue seats, which could negate the proposed Texas map.
Where else can Democrats find more seats? Maryland could offer one. But Democrats tried to pass such a map in the 2022 cycle and a court shot it down as an illegal partisan gerrymander.
Oregon is another possibility, although Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic. It’s possible that Democrats could gain a seat out of Illinois, although the Land of Lincoln is already heavily gerrymandered in their favor.
Democrats in other blue states would have to amend their own constitutions in order to get into the redistricting fight. The deadline has passed to do this before the 2026 elections in New Jersey and Colorado. Democrats don’t have the votes in Washington State. New York would require court intervention, and state judges haven’t favored Democrats in redistricting there in recent years.
