WASHINGTON (AP) — At the urging of President Donald Trump, Republicans in eight states redrew the boundaries of dozens of congressional districts over the past year while angling for an edge that could help them hold onto a slim House majority in a tough midterm election.
Ultimately, it didn't work.
Republicans lost most of the Democratic-held seats they had targeted to flip, lost others they had banked on retaining and got swept out of power by a Democratic surge fueled by voter dissatisfaction with Trump, the economy and the war with Iran.
The Republican redistricting plan fell flat in Alabama, Florida and Texas. It got scuttled by courts in Missouri and then firmly defeated by its voters Tuesday. And it got offset in California, where a retaliatory Democratic redistricting flipped previously Republican-held seats.
The Trump redistricting plan “was systematically dismantled,” former Attorney General Eric Holder, chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in an election night statement. “And given the opportunity, voters instead chose to elect a new Democratic majority.”
Congressional voting districts typically are redrawn after a census at the start of each decade to account for population changes. But Trump spurred an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle last year when he urged Texas Republicans to reshape U.S. House districts to give the GOP a shot at winning five additional seats in the midterm election.
A cascade of redistricting followed, spurred along in the South by a Supreme Court ruling that weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for majority Black districts. Republicans hoped their redistricting could net as many as four more seats in Florida, two in Ohio and one each in Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee.
In all but one of those revamped districts, Trump would have carried over 54% of the vote had they been in place for the 2024 election, according to Associated Press estimates.
“In normal times, that sort of district is relatively safe,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who runs the “All About Redistricting” website.
But the presumed Republican districts got undercut by shifting viewpoints of Trump. The AP Voter Poll found about 6 in 10 disapprove of how Trump is handling the presidency. Views of Trump’s priorities also were mostly negative.
“It’s foolish to presume that the electorate in one year is going to look like the electorate in another in a time of radical swings in public opinion," Levitt said. “I think it is likely that some line-drawers got cocky.”
In Texas, Republicans reconfigured three heavily Latino districts in the Rio Grande Valley, which had shifted toward Trump in 2024, to try to boost their chances of unseating Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez. But both won reelection Tuesday. And Democrats instead unseated Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, whose district is sandwiched between theirs.
Though De La Cruz's new district retained the same percentage of Trump-inclined voters as the 2024 version, about 3 in 5 voting-age residents were new — making it harder for her to compete against Democratic challenger Bobby Pulido, a well-known Latin Grammy award winner.
The AP Voter Poll indicates a substantial shift in Hispanics moving away from Republicans compared with Trump’s victory just two years ago. Nationally about one-third of Hispanics say they backed the Republican in their local U.S. House race, while roughly 4 in 10 voted for Trump two years ago.
Republicans had “unrealistic assumptions about a shift in Latino voting" remaining in their favor, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.
Republicans in Florida tried to tilt four more House seats to the GOP in Trump’s adopted home state. Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz was among their targets, but he decided to run anyway in one of the redrawn districts. He won reelection Tuesday.
“I’ve worked across the aisle. I’ve delivered results for my community, and they spent $26 million trying to beat me,” Moskowitz said after his victory in Florida’s 25th Congressional District. “They lit that money on fire tonight.”
He said voters in his new district, like those nationwide, were most concerned about the economy and their ability to afford a good quality of life. But he said that redistricting angered voters, too.
After redistricting, about two-thirds of voting-age residents were new to the district represented by Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor. But she also won reelection. Democrat Pia Dandiya won yet another district — an open seat in southern Florida — that Republicans had reshaped for an advantage.
In Alabama, a Supreme Court ruling allowed the Republican-led Legislature to revert to what the GOP considered to be a friendlier map. But Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures won reelection anyway, defying Republicans' plans.
Republicans redrew two congressional districts in eastern North Carolina with a goal of unseating Democratic Rep. Don Davis in the 1st Congressional District, which has sent a Black member to Congress for more than 30 years. They made Davis' district a bit more Republican by bringing in thousands of voters from the 3rd Congressional District, held by Republican Rep. Greg Murphy. In exchange, they reassigned thousands of Democratic-leaning areas to Murphy's district.
The ensuing advertising battle for Davis' seat cost well over $50 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, ranking among the most expensive House races nationally.
Davis held a slight lead Tuesday night, and the race between Murphy and Democratic challenger Raymond Smith was particularly close.
What started as a Republican redistricting effort could become a Democratic redistricting movement ahead of the presidential election.
Maryland voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment that will make it easier for the state's Democratic-led General Assembly to redraw districts to the party's advantage. Democratic proponents, backed by former President Barack Obama, have touted it as a way to “stop Trump.”
Democrats who made gains in numerous state legislatures Tuesday also could use that power for redistricting. And Democratic lawmakers in New York already have taken an initial step toward congressional redistricting before the 2028 elections.
But the recent midterm redistricting revealed it can be difficult to anticipate voter behavior when trying to gerrymander districts for partisan advantage. That could particularly be the case for the next presidential election, which would be the first in a dozen years without Trump's name atop the ballot, making it hard to know how his supporters would realign behind new candidates.
“It’s really tough to pick a political model that accurately shows you who’s likely to show up in 2028,” Levitt said.
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Associated Press writer Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
