Convicted felon/sexual abuser/PresidentTrump has been openly working to rig the 2026 mid-term elections by demanding Republican states re-draw their Congressional district maps long before they normally are supposed to in order to create more safe Republican congressional seats before the 2026 election, but Trump’s scheme to cheat in the ’26 election seems to be falling apart and may even be backfiring.
States are supposed to redistrict every ten years after the U.S. census is conducted, but Trump has been demanding Republican states do it sooner to guarantee Republicans retain control of the legislature in the ’26 mid term elections. Typically the party in power loses seats in mid-term elections.
But in major blow to Trump and Republicans, on 11/18 a federal court blocked Texas from using their re-drawn congressional map that created five more safe Republican seats. The court found Texas lawmakers had used racial objectives in re-drawing their map in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s promises of equal protection under the law and protection against racial discrimination in voting. Trump himself had pushed that failed redistricting map.
In addition Texas’ gerrymandered map being blocked, Trump and Republicans got another blow in Utah a week ago after a judge rejected that state’s GOP-favored, and instead approved an alternate map that created the state’s first Democratic-leaning district in a quarter century. And despite Trump’s increasing threats and pressure on Indiana Republicans to redistrict in their state, Indiana’s Republican state Senate leader announced November 14 that Utah’s state Senate would not convene in December to redraw maps. After Utah state Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray conducted a private test vote on redistricting, he announced there weren’t enough votes to move forward, so the Senate would not meet in December to work on redistricting.
Yet another Republican effort to redistrict maps in Kansas also stalled in early November because Republicans didn’t have to votes to convene a special session to address the topic.
In the mean time, California overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, Governor Gavin Newsom’s ballot measure that temporarily redraws California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats as a way to counter Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s push to create five more safe Republican seats in Texas. In addition, Virginia and Maryland are also currently working to redistrict their voting maps to favor Democrats.
So Trump looks like he may be losing the redistricting war at the moment, but time will tell if his scheme ends up working in his favor or not.