Trump’s push to redraw voting lines points to 'bigger issues' for GOP: Republican operative

Over the course of the year, President Donald Trump endeavored to stack the deck of the 2026 midterm elections by demanding red states redraw congressional lines and gerrymander out Democratic voters. Trump's problem, according to a Politico report, is that he can't win the fight that he started.

Thus far, six states crafted new maps, which accounts for "nearly one-third of congressional seats," the report calculated. It puts tens of millions of Americans in a new district, effectively "overnight."

The plot came from top political aide James Blair. Both he and Trump are well-aware that if Democrats take control of Congress, the administration will be plagued by hearings and impeachments of top Cabinet officials.

One person familiar with their conversation told Politico they remember Trump asking, “Wait a minute, you mean redo the census?

"No. Just states redrawing with the authority they already have," said Blair.

“We could either go on offense, or we could let the Democrats sue the majority away,” recalled Adam Kincaid, director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. He was among the first contacted about putting the plan into action.

"Thus began an ongoing caper that did more to shape American politics in 2025 than anything else," wrote Politico.

Ex-Trump campaign manger Chris LaCivita launched a new organization to put political pressure on lawmakers who might oppose the plot.

The stunt hasn't gone quite as well as Republicans hoped. Kincaid and Blair saw blue states enacting non-partisan district maps and assumed those would stop Democrats from countering the GOP with their own plot. They didn't count on Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calf.), who used his political clout to run a ballot measure to institute partisan gerrymandering to counter Texas Republicans doing the same. It canceled out any wins the GOP thought they'd score in 2026.

“You can shake the pinball machine a little bit and sure that helps,” an ex-lawmaker in Indiana told Politico. “But if you hit it too hard, it will go on tilt.”

“If we are relying on redistricting to hold the majorities, we have bigger issues,” a Republican operative who works on Senate and House races told POLITICO in July.

Meanwhile, Democrats had another plan. Former Attorney General Eric holder and ex-President Barack Obama joined forces in 2017 to form their own redistricting group. The GOP thought it was just in preparation for 2030, but when Trump's team decided to enact their mid-decade redistricting plan, the group was ready.

“We can’t do what [Republicans] think we’re going to do,” Holder said in a recent interview with Politico. "Which is, I’ll go on MSNBC and CNN and say, ‘that’s a terrible thing.’ Somebody will write an op-ed. You know, we have to do something that really meets this moment, even if it’s a little inconsistent with what we have been trying to do since 2017.”

Democrats proposed legislation that would stop partisan gerrymandering, but with the GOP in control of the House, Senate and White House, they'd have little success. They lent their voices to Newsom's effort and encouraged other blue state governors.

Trump's pressure campaign was rebuffed by Indiana Republicans who were concerned that redrawing the lines would spread Democratic voters out to four congressional seats instead of isolating them in two districts. In a year with a blue wave, Republicans feared they could run the risk of losing more than winning.

By July, Trump was growing so unpopular that any Republican standing up to him didn't suffer the consequences LaCivita hoped. At least, not yet. Instead, off-year elections destroyed the GOP at the state and local level across the country, but particularly in New Jersey and Virginia.

"In the end, the pinball machine had gone on tilt, jamming up to undermine a player trying to game the system," Politico wrote. "Even with all the states that decided not to move forward with new maps in 2025, it still represented the most redraws in a non-census year since the 1984 election cycle, when the activity was driven largely by judicial decisions rather than political opportunism."

There is still a chance for Florida and New Hampshire to redraw lines, but the report explained those efforts failed in 2025. So, it's unclear if it would "yield any more red fruit in 2026." Other states like Kansas and Kentucky could make a go, but both have Democratic governors likely to veto the attempt.

Meanwhile, Virginia, which just achieved a huge Democratic majority, could pass legislation before April and change the lines for the 2026 election, making more Democratic districts. Maryland could also attempt an effort to remove it's single GOP district, with it's deadline in February.

The worst possible option for Democrats comes from a Supreme Court case set to be decided in the coming year that would effectively eliminate key parts of the Voting Rights Act that mandates "racial balance" when drawing congressional lines in red states across the South.

Liberal groups warned it could mean a 19-seat pickup for Republicans.

The scenario “would be nuclear,” Holder said.

He's hopeful the justices won't go that far, but Chief Justice John Roberts penned a decision in 2013 that weakened Section 5 of the VRA. In the ruling, Roberts claimed that the conditions of racism that necessitated the VRA in 1965 don't exist. He wrote, they "no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions." Roberts did uphold Section 2 in that ruling, however.

Kincaid maintained, “At the end of the day, Republicans are gonna be fine. Having done this redistricting thing for a while now, one thing that I am well aware of is that Democrats are very good at declaring victory prematurely.”

Read more in the report here.