‘Fire with fire’: Politicians won’t take high ground on mid-decade redistricting
“Fight fire with fire.” That idiom has been popular on Capitol Hill this week. No one in Washington, D.C. wants to take the high ground on mid-decade redistricting.
Texas Republicans released their newly drawn Congressional map that they hope will be in place for the 2026 midterm elections on Wednesday, July 30.
If Republicans are going to create new congressional districts for themselves in Texas, Democrats say they are going to do the same in blue states. And just about everyone in Washington admits this isn’t the way redistricting is supposed to work.
“Both sides are doing it, and it’s not a good thing,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Straight Arrow News. “It’s not what our Founders intended, but it is what it is. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction in politics.”
The special legislative session
This all started when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called a special legislative session to gerrymander the Congressional map after President Donald Trump said he wants five new Republican seats in the Lone Star State.
“I hate what Texas is doing, but if they’re going to do it, of course, we have to fight back,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told reporters. “Democracies die when the regime plays outside the box, and the opposition decides to stay inside the box.”
Blue state gerrymandering
It will be harder for Democrats to draw more favorable maps in blue states because they are already gerrymandered extensively.
For instance, in California, Trump received 38% of the vote in 2024, but Republicans hold only 17% of the state’s 52 congressional seats.
That’s a 21-point discrepancy between the overall share of the vote Republicans received and the number of seats they hold in the state’s congressional delegation. There’s also a 20-plus point gap in New Jersey and Illinois.
In Texas, former Vice President Kamala Harris received 42% of the vote, while Democrats hold 34% of the state’s 38 congressional seats.
Hispanic voters
Hispanic voters in Texas have swung toward Republicans over the last decade. According to exit polls, Trump received 34% of the Latino vote in 2016 when he faced Hillary Clinton, which increased to 55% in 2024 against Harris. Republicans want to capitalize on that shift.
Straight Arrow News asked Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, if there’s a race to the bottom and if politicians are picking their voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“Politicians don’t pick their voters. Voters pick their politicians,” Cornyn said.
SAN pressed Cornyn and pointed out that Republicans in his state are drawing conservative voters in deep red districts into blue or purple districts in an effort to flip the seat.
“No, this is a way to make sure that the districts are representative of how the population votes,” Cornyn said.
Fight fire with fire
While some Democrats say they should redraw blue state maps to offset Republican gains in Texas, others say it’s not necessary.
“I don’t think we need to. Republicans in Texas are afraid of their own constituents. They are afraid that, if the people of Texas have an opportunity to vote for whoever they want, that’s going to put Democrats in charge in the state legislature and elect more Democrats to Congress from Texas,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told SAN. “Democrats don’t have that problem.”
“Look, it’s Republicans who can’t show up at town halls. It’s Republicans who need to go to their people and explain why 17 million people are going to lose their health care coverage,” Warren continued. “It’s Republicans who need to explain that trillion dollars in tax cuts they’ve given to millionaires and billionaires and giant corporations, not Democrats.”
No states led by Democrats have called a special session on redistricting. However, Democrats are planning to file lawsuits and spend tens of millions in Texas to counter the new map.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
