So … How’s Trump’s Gerrymandering War Going?

A little less than a year ago, Trump began pushing for state legislatures, first in Texas and then in other red states, to redraw their congressional districts, a gamble that he was apparently told would help him retain the House in the midterms, even as his poll numbers began the long downward march that continues to this day.

Democrats counterattacked — and, as Khaya Himmelman reports this morning, they’re succeeding. (Trump is now telling his supporters that he thinks gerrymandering may be “not good.”) Virginia voters followed California’s lead, allowing new, bluer maps for their state. As it stands, that gives Democrats a slight lead in this fight.

The overall situation, however, is a little more complicated. Here are some of the things we’re keeping an eye on.

• Depending on how you count — and how much of Trump’s 2024 coalition votes for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections — it looks like Democrats may have snatched up one or two more seats than Republicans in those fights.
• In Virginia, however, the story is not over. Republicans filed numerous challenges to the referendum. The state Supreme Court decided to allow yesterday’s election to proceed and see if the constitutional amendment passes before ruling on the challenges. Now it will.
• Florida will now attempt a gerrymander, attempting to remove a few Republican seats from its current map (while risking diluting those seats to the point that they become pickup opportunities for Democrats).
• Legal battles in Missouri and Utah could also change things. In Utah, the White House hopes to use a judicial ethics scandal as a weapon, creating a way, Republicans hope, to overturn a court ruling that had the effect of moving a seat from Republicans to Democrats.
• Republican state legislatures have redrawn their maps (or, in a few notable cases, refused to do so) in the face of bullying from President Trump and his top advisers. Democratic states, on the other hand, put the question to voters, made their case, and let the democratic process choose which path to take. In both states, polls showed voters were initially skeptical (normal, healthy people are generally not as gerrymandering) but embraced the new map as a reasonable check on Trump’s red-state and legislature-fueled power grab. It’s a set of facts that greatly complicates the story that “both sides” have run into the mud. (Hats off to Ari Berman of Mother Jones, who made a version of this point last night.)