Why Republican Redistricting Flopped - Newsweek

Republicans had banked on their mid-decade redistricting efforts as insurance against a blue wave this week, but the party still suffered losses in the majority of targeted districts they redrew ahead of the midterms.

The “redistricting war” that preceded this year’s elections was initially expected by many—from inside and outside of the party—to result in sizable gains in Texas and Florida, while allowing the GOP to pick up a handful more seats in other states.

But beyond prompting California to use its own gerrymandered districts—the congressional map having been amended to help Democrats pick up a handful of additional seats—the results on Tuesday night swiftly began to show that the GOP’s efforts had fallen flat. Of those districts the party redrew in its favor, nine races were rated as a toss up, leaning or likely going to the Democrats by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report as of Tuesday morning. Of these, Republicans had lost all nine by shortly after 2 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

“Gerrymandering reduces electoral competition even if Republicans may still lose seats in this election due to the lack of their popularity,” Kosuke Imai, a professor of government and of statistics at Harvard University, told Newsweek ahead of the election, though he predicted that the party's results “would be worse if there were no mid-decade redistricting.”

A number of states saw their congressional maps redrawn mid-cycle, including Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. This was mostly tied to pro-Republican efforts, though Ohio was constitutionally required to redraw its districts while Utah’s change was due to a successful legal challenge against its past map and a subsequent court ruling that led to a Democratic-leaning Salt Lake City district.

And California’s redistricting by its Democratic-controlled legislature—and approved by the state’s voters—was a direct response to the GOP plans in Texas.

Of the several districts impacted by these plans, the Cook Political Report labeled two as “Likely Democrat,” three as “Lean Democrat” and four as “Toss Up” races as of its latest update on Monday, November 2. Cook describes its assessment of competitiveness as incorporating “the district's political makeup, the candidates' strengths and weaknesses, the political environment in the state and nationally, and interviews with candidates and campaign professionals.”

Newsweek contacted the Republican parties for the below states for comment.

Florida’s redistricting efforts aggressively reshaped the map in the GOP’s favor, weakening voting strength for the Democrats in four seats across the Tampa, Orlando and South Florida regions.

Evan Power, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, told Newsweek that the shifts reflect “major population changes that have occurred since 2020,” adding that COVID-related disruptions to the latest Census “contributed to an undercount of Florida’s residents.”

“Republican leaders like Governor DeSantis remain popular and are working together to a Republican victory that help bring Byron Donalds and other Republican candidates across the finish line on November 3,” he said.

Result: Castor defeats Republican Mike Beltran: 51.2 percent to 45.9 percent

Result: Democrat Pia Dandiya defeats Republican Casey Askar: 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent

Result: Moskowitz defeats Republican Scott Singer: 51.3 percent to 46.7 percent

North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature took Greene, Lenoir, Wayne and Wilson counties out of the Democrat-held 1st congressional district, swapping these out for more Republican-friendly areas like Beaufort, Carteret and Pamlico counties.

Result: Davis defeats Republican Laurie Buckhout: 49.6 percent to 47.2 percent

The bipartisan effort led to targeted rather than sweeping changes to Ohio’s congressional maps. Districts held by Democrats became more Republican and vice versa in many cases. Ultimately, however, Republicans were in favor of the changes and touted these as giving them an edge in 12 of Ohio’s 15 districts compared with only 10 previously. The map's new boundaries moved two Democratic districts to the right and one—OH-13—to the left.

Result: Landsman defeats Republican Eric Conroy: 54.4 percent to 42.9 percent

Result: Kaptur defeats Republican Derek Merrin: 52.7 percent to 47.3 percent

In Texas—the main target of Trump and the party—Republicans significantly reworked Democrat coalition districts in Dallas, Houston, South Texas and the Austin–San Antonio corridor. This directly targeted five Democratic-held districts, while impacting several more in the process.

Result: Cuellar defeats Republican Tano Tijerina: 65.8 percent to 29.6 percent

Result: Gonzalez defeats Republican Eric Flores: 55.6 percent to 39.8 percent

Result: Democrat Johnny C. Garcia defeats Republican Carlos De La Cruz: 57.4 percent to 42.6 percent

Ahead of the elections themselves, Republican leadership and the White House spoke of redistricting as a major hedge against a blue wave in the House.

“Texas would be the biggest one,” Trump told reporters last July. "Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats.”

Such gains mattered significantly as Republicans entered this Congress with only a narrow majority—the strategy being to protect this edge and limit the scale of Democrats’ House victories. Trump envisioned Texas as the beginning of a trend, and the Lone Star State was followed by GOP-friendly redraws in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama.

The party leadership and its strategists hoped their efforts would yield a net gain of some 15 seats nationwide. These hopes were curbed by California’s ballot initiative which shifted five to a Democratic baseline.

Speaking to Newsweek ahead of the election, Nicholas Stephanopolous, an election law scholar and professor of law at Harvard University, said that the mid-decade redraws were “responsible for roughly nine extra seats that Republicans are favored to win (under more neutral conditions).”

“This year, Democrats would likely have an even bigger majority if it weren't for these mid-decade shenanigans,” he said.

And even prior to the election, doubts were raised over the expected success of this strategy. Brookings analysis from March predicted that the Texas change would “most likely add only two seats, and in a perfect electoral storm for Democrats, Republicans could actually lose seats.” This was because Republican mapmakers’ assumptions were premised on Trump’s outsized success with Latino voters in 2024 being viewed as a “permanent realignment.”

An analysis by The Associated Press published October 20 revealed that map changes had shifted the dial “only slightly” in the GOP’s favor. The median or “tipping point” seat—218th on the Democrat-Republican scale based on 2024 votes—inched 1.4 percent closer to Trump’s party as a result.

“Fundamentally, though, no party can realistically expect to keep control of the House if they're losing the national popular vote by [around] 10 points,” Stephanopolous added.

The party initiated redistricting efforts in a number of other regions which were either blocked by the courts or defeated in another manner ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Missouri’s Republican-led legislature tried to follow Texas and others, pushing through a map last September which resulted in major changes to the Kansas City area in particular. After outcry and legal challenges from citizen groups—and the eventual involvement of the U.S. Supreme Court—the decision to switch maps mid-cycle was postponed pending Tuesday’s referendum, with the 2020 census map in effect for the midterms.

The Republican-led House in South Carolina likewise attempted to adopt a more GOP-favorable map, though the state’s Senate rejected this and deferred the issue until after the elections.

In New York, Virginia and Wisconsin, meanwhile, comparable Democratic efforts fell short, with court rulings locking the existing maps in for the 2026 election.

However, evaluating whether the Republican Party failed in its attempts—and what would happen in each district using prior maps—is a challenging if not impossible task according to Jonathan Cervas, a political scientist at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology.

“These questions are hard to answer because we lack a world where such outcomes can be measured,” Cervas said.

But he said that, “from a democratic perspective, voters are notably worse off” thanks to the redistricting war and the “vote dilution” this led to.

“Black voters in Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana, who were targeted in those redraws, will hold less influence in the next Congress,” he told Newsweek. “Hopefully, this will warn future gerrymanderers that the gains do not justify the effort.”

And Imai said that such efforts by both parties would only make “the electoral system less responsive by reducing electoral competition,” as safer districts reduces the incentives to care about median voters.

“Instead, they focus on winning primary elections where turnout tends to be low and ideologically extreme voters have a greater influence,” he said. “This in turn leads to a polarized Congress.”