Trump’s redistricting campaign tests his power in the states

People protest redistricting efforts outside of the Texas Governor’s Mansion in Austin, Texas, Aug. 4, 2025. President Donald Trump is escalating his pressure campaign on Republican-led states to redraw Congressional maps in his favor, as he seeks to improve his party’s chances of maintaining control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. (Ilana Panich-Linsman/The New York Times)

By Tyler Pager

President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps in his party’s favor is testing his power over governors and state legislators at a time when Republicans in Washington have largely rubber-stamped the president’s agenda and acquiesced to his demands.

As Trump and his political allies stare down the midterm elections — and the prospect of Democrats taking control of the House — they are engaged in a nationwide effort to gobble up as many Democratic-held districts as they can by changing maps typically set once a decade after the census.

The effort is the latest example of Trump and his allies trying to rewrite the rules to squeeze out every possible political advantage. Throughout his career, Trump has brushed aside norms, testing the boundaries of executive power and the law. Now, as he tries to secure more GOP seats, he is challenging state leaders to defy him and risk paying the price if they do.

For Trump, the opportunity to tilt the playing field is not just to gain a political leg up. He sees the current maps as unfair and unrepresentative of his and his party’s political power.

“I won Texas,” Trump said Tuesday on CNBC. “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.”

That argument, however, is wrong — Trump’s popular-vote win in Texas does not automatically translate to more Republican seats in the state’s congressional delegation.

His strategy in the redistricting fight echoes one from the 2024 Republican primary, when Trump and his team worked behind the scenes to twist the primary and delegate rules in ways that made it easier for him to lock up the nomination.

The stakes are high for Trump. Republicans hold only a slim majority in the House, and the incumbent president’s party typically does not fare well in midterm elections. If Democrats take control of the House, Trump and his administration would likely face an onslaught of investigations, and his legislative plans would likely be stymied.

Republicans are targeting a handful of states, including Texas, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, encouraging and at times cajoling Republican leaders to form new congressional districts that benefit Republicans.

The president’s allies have been particularly frustrated by Indiana Republicans, who have so far resisted redrawing their districts. Republicans currently hold seven of the state’s nine congressional seats, and Trump’s allies are hoping their party will capture eight, if not nine, of the seats.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance will travel to Indianapolis to meet with Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, and other state leaders to lobby them on the effort. In private, Republicans in the state Legislature have expressed little interest in redrawing the maps, according to people familiar with their discussions. Vance will also attend a political fundraiser in the state.

In Texas, at the behest of Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called a special session in part to approve new congressional districts, which target five seats currently held by Democrats. But on Sunday, Democratic members of the Texas House left the state in an attempt to block Republicans from moving forward with the new maps.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked the FBI to help locate and arrest the Democratic lawmakers, and Trump, when asked if the agency should get involved, said “they may have to.”

But as Trump and his allies expand their efforts to redraw maps beyond Texas, they may face logistical and political hurdles.

Jesse Hunt, a Republican strategist and former top aide at the Republican Governors Association, said that governors have different constituencies to tend to and laws to abide by, making it more challenging for them to quickly fall in line with Trump’s demands. Hunt noted that Republican governors and lawmakers were still keenly aware of the president’s popularity and his interest in the issue — and would likely try to appease his requests.

“Part of what Trump has brought to the table is no longer taking the proverbially moral high ground in these battles,” Hunt said. “He is taking out his brass knuckles and going to town on people who have stood in his way.”

Trump’s pressure campaign could fail to produce the results he wants. As Republicans push ahead in red states, the Democratic governors of California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are considering their own plans to redraw their congressional maps in response.

Democratic leaders have decried the Republican push to redraw state maps outside the traditional once-in-a-decade redistricting process.

“Donald Trump is trying to steal five seats from the people, frankly, of the country, not just the people of Texas, and disenfranchise people,” Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois said Tuesday on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“We’re talking about violating the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution,” he added.