California begins counteroffensive in Trump’s redistricting war

For months, Democrats, paralyzed by good government reforms and self-interest, struggled to counter a push led by President Donald Trump for red states to redraw their lines in Congress and add more Republican seats in a desperate attempt to avoid Democratic control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections.

However, last week the Democratic counteroffensive began in earnest. A referendum in California to add Democratic seats appears certain to pass. Virginia Democrats called a surprise legislative session to begin their own redrawing process. And national leaders are increasingly optimistic about redrawing the lines in both Maryland and Illinois despite continued resistance from state legislative leaders.

The first step is in California, where Republicans have openly given up on stopping Proposition 50, which would change the state constitution and set up the state legislature to eliminate five GOP-held seats in the state, countering Texas’ mid-decade redistricting that eliminated five Democratic-held seats.

Democrats are hoping California’s success will build momentum, both by showing other states that changing congressional lines to combat Trump is politically popular and by forcing ambitious governors in other Democratic states to keep up with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s successes.

“If you’re a blue state and you have a trifecta between the legislature and the governor and you have a chance to pick up one or two more seats, it seems to me that you would be encouraged to do that if California is doing what it’s doing,” said Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party.

State and national Democrats have presented Proposition 50 as a necessary response to Trump’s efforts to consolidate his autocratic rule. In recent days, advertising in support of the proposal has featured state and national Democrats, including Newsom, former President Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said he expected passage of the proposal to have a “chilling effect” on Republican redistricting efforts, noting that Republicans already face resistance to their efforts in Indiana, Ohio and Missouri.

In an interview with News themezone, Martin stopped short of directly asking Illinois, Maryland or other Democratic states to approve new maps, but his intention was clear.

“This is a showdown that Republicans wanted and we’re going to give them a showdown,” Martin said. “This is not the Democratic Party of yesteryear, where we can cave in and let them get away with it. We’re going to fight fire with fire everywhere.”

Mario Tama via Getty Images

After initially appearing to face an uphill climb, Proposition 50 has successfully sold itself as a tangible way for voters to stick a thumb in Trump’s eye. The initiative campaign has raised more than $100 million, swamping the opposition campaign. The fundraising has been so successful that Newsom urged donors to stop donating with a week left, as Republicans have begun pointing fingers at the loss. Public polls show the initiative won with broad support.

“With five days left, I think we’re where we want to be in our get-out-the-vote program in the final weekend,” Hicks said.

Trump began the war by pressuring Texas Governor Greg Abbott and state legislators there to redraw Texas maps, and continued to pressure Missouri and North Carolina to do the same, eliminating one Democratic-held seat each. GOP-controlled state legislatures in Florida, Indiana and Kansas have taken steps to redraw their congressional maps. In Ohio, members of the redistricting commission reached a compromise that made two Democratic-held seats slightly redder. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court could open the door for Southern states to eliminate up to 19 seats held by Democrats if it guts the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais.

Democrats’ efforts to counter these measures have been logistically complicated: Many of the states where they have full control over state government have adopted nonpartisan redistricting laws or constitutional amendments over the past two decades.

“State legislative Democrats should keep all their options open, including using legislative power to achieve mid-cycle changes to these maps,” said Heather Williams, chairwoman of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “This is not a fight we wanted, but it is not something that can go unanswered.”

The clearest sign of the post-California push is in Virginia, where Democrats have begun the process of presenting voters with a constitutional amendment in 2026 that would allow the legislature to bypass the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission to redraw maps. This effort, which could generate up to three Democratic seats, requires Democrat Abigail Spanberger to win the governor’s race on Nov. 4, something most polls show she is likely to achieve. The proposed amendment would also have to go before voters in the spring or early summer to take effect in time for the 2026 election.

“Our hand has been forced [by] “Unprecedented developments,” Del. Rodney Willett, a Democrat and lead sponsor of the constitutional amendment legislation, said during floor debates Thursday.

Other efforts to respond to Trump’s redistricting campaign face increased resistance within the party, even as national leaders become increasingly confident they can overcome local objections. Maryland already changed its district map in 2022 to limit Republicans to just one district of eight. Gov. Wes Moore and state House Speaker Adrienne Jones, both Democrats, wanted the legislature to call a special session to redraw district lines and eliminate that Republican district, but Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, rejected this idea in a letter to colleagues Tuesday.

Ferguson, however, is fighting with most of the state’s other prominent Democrats. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told News themezone he was “disappointed” by Ferguson’s letter. “Maryland has a responsibility to respond to the outrageous actions of Republicans in Texas,” he said. “We must not unilaterally disarm and must maximize our opportunities.”

PATRICK T. FALLON via Getty Images

Democrats see Ferguson’s objections as primarily idealistic rather than self-serving, and are hopeful that a recent decision by U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (himself a fellow good-government liberal and former member of the state Senate) to embrace an 8-0 map may help persuade Ferguson.

“Republicans just need to convince their lawmakers that it is in their best interest to draw new lines,” lamented one Democrat who works on national redistricting efforts and who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “We also need to convince our legislators to let go of their values.”

The deadline for Maryland to draw new maps is also extremely generous, with the deadline for candidate submissions not arriving until February 24, more than a month after the General Assembly begins its regular annual session. Even if a special session is not called, Democrats are hopeful the state legislature can take action early next year.

Ferguson’s arguments against the new lines are not without merit: Maryland’s existing map was adopted after a state court rejected the legislature’s 2021 map as illegal partisan gerrymandering. The current map, adopted as a compromise after that decision, has never been challenged and could be revoked in the likely event that an even more partisan map was adopted. Although highly unlikely, Ferguson fears that a legal challenge to any new map could not only undo any effort to win a seat, but would also lead to Democrats losing a seat in the state.

“We do not know how a court would evaluate a revised midterm map and whether the court would use partisan affiliation as a measure,” Ferguson wrote in his letter. “However, we have certainty under the current map; that evaporates the moment we begin down the path of mid-cycle redistricting with an unclear legal landscape and an even less clear legal timeline.”

Like Maryland, Illinois’ congressional district map is already heavily tilted toward Democrats, with only 3 of 17 districts leaning Republican. U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Illinois state lawmakers on Monday to urge them to redraw districts to eliminate a GOP-held seat. But such an effort would require redrawing up to four Chicago-area districts currently held by black lawmakers. While those four members joined Jeffries at the meeting and at his subsequent news conference, that idea is not popular among black political leaders in the Illinois Legislature.

“If a map is produced that dilutes black votes, the Legislative Black Caucus has expressed that that is something they will not be able to support,” state Sen. Willie Preston, a Democrat who represents Chicago’s South Side and nearby suburbs, told reporters Monday.

New York cannot redraw districts without the legislature passing a constitutional amendment to bypass its nonpartisan redistricting commission. That process cannot be completed until after the 2026 elections. lawsuit filed Monday by a Democratic law firm alleging racial vote dilution in a GOP-held seat on Staten Island could give Democrats a seat if successful in state courts.

The only other bright spot for Democrats in the redistricting wars came in Utah, where the state supreme court ordered the legislature to draw a new map that would give Salt Lake City Democrats a better chance of electing a representative.

There are few other opportunities to counter Republican redistricting efforts in states where Democrats maintain control of the governor’s office and state legislature in time for the 2026 elections. That’s why Proposition 50 is so important to Democrats.