Republicans’ latest ploy to strengthen their hand heading into the 2026 midterm elections is poised to backfire tremendously, one redistricting expert argued Thursday on CNN.
At the behest of President Donald Trump, Texas Republicans are currently working to arbitrarily redraw the state’s congressional district map to give the GOP five more House seats in Congress. The Texas House voted to adopt a gerrymandered map on Wednesday, with the Texas Senate expected to vote on the plan later on Thursday.
But according to John Bisognano, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, Republicans’ plan will end up hurting the GOP in the long run as Democrats across the country mount a coordinated response.
“Nobody wants this, that's one thing that we're seeing consistently; in polling, with donors, nobody seems to want what's happening in Texas,” Bisognano said, speaking with CNN. “What you're seeing in California and other states beyond is going to continue to happen. If Texas sparks this flame, I assure you, Republicans are going to get burned as well.”
California’s response to Texas has been to move forward with a similar gerrymandering effort, a plan that was endorsed by former President Barack Obama, and scorned by GOP leadership. California was just the start, Bisognano warned, with a full-on redistricting war only playing into Democrats’ hands.
“You're going to start to see people understand that gerrymandering is bad at a much higher rate, and we need to focus on those places to elevate the issue and make sure that such a complicated issue isn't so complicated or wonky,” Bisognano said. “...We're looking at places where we can offset what Republicans are doing to try and steal votes.”
States like Illinois and New York are already weighing the idea of redrawing their own districts in response to Texas, with Democratic party leaders hopeful the issue will motivate voters amid the Democratic Party’s tumbling poll numbers.
That Trump had launched the redistricting effort now, Bisognano said, was “no mistake” either, and pointed to the growing unpopularity of the president’s signature domestic policy bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and its tax cuts mostly enjoyed by the wealthy and cuts to social safety net programs.
“It's no mistake that it's happening right now,” Bisognano said. “What we're seeing right now is Donald Trump passed the least-popular budget bill at least I've ever seen; he's facing all kinds of headwinds and he knows he's going into a midterm where he's likely to lose, so he's trying to have JD Vance fly across the country, talk to people and ask them to gerrymander their states as much as possible.”
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