GOP reversals in this year’s elections, especially in some urban and immigrant communities, are setting off alarm bells for Republicans using redistricting to try to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterms.

Redistricting plans demanded by President Donald Trump in states such as Texas and Missouri — meant to capitalize on his stronger showing among certain urban voters in the 2024 election — could backfire, as cities in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia returned to Democratic voting patterns in off-year elections this past November.

Experts see the shift as a sign of possible souring on the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda, combined with disappointment in economic conditions.

Paul Brace, an emeritus political science professor of legal studies at Rice University in Houston, said Texas Republicans are likely to gain less than they imagine from new maps designed to pick up five additional seats for the party. He said minority voters’ interest in Trump was “temporary” and that he had underperformed on the economy.

“Trump’s redistricting efforts are facing headwinds and, even in Texas, may not yield all he had hoped,” Brace said.

Redistricting efforts in Texas spawned a retaliatory plan in California aimed at getting five more Democratic seats. Other states have leapt into the fray, with Republicans claiming an overall edge of three potential seats in proposed maps.

Cuban-born Jose Arango, chair of the Hudson County Republican Party in New Jersey, said immigration enforcement has gone too far and caused a backlash at the polls.

“There are people in the administration who frankly don’t know what the hell is going on,” Arango said. “If you arrest criminals, God bless you. We don’t want criminals in our streets. But then you deport people who have been here 30 years, 20 years, and have contributed to society, have been good people for the United States. You go into any business in agriculture, the hospitality business, even the guy who cuts the grass — they’re all undocumented. Who’s going to pick our tomatoes?”

As immigration arrests increase this year, a growing share of those detained have no criminal convictions.

New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District, which includes urban Paterson, went from a surprising Trump win last year to a lopsided victory this year for Democratic Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill. Trump won the district last year by 3 percentage points and Sherrill won by 16 points. The district is majority-minority and 39% immigrant.

There was a similar turnaround in Miami, a majority-immigrant city that elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in almost 30 years. Parts of immigrant-rich Northern Virginia also shifted in the governor’s race there.

In the New Jersey district, Billy Prempeh, a Republican whose parents emigrated from Ghana, lost a surprisingly close 2024 race for U.S. House to Democrat Nellie Pou, of Puerto Rican descent, who became the first Latina from New Jersey to serve in Congress.

Prempeh this year launched another campaign for the seat, but withdrew after Sherrill won the governor’s race, telling Stateline that any Republican who runs for that seat “is going to get slaughtered.”

Prempeh doesn’t blame Trump or more aggressive immigration enforcement for the shift. He said his parents and their family waited years to get here legally, and he objects to people being allowed to stay for court dates after they crossed the border with Mexico.

“We aren’t deporting enough people. Not everybody agrees with me on that,” Prempeh said.

Parts of Virginia saw similar voting pattern changes. Prince William County, south of Washington, D.C., saw support for Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger jump to 67% compared with 57% for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris last year. The county is about 26% immigrant and 27% Hispanic.

Asian American and Hispanic voters shifted more Democratic this year in both New Jersey and Virginia, said J. Miles Coleman, an associate editor at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, expanding on a November post on the subject.

However, some of those Virginia voters might have sat out the governor’s race, Coleman said.

“I do think there is an element of Trump-curious minority voters staying home this year,” Coleman said. “There were many heavily Asian and Hispanic precincts in Northern Virginia that saw this huge percentage swing from Harris to Spanberger, but also saw relatively weak turnout.”

The pattern is “hard to extrapolate” to Texas or other states with new maps, Coleman said, “but Democrats are probably liking what they saw in this year’s elections.”

He said one of the redrawn districts in Texas is now likely to go to Democrats: the majority-Hispanic 28th Congressional District, which includes parts of San Antonio and South Texas. And the nearby 34th Congressional District is now a tossup instead of leaning Republican, according to new Center for Politics projections.

The pattern in New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District this year was consistent in Hispanic areas statewide, according to an analysis provided to Stateline by Michael Foley, elections coordinator of State Navigate, a Virginia-based nonprofit that analyzes state election data.

New Jersey Hispanic precincts “swung heavily” toward Sherrill compared with their 2024 vote for Harris, Foley said in an email. He noted that New Jersey and Florida Hispanic populations are largely from the Caribbean and may not reflect patterns elsewhere, such as Texas where the Hispanic population is heavily Mexican American.

Pou, who won the New Jersey seat, said economics played a part in this year’s electoral shift.

“The President made a promise to my constituents that he’d lower costs and instead he’s made the problem worse with his tariffs that raised costs across the board,” Pou said in a statement to Stateline.

Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said immigration and pocketbook issues both played a role in places like the 9th District, as did an influx of Democratic campaign money.

“The biggest reason is a sense of letdown in President Trump,” Rasmussen said. “There were many urban voters who decided they liked what Trump was saying, they liked the Hispanic outreach, they bought into his economic message. And just one year later, they’re equally disillusioned.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

In her documentary's opening, First Lady Melania Trump declares: "Everybody wants to know" how she spends her time.

It turns out that's far from true, The Guardian found.

The newspaper sent a writer to watch Melania at the busiest movie theater in Times Square Friday, the day of its release. He joined just 12 people in the audience. And they were far from blown away.

The poor turnout was reflected at theaters across the world, prompting studio executives to revise opening weekend projections downward for the project commissioned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The billionaire spent $35 million to make the movie, and another $30 million to market it.

An AMC theater near Times Square, at least half of the 12 viewers were there for professional review purposes. Few attendees watched the film for personal interest.

Chase, one of the few civilian viewers, explained his attendance: "I just think it's really interesting to see, like, inside the life of somebody so famous. She's a private person. So I think it's interesting just to kind of see, you know, how her life really is, at least to some extent," he told The Guardian.

The 24-year-old independent voter continued: "I thought it was very good. She really portrayed things that I think the public didn't know prior about her. I found it really interesting. I would have come to watch if it was Jill Biden, whoever. I think it's just interesting to see."

Social media users shared screenshots from ticketing websites displaying empty theater schedules in Boston, Charleston, and other major cities. The financial outcome appears problematic for Amazon, though critics surmise that proximity to presidential favor may provide intangible benefits to Bezos.

Financial investment alone proved insufficient to create compelling content. Melania Trump presents as an uncomfortable onscreen subject, visibly uneasy before cameras, The Guardian reported. The documentary dedicates substantial runtime to Melania trying on clothing, with other sequences featuring Mar-a-Lago croquet scenes resembling retirement community activities.

Democrat Jim Behrle, who attended the screening anticipating entertainment value, stated: "I didn't dislike it as much as I thought I would. There was some interesting stuff in it. There were some interesting characters, and some of the footage is shot really well."

He elaborated: "There's not a lot of rising action in the film at all. I mean, there's not a lot of conflict or anything like that, but seeing some of the behind-the-scenes stuff is pretty interesting."

Behrle attended partly due to his monthly theater subscription, which provides unlimited screenings for $29. Despite moderate surprise at his tolerance for the film, he expressed reluctance to recommend it to friends and family, concluding: "It's not a gripping film."

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday that Attorney General Pam Bondi should be facing impeachment, pointing to the top Justice Department official’s handling of the Epstein files, efforts to force Minnesota to hand over its voter data, and arrest of journalists including former CNN anchor Don Lemon.

Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made the call in response to Bondi’s Friday morning announcement that Lemon, independent journalist Georgia Fort, and two others were arrested in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month.“Between this, Epstein, and her attempted extortion of MN voter files, Bondi should be up for impeachment too,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media, alluding to the ongoing effort to oust Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Following the arrests of Lemon and others, the Justice Department announced the release of more than 3 million pages of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—more than a month after the passage of a deadline established by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed in November.

But the latest disclosure did not satisfy the lawmakers leading the push for full transparency. The Justice Department indicated Friday that it only released around half of the Epstein documents subject to review.

“Donald Trump and his Department of Justice have now made it clear that they intend to withhold roughly 50% of the Epstein files, while claiming to have fully complied with the law. This is outrageous and incredibly concerning,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. “The Oversight Committee subpoena directs Pam Bondi to release all the files to the committee, while protecting survivors. They are in violation of the law.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who floated impeachment proceedings against Bondi last month, said in a statement that he will be “reviewing closely to see if they release what I’ve been pushing for: the FBI 302 victim interview statements, a draft indictment and prosecution memorandum prepared during the 2007 Florida investigation, and hundreds of thousands of emails and files from Epstein’s computers.”

“Failing to release these files only shields the powerful individuals who were involved and hurts the public’s trust in our institutions,” said Khanna, the author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.