What's next in the battle over redistricting as the Texas House passes new GOP maps

The Republican-controlled Texas House has passed new congressional maps that aim to pad the party’s majority in Washington by as much as five seats in the midterm elections as battles over redistricting spread across the country.

The Republican-controlled Texas House has passed new congressional maps that aim to pad the party’s majority in Washington by as much as five seats in the midterm elections as battles over redistricting spread across the country.

With Texas set to fully enact its new plan as soon as this week, urged on by President Donald Trump, California Democrats are moving quickly to implement a plan to carve up their state's maps in retaliation. Meanwhile, top Republicans in states like Indiana, Missouri and Florida continue to talk about tweaking their maps to create more Republican-controlled congressional seats in the 2026 elections. Ohio’s redraw, which it must do under state law, could benefit the GOP, too.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.Getty Images; APGovernors in Democratic-controlled states are weighing responses, too, but in many cases, they’re restrained by procedural hurdles or by other practical limits — some have already stretched their own gerrymandered maps as far as they could go — that could make a tit-for-tat more difficult.

It’s all expected to come to a head in a matter of weeks, against the backdrop of a race for the congressional majority in Washington that sits on a knife’s edge.

Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled Texas House passed their map Wednesday, days after Democrats returned from a two-week "quorum break" in which they fled the state to hold up the bill. But they could only delay, not derail, the new Republican maps, which convert three deep-blue districts into deep-red ones and tilt two Democratic-held South Texas districts slightly further toward the GOP, too.