A federal court has blocked Texas from using a redrawn congressional map that would have given Republicans five additional U.S. House seats. A panel of judges ruled 2-1 that the map amounts to racial gerrymandering and harms Black and Hispanic voters.
That decision is a blow to President Trump's efforts to preserve Republican control of the House and of the 2026 midterms.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott says he will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. It's not yet clear if or when the high court may take up the case, or whether any decision would come in time ahead of 2026's midterms.
So far, Democrats view the ruling as boosting their chances in those 2026 elections.
"This whole notion that Republicans were going to be able to gerrymander their way into rigging the midterm elections and Democrats in the House were just going to unilaterally disarm, roll over and play dead, was a fantasy," said Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, at a Wednesday press conference. "It was as clear as day that Donald Trump and Republicans violated the 14th and the 15th Amendments of the United States Constitution, and then they jammed that gerrymandered map down the throats of the people of the great state of Texas in the dead of night."
California, by contrast, asked voters to pass an amendment to the state constitution to allow redistricting that would favor Democrats. It was originally in response to what happened in Texas.
RELATED STORY | Federal court halts Texas’ new House map, orders return to 2021 districts
Meanwhile, a poll from NPR, PBS and Marist shows the Democrats have a 14 point advantage on the generic ballot. If they went to the polls today, 55% of voters say would elect the Democratic candidate. 41% of voters say they would elect the Republican candidate.
Republicans on Capitol Hill say the only poll that truly matters is the one taken on Election Day during the upcoming midterms.
Scripps News spoke with Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, a state that just went through its own redistricting process that appears to narrowly favor Republicans.
Scripps News' Nathaniel Reed: Do you think redistricting in states across the country, led by Republicans, has been too aggressive, given what we saw yesterday in Texas?
Sen Jon Husted (R-OH): Look, I have a long history of doing it inside of Ohio. Ohio actually got a bipartisan vote. I'm glad that the system worked in Ohio, and I'm not going to comment about what other states are doing. That's up to their governors and their legislatures. The true mark of whether it was successful or not is what will happen next November.
