The Republicans’ Biggest Backfire of the Midterms

Republicans’ shameless gerrymandering spree backfired spectacularly, with especially egregious consequences in a few key states.

In the lead up to midterms, Republicans went on a sadistic redistricting spree across the country on orders from Trump to “find him more seats.” They were extremely effective, carving up congressional districts like a Thanksgiving turkey. These were blatant attempts to disenfranchise Black voters in some states, and make it all but impossible for Democrats to win seats in others.

It backfired spectacularly.

North Carolina Republicans redrew their map with the intention of securing 11 seats for Republicans, relegating the Democrats to only thee seats. Instead, it looks like Democrats are on their way to relegating the Republicans to three seats. North Carolina’s GOP has been accused of redrawing districts with “surgical precision” to disenfranchise Democratic voters; now they may very well be on their way to superminority status in the state.

Indiana captured the nation’s attention as Trump leaned hard on GOP officials to redraw the maps there, but they refused to give in. As punishment, Trump backed handpicked challengers to those he deemed insufficiently loyal. Come Election Day, Democrats flipped one seat, ultimately taking three out of nine. But importantly, had Republicans caved and redrawn the map to Trump’s liking, they would be looking at a 9-0 sweep by Democrats. Trump tried to oust them; he should be sending them flowers.

Then we have the ultimate cautionary tale: Texas. Trump decided he was “entitled” to five more seats in Texas, so he issued an order for Texas Republicans to redraw the map. Led by Greg Abbott, they did as they were told, but they redrew the lines under the assumption that the strong Latino support that buoyed the GOP in 2024 was permanent.

As Texas Republicans were falling all over themselves to say “how high,” California responded in kind, by redrawing that state’s own maps to favor Democrats in an effort to neutralize the Republicans’ power grab.

The outcome: rather than picking up five extra seats, Texas Republicans actually suffered a net loss of one seat. Meanwhile, California Democrats will win all five of their newly redrawn seats. Again, we would not be here if not for Trump’s arrogant demand that his lackeys embark on a deeply ill-advised and possibly illegal mid-cycle redistricting campaign.

It’s remarkable just how badly Republicans’ gerrymandering strategy failed. It all comes down to hubris. There’s the hubris of Donald Trump, thinking he’s “entitled” to more power and more control. And the hubris of the Republican Party writ large, thinking they could redraw the maps to engineer themselves a majority without bothering to deliver on their promises in office. Turns out Americans aren’t huge fans of being the unwitting tools of a corrupt government.

But while it’s clear that gerrymandering backfired in a big way for Republicans, we won’t always have a D+15 cycle. In a different year, many of these seats would have gone the way the map-drawers intended. And plenty of voters were drawn into districts where their voices were deliberately diluted, whether they ended up winning or not. Which is why I don’t want to celebrate this as a victory for the system; it was a victory in spite of the system.

Voters shouldn’t have to hope that politicians overreach and lose their bet. They shouldn’t have to hope for a wave. The simple truth is that politicians should not be able to choose their voters in the first place. The real solution is a nationwide ban on partisan gerrymandering. Congress will soon have a new Democratic majority, and this is exactly what they should do with it. The reason Democrats drew Prop 50 was because we decided not to unilaterally disarm. But that doesn’t mean that the system doesn’t need to be fixed on a national level.

The Republicans ran an experiment. They rigged the maps and got blown out. Now let’s make sure no one ever gets to run that experiment again.