Partisan Gerrymandering

Partisan gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to give one political party an unfair advantage over another. It’s often done by state legislatures dominated by a single party, sometimes in conjunction with a state’s governor of the same party. By drawing maps creatively—such as having narrow corridors connect distant communities—politicians can choose their voters rather than the other way around.

Majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents say partisan gerrymandering should be illegal.

But gerrymandering is legal in most U.S. states. And in those states, gerrymandering is typically practiced whenever a single party has enough dominance to push its maps through. According to independent measurements of gerrymandering, states with the worst gerrymanders of their congressional districts include Texas, North Carolina, and Florida (all favoring Republicans), and Illinois and Oregon (favoring Democrats).

There are no federal laws prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. In Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), The Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims, though they may “seem unjust,” present “political questions” beyond federal court jurisdiction. This means states are largely free to draw maps as they see fit, regardless of partisan fairness, as long as they don’t violate other voting-rights protections.

Independent Redistricting Commissions

Eight states have established independent (that is, nonpolitical) redistricting commissions for congressional districts: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Washington. These commissions are typically composed of citizens or other nonpartisan officials who aim to draw districts without favoring either major political party.

Nationally, far more people support than oppose independent redistricting, although a large segment of the population doesn’t know about the issue. Legislatures in gerrymandered states are often less supportive because they don’t want to give up map-making power. As a result, some of the states with commissions only got them by routing around their legislatures using citizen ballot initiatives.

Mid-Decade Gerrymandering

Redistricting typically happens once every ten years, following the U.S. Census, to reflect population changes. Mid-decade redistricting—redrawing district lines between census cycles—is rare but not illegal. In 2025, this unusual practice became a political flashpoint.

In July 2025, President Donald Trump pressured Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional map to gain five additional Republican seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s motivation was clear: Republicans held only a slim majority in the U.S. House, and the president’s party typically loses ground in midterm elections. By gerrymandering Texas districts mid-decade, Trump aimed to protect his party from electoral losses and his ability to pursue his legislative agenda with friendly Republican majorities in Congress.

The Texas Legislature, controlled by Republicans, approved new maps on party-line votes in August 2025. Texas’ Republican Governor Greg Abbott subsequently signed the new maps into law.

Counter-Gerrymandering

After Texas passed its new maps, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, retaliated with his own plan. Aided by the Democrat-dominated California legislature, Newsom created Proposition 50, a ballot proposition that will be decided by voters in a special election on November 4, 2025. If passed, Prop 50 would temporarily replace the maps created by California’s independent commission with legislature-drawn maps gerrymandered to flip five Republican-held seats to Democrats. The measure would remain in effect through the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections; after that, California’s independent commission would resume drawing maps.

Newsom and Democratic supporters argue Prop 50 is necessary to “fight fire with fire” and neutralize Trump’s redistricting efforts in Texas. Opponents include former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed California’s independent commission. He calls Prop 50 a betrayal of voter-approved redistricting reform and argues that gerrymandering is wrong regardless of which party does it.

The Texas-California battle has polarized public opinion on counter-gerrymandering. A late August YouGov poll found that 53% of Democrats support California’s counter-gerrymander against Texas, whereas only 16% of Republicans and 27% of Independents do.

Meanwhile, at Trump’s urging, other Republican states embarked on their own gerrymandering efforts. Missouri passed new maps that target a Republican flip of a Democrat-held district. Republican leaders in Indiana, Florida, and Kansas announced they are considering redistricting. And heavily gerrymandered North Carolina has its legislature working on a way to flip the state’s last competitive seat to the Republicans.

Democratic forces in Illinois and Maryland are considering their own redistricting. In addition, New York Democrats introduced legislation to allow mid-decade redistricting, but any new maps wouldn’t take effect until the 2028 elections due to the state’s constitutional amendment process.

What Happens Next

Given the current trajectory, it’s easy to imagine a new normal of continuous redistricting whenever advantage can be had. But there are natural brakes against this:

• Even politicians who support redistricting when it helps their party often dislike the chaos and uncertainty it creates. Until Trump increased his pressure, Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans were resistant to a 2025 redistricting. Some Texas Republican members of Congress worried that the new maps could make their own districts more competitive or force them to run in unfamiliar territory.

• Redistricting brings legal risk and expense. When states redistrict, they often must defend their maps in court—the 2025 Texas and Missouri maps immediately faced lawsuits.

• Few politicians will actually defend gerrymandering in principle. Instead, they frame it as necessary retaliation. Governor Newsom emphasized he’d prefer if no one gerrymandered. Texas Republicans pointed to Democratic gerrymanders in Illinois and Maryland as justification. And a North Carolina state senator claimed its latest redistricting was necessary “to ensure Gavin Newsom doesn’t decide the congressional majority.”

So, although it’s possible gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting will continue to intensify, it’s also possible that the intensification will trigger a reaction the other way. Why? In addition to the reasons above, Americans are getting a front-row seat to partisan map-making, with political leaders openly admitting they’re drawing lines to help their party win. This transparency could energize public opposition that is already conceptually there. And greater public opposition would provide cover for rank-and-file politicians to resist future pressure campaigns when they’d rather avoid the chaos, costs, and stench of frequent redistricting.

That said, there’s a wild card in the gerrymandering deck: The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case that could overturn aspects of the Voting Rights Act, including prohibitions against racial gerrymandering (one of the exceptions to the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling that allowed partisan gerrymandering). Although racial gerrymandering is different from partisan gerrymandering, there are correlations between race and party preference, so the two are not totally independent. If the Court allows racial gerrymandering, it would be inviting yet more redistricting warfare.

But perhaps the court will consider that public opinion dislikes racial gerrymandering even more than partisan gerrymandering:

Which brings us back to where we started: Majorities of Americans—across party lines—believe gerrymandering should be illegal. The 2025 redistricting battles may finally force a reckoning with this contradiction. Whether it leads to reform or further regression remains to be seen.