The practice of drawing electoral-district boundaries to favour one party. Two common techniques are "cracking" (splitting an opponent's voters across multiple districts to dilute their power) and "packing" (concentrating them into one district to limit how many seats they can win).
In 2018 Utah voters passed a ballot measure establishing a citizen redistricting commission to advise the legislature. The measure barred lawmakers from using partisan political data to draw maps or configuring districts to purposefully favour or disfavour a party or candidate. Instead of complying, in 2020 the Republican-dominated state legislature passed a bill rolling back parts of the measure. The congressional map it drew in 2021 "cracked" Salt Lake County—where most of the state's Democrats are concentrated—into four pieces, securing four safe Republican seats.
Good-governance groups and local residents, both Democrat and Republican, sued. The Utah Supreme Court sent the case to a lower court, where trial judge Dianna Gibson ruled unequivocally that the 2020 law "infringed the people's fundamental constitutional right to reform their government." In August 2025 she struck down the map and ordered the legislature to try again. On October 6th 2025 lawmakers put forward a new map that Elizabeth Rasmussen, head of Better Boundaries (the group that sponsored the original ballot measure), admitted was an improvement but called "the least competitive" option—Democrats could perhaps contest one seat.
During a special session lawmakers also passed a bill requiring the use of three specific statistical tests to probe partisan balance, replacing the commission's allowance for "the best available data and scientific and statistical methods." Sam Wang, who runs the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, called the "urban-rural" justification for splitting Salt Lake City "a figleaf."
Utah's Republican Party is campaigning to repeal the ballot measure that started the whole process—the latest of several attempts by conservatives to limit direct democracy in the state. Judge Gibson must approve the legislature's map or choose an alternative by November 10th 2025 to prepare for mid-term elections.
A pending Supreme Court case that could transform the redistricting landscape. Louisiana's congressional map is being challenged under section two of the Voting Rights Act, which was enacted in 1965 and prohibits any state election rule that "results in a denial or abridgement" of a citizen's right to vote because of their race. In the past four decades 466 section-two cases have gone to court, most in the South and over local races such as city councils and school boards. In 2024 Shomari Figures, a black Democrat, was elected to Congress after a lawsuit forced Alabama to create a new majority-minority district stretching from Mobile to Montgomery.
Blacks are one-third of Louisiana's voters, but the map drawn after the 2020 census included only one majority-black district out of six. Black plaintiffs sued, and a court ordered the creation of a second such district. A group of "non-African American voters" then challenged that change, calling it "racially balkanising"; a different court struck down the redrawn map. Oral arguments were held on October 15th 2025 and a second oral argument in October. Chief Justice John Roberts and his five fellow conservative justices gave every indication they may bar race as a consideration when maps are drawn. The ruling is expected in spring 2026.
In practice, applying section two has constrained Republican partisan gerrymanders. If it is gutted, one estimate suggests Republicans could eliminate as many as 19 Democrat-held districts in the House of Representatives, or 9% of the party's current caucus. More realistic estimates put the number between six and 12, assuming Republicans take an aggressive approach, as they have recently in Texas, Missouri and Utah. Such a skewed electoral system would be akin to those adopted by dominant parties in illiberal democracies like Hungary and Singapore. America would be alone among its rich democratic peers.
In July 2025 Donald Trump began pressuring Republicans in Texas to carve up their congressional map to deliver five more seats for their party. This kicked off a national redistricting war without modern precedent that could eventually involve more than a dozen states.
When Texas passed its new map in August 2025, Gavin Newsom, California's governor, turned a bluff into an organised statewide campaign for Proposition 50, a ballot measure allowing the legislature to implement a new congressional map favouring Democrats through 2030. California, America's most populous state, has an independent redistricting commission, so the legislature needed voter approval. Polling suggested narrow support, increasing slightly when framed as a counter to Trump's meddling in Texas. With two weeks before the November 4th vote, spending neared $150m, with Democrats outraising Republicans and good-governance groups two to one—making Prop 50 one of the most expensive ballot measures of all time. In addition to making five more seats winnable for Democrats in 2026, the new map would shore up Democratic incumbents in vulnerable districts.
Democrats were also talking to lawmakers in Maryland and Illinois about redrawing maps. Pete Aguilar, the chair of the House Democratic caucus, said: "Our hope is that every elected Democrat steps up to the plate." Redistricting before 2026 was also possible in Oregon, though hard to do without endangering current members.
On the Republican side, Missouri found another seat by splitting Kansas City, though litigation and a potential referendum could block the new map. North Carolina added another Republican seat in the week of October 24th 2025. Indiana's Republican governor suggested on local radio that his state would lose federal funds if it chose not to redistrict. Kelly Ayotte, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, could face a primary challenge from a Trump ally if she opposed gerrymandering.
The last time mid-decade gerrymandering swept the country was during the Gilded Age, according to Nicholas Stephanopoulos of Harvard University. Things cooled down only when Republicans won handily.
On April 21st 2026 Virginia voters approved a redistricting referendum that gerrymanders an estimated 3-4 Republicans out of their seats. Democrats carried out the gerrymander as retaliation for Texas's Republican-led redistricting. With the new Virginia and California maps offsetting Republican gerrymanders, current district lines nationwide are almost perfectly fair overall—though extremely unfair within individual states.
In December 2025, 21 of 40 Republican state senators in Indiana joined all ten Democrats to vote down a bill to redraw congressional districts for partisan benefit. The vote came despite intense lobbying from Donald Trump, threats of primary challengers, withheld federal money and even death threats. Former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels observed that courage was contagious: as more senators spoke up, the numbers grew.
In primary elections on May 5th 2026 at least five of the seven obscure Republican legislators who voted against the map lost to Trump-endorsed challengers. Roughly $13.5m was spent on ads, up from a few hundred thousand dollars in previous Indiana legislative primaries. Indiana's part-time lawmakers earn $33,000 a year. The president deployed his presidential campaign adviser Chris LaCivita and the Club for Growth, a Super PAC that normally plays at the national level.
The Supreme Court delivered its ruling in Louisiana v Callais on April 29th 2026 by a 6-3 vote, declaring that electoral maps can no longer be challenged on grounds of race—say, by arguing that district lines unfairly dilute black votes—as long as mapmakers claim to have drawn them strictly for partisan gain. It was the court's third big blow to the Voting Rights Act. After the ruling, Tennessee politicians released a map carving up Memphis into three ruby-red congressional districts; Louisiana lawmakers met to do the same to New Orleans. Courts are also weighing a Florida plan signed by Ron DeSantis that would give Republicans 24 of 28 seats in a state where 30% of voters are Democrats. The Economist's election model still predicts that Democrats will gain more than 20 seats in the House in November 2026.
Absence makes the heart grow frantic.