By Joseph Ax
March 2 (Reuters) - The midterm elections were still 16 months away, and Democrats were in trouble.
Upending decades of precedent, U.S. President Donald Trump convinced Texas Republicans last July to redraw the state's congressional map in an extraordinary effort to protect the party's fragile majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Other Republican-led states were poised to follow suit.
Democrats had limited options to counter Trump's drive to add Republican seats. They controlled
fewer statehouses, and several strongholds, including California and New York, had constitutional provisions outlawing any similar countermove. Republicans appeared poised to pick up as many as a dozen new House seats in November.
Eight months later, the picture looks starkly different. Trump's push stalled in several Republican states, while Democrats' own aggressive moves in states like California, and favorable court rulings have allowed them to claw their way to a near-draw.
In the end, the race to determine which party wins control of the chamber in November will still come down to a handful of competitive seats - meaning months of political mayhem, partisan recriminations and the reshaping of dozens of House districts from coast to coast have left the national landscape pretty much where it began.
"I do think that it is a wash right now," said Erin Covey, a House analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "It's a huge amount of turnover and disruption all basically for nothing, if you're looking solely at partisan seat gain."
That could still change. Legal challenges are pending against several of the new maps, while Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has said he wants his state to redistrict in April. The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to weaken the Voting Rights Act, which could permit Republican-held Southern states to eliminate numerous Democratic districts.
THE FIRST TEST
The Texas map that started it all will be put to its first test on Tuesday, when the state's voters choose the parties' nominees for all 38 U.S. House seats, as well as statewide races for U.S. Senate and governor.
The dismantling of several Democratic districts has created some unusual matchups. In the Houston area, for instance, two incumbent Democrats, Christian Menefee and Al Green, are facing each other.
Tuesday's primary elections in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas mark the official start of the midterm campaign. Democrats need to flip only three Republican-held seats in November to win control of the 435-seat House, while they face longer odds in trying to gain a Senate majority.
A Democratic House could block much of Trump's legislative agenda while using subpoena power to open investigations into his administration. Typically, the president's party loses congressional seats in the midterms, a historical trend that Trump's redistricting campaign was intended to thwart.
Redistricting of U.S. House districts typically occurs at the start of each decade to reflect population changes in the U.S. Census. Both parties have used that process to conduct partisan gerrymandering, the practice of manipulating the district boundaries to create political advantage in elections.
But for more than a century, mid-decade gerrymandering had been virtually unheard of until Trump's gambit. Texas' map targeted five Democratic incumbents; Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina quickly passed their own maps taking aim at Democratic-held seats as well.
Though Democrats have backed legislation banning gerrymandering in the past, Trump's decision prompted many in the party to vow to respond in kind. Figures such as former President Barack Obama and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, longtime opponents of gerrymandering, said Democratic states should be willing to redraw their own maps to counter Republican redistricting.
"I'm sick and tired of this Democratic Party bringing a pencil to a knife fight," Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin told a party gathering in August. "Let's grow a damn spine and get in this fight."
As Texas Republicans moved ahead, Democratic House members from the state met with Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss the party's strategy, according to U.S. Representative Julie Johnson, a Dallas area Democrat.
The party coalesced around California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom's proposal to amend his state's constitution through a voter referendum and install a map designed to flip five Republican seats. The plan, initially seen as a long shot, sailed through the legislature and was overwhelmingly approved by voters in November.
Virginia Democrats soon followed with an even more complicated maneuver to alter their state's constitution in similar fashion, an effort that could yield a four-seat gain if it survives a legal challenge from Republicans this spring.
MORE TO COME
Democrats were also aided by favorable court rulings. In Utah and New York, judges ordered new maps that seem likely to flip a Republican seat in each state.
Meanwhile, Republicans in a handful of states resisted Trump's pressure campaign, most notably Indiana, where a majority of state Senate Republicans rejected a Trump-backed redistricting plan despite the president's threats of political retaliation.
Not everything has gone Democrats' way. In Maryland, a new map that would eliminate the state's lone Republican seat is stalled amid opposition from the Democratic leader of the state Senate.
Regardless of the outcome this year, one thing seems clear: the redistricting wars that Trump started will not end in November. In Colorado and New York, both Democratic-leaning states that have anti-gerrymandering laws in place, Democrats have proposed altering the rules to allow new maps in time for the 2028 election.
"We could have just as many states redraw their lines in 2028 as they did in 2026," Covey said.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Alistair Bell)
