Texas and California near new partisan voting maps in a battle prompted by Trump

California and Texas, the country’s two most populous states, are getting closer to redrawing their congressional districts in a political fight sparked by President Trump.

Lawmakers who lead the states are both seeking to add five U.S. House seats for their respective parties, after Trump, who’s eager to maintain the narrow GOP majority in the House, pushed the Texas Legislature to redistrict and help Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

Proposals in California and Texas neared final passage Thursday afternoon.

Texas Republicans who designed their rare mid-decade redistricting plan were clear about their intentions.

“I want everybody to know this,” state Rep. Todd Hunter, sponsor of the redistricting bill, told his colleagues this week. “The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: Improve Republican political performance.”

Trump lauded the bill’s progress, saying “Texas never lets us down.” GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, a close Trump ally, said he would sign the measure, but Democrats have threatened to challenge the new map in court.

Redistricting is usually done after the national census at the start of each decade, and how voters are grouped into congressional districts can be critical in determining who wins the seats.

Abbott put a proposed redraw on the Legislature’s agenda last month when Trump called for five more Republican-leaning districts in Texas. The state currently has 38 seats in the House — 25 held by Republicans, 13 by Democrats.

Attention then turned to California, where lawmakers are deciding whether to ask the state’s voters to approve a plan this November. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom sought to counter the redraw in Texas, but voters must weigh in in order to get around the state’s independent citizen redistricting commission.

Newsom has argued that California Democrats must “fight fire with fire,” maintaining that his state’s proposal is in response to efforts in Texas.

The White House has asked Republicans in other states to consider redistricting in their favor, too.

In Texas, Democrats broke quorum to disrupt Republicans’ plans

Passage of the new Texas map would come after the return of Democrats who had left the state to block the presence of a quorum that would permit a vote. Abbott and other Texas leaders had threatened them with removal from office and arrest.

After two weeks, enough Democrats returned to allow a quorum on Monday. Democratic leaders said they were coming back because California had taken up the fight and they had run the clock out on one special session — only to see Abbott immediately start another.

“We’re returning to Texas more dangerous to Republicans’ plans than when we left,” House Democratic Caucus Leader Gene Wu said Monday. “Our return allows us to build the legal record necessary to defeat this racist map in court, take our message to communities across the state and country, and inspire legislators across the country how to fight these undemocratic redistricting schemes in their own statehouses.”

Opponents of the new map say it weakens the votes of Black and Latino elected Democrats by putting them in new districts or moving more conservative white voters into theirs. It could lead to some Democratic members of Congress running against each other.

Republicans note the map increases the Latino voting presence in a couple districts and say more of them are voting Republican. Supporters of the redistricting acknowledge it was based on “political performance” in previous elections.

Some states ban partisan gerrymandering, the process of drawing districts to favor a political party. Texas does not. But gerrymandering for partisan benefit can sometimes overlap with illegal racial gerrymandering, which could soon be an issue in court for Texas.

Michael O. Adams, a political science professor at Texas Southern University and an expert on elections and redistricting, looked at the new map for Houston and said, “It’s a modern example of retrogression: packing, cracking, carefully diluting emerging coalitions of color.”

With reporting by NPR’s Acacia Squires.