The GOP s Mid-Decade Gerrymandering Strategy Was an Epic Fail

Last year, as Donald Trump’s approval ratings began to sink underwater, Republicans launched an unprecedented plan to create a dozen or more red districts across the country to keep the House in GOP hands.

That mid-decade gerrymandering strategy failed spectacularly on Tuesday night.

Remember when Trump said he was entitled to five new seats in Texas? Republicans are ahead in only one of them. The GOP also lost two US House seats in the state.

It was just as bad in Florida, where Republicans gerrymandered four US House districts to flip them red. They all went blue instead.

“I absolutely think Donald Trump’s gerrymandering scheme had a catastrophic impact for Republicans on the electoral results.”

Over the past two years, Republicans created 15 more GOP-friendly seats through mid-decade redistricting. At most, they won two or three on Tuesday night.

All this did was motivate Democrats to turn out in higher numbers. Democrats gained six new US House seats through their own counterattack in California and Utah, giving them the upper hand in the mid-decade redistricting war.

“I absolutely think Donald Trump’s gerrymandering scheme had a catastrophic impact for Republicans on the electoral results,” said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

I saw this firsthand on the ground in Alabama, where Republicans drew new maps after the Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act to oust freshman Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures.

But Figures won by eight points, in a district that was initially thought to be safely Republican.

“It doesn’t matter what your district lines look like when people are paying $4 a gallon for gas,” Figures said on the campaign trail. “It doesn’t matter what your district lines look like when farmers are paying all-time high prices for diesel fuel. It doesn’t matter how many farmers you put into the district when those farmers are paying all-time high prices for fertilizer because a president wants to start a war in Iran.”

While voters across the spectrum punished Republicans for skyrocketing prices, Black turnout surged across the South because of anger over the Louisiana v. Callais decision dismantling the Voting Rights Act. As Cornell Belcher, Barack Obama’s former pollster, told me: “This Supreme Court decision is an encapsulation. The Black community feels that there is an existential threat to their community and it’s not simply about gas prices and the price of eggs.”

That surge helped Democrats win US Senate races in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, put Scott Colom on track to become the first Black Senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction, and almost allowed Democrats to pull off a shocking upset in the Louisiana Senate race.

In Alabama, turnout in majority-Black Montgomery County, the Democratic heart of Figures’ reconstituted district, rose from 36 percent in 2022 to 50 percent in 2026, helping carry him to a surprising victory.

“Predominantly Black counties saw among the greatest surges in turnout this cycle compared to the 2022 midterms, according to initial data,” Politico reported. “Among counties reporting close to complete results, counties that were between 60-80% Black reported a 21% jump in turnout compared to four years ago. By contrast, counties that are less than 20% Black showed a smaller 9% turnout increase.”

Tom Bonier, a senior adviser with the Democratic data firm TargetSmart, shared data showing how turnout increased in majority-Black counties compared to majority-white counties in states across the South.

And younger voters and Latino voters also showed up in big numbers to oppose Republican candidates in previously red states like Texas and Florida. In the end, Trump’s 2024 coalition abandoned him in staggering numbers, putting in play many seats that were thought to be safely red.

Of course, that doesn’t mean gerrymandering had no impact on the election. Gerrymandered state legislative maps allowed Republicans to prevent Democrats from winning one-party control in states including Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. And according to Stephen Wolf of The Downballot, Republicans would have lost up to two dozen more US House seats under fairer lines.

But the GOP’s mid-decade gerrymandering strategy was supposed to cement Republican power. Instead, it helped unravel it.