{"id":1827,"date":"2025-09-20T00:30:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2025-09-20T00:30:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:30:34","slug":"12-new-gop-seats-out-of-thin-air-republicans-are-halfway-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1827","title":{"rendered":"12 new GOP seats out of thin air? Republicans are halfway there"},"content":{"rendered":"

A version of this story appeared in CNN\u2019s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The same American electorate could return either a Republican or a Democratic majority in the US House in the event of a close election in 2026 as the two parties race to\u00a0redraw\u00a0congressional\u00a0maps\u00a0to their advantage.<\/p>\n

So far, Republicans are having more luck, with new maps on the books or awaiting a signature in Texas and Missouri.<\/p>\n

If everything goes their way in the known and potential redistricting efforts, it\u2019s possible President Donald Trump\u2019s party could pick up a dozen seats simply by carving up Democratic districts in red states.<\/p>\n

But that assumes Democrats find no joy in their own efforts.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the map is changing so far.<\/p>\n

Texas:\u00a0<\/strong>Five new GOP-leaning seats<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/strong>In Texas, Republicans already redrew the map to put potentially five new red seats in play for the 2026 midterm election. They carved up seats held by Democrats around Dallas, Houston and San Antonio as well as the Gulf shore and the border with Mexico.<\/p>\n

Ohio: As many as\u00a0<\/strong>3 possible new GOP-leaning seats.<\/strong>\u00a0Ohio is required to redraw its already gerrymandered maps because of a quirk of state law. As that process begins, Republicans see an opportunity to carve out a few more Republican-leaning seats around Akron, Toledo and, maybe, Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

Missouri:\u00a0<\/strong>1 new GOP-leaning seat.<\/strong> Republicans who control the state government passed a new map to carve up the Kansas City-area set held by longtime Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. It\u2019s awaiting Gov. Mike Kehoe\u2019s signature, but a signature-gathering campaign is underway in an attempt to block it.<\/p>\n

Plus, Republicans are eyeing more.<\/strong>\u00a0In Indiana, Gov. Mike Braun is\u00a0considering a November special session\u00a0to redraw congressional maps after a pressure campaign from the White House, including a visit from Vice President JD Vance.<\/p>\n

The White House has similarly applied pressure on lawmakers from Kansas, where Democrats hold one seat; Nebraska, where outgoing GOP Rep. Don Bacon\u2019s Omaha district will be a top target of Democrats; and\u00a0New Hampshire, which has two seats held by Democrats, according to\u00a0reports. In\u00a0Florida, a committee has been formed to pursue the idea of a mid-decade redistricting. All of those efforts may not come to fruition, but Republicans are certainly looking across the map.<\/p>\n

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\"California<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bills related to redrawing the state\u2019s congressional maps in Sacramento, Californiaon August 21. – Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Democrats have fewer options<\/h3>\n

California: Voters will get a say.<\/strong>\u00a0Golden State voters will go to polls in November to either endorse or veto Democrats\u2019 plans to squeeze five more seats out of a map drawn by a nonpartisan commission that already favors them.\u00a0California Democrats\u2019 proposed new map could effectively cancel out the Texas gamble.<\/p>\n

Utah: A court-mandated re-draw.<\/strong>\u00a0A judge in Utah is requiring the legislature to redraw maps that ignored a nonpartisan redistricting commission and carved up a single Democratic seat around Salt Lake City among the state\u2019s four congressional districts. The end result could be the return of a competitive district in Utah.<\/p>\n

There are also nascent efforts to consider redistricting in New York, Illinois and Maryland.<\/strong>\u00a0In New York, Democrats would have to find a way around the state constitution, which prohibits gerrymandering. In Illinois, congressional maps are already drawn to favor Democrats and there are only three Republican seats. There\u2019s only one Republican seat in Maryland, and a\u00a0previous effort to carve it up\u00a0failed in the courts.<\/p>\n

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\"Texas<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Texas state Sen. Pete Flores looks over a redrawn US congressional map during debate over a bill in the Senate Chamber of the Texas Capitol in Austin, on August 22. – Eric Gay\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are no guarantees \u2014 look at Latinos in Texas<\/h3>\n

Even if the new map doesn\u2019t put existing Republican seats at risk, which isn\u2019t a guarantee, it\u2019s possible they can\u2019t win all five of the new targets. This is essentially a shell game where they\u2019re moving voters from one district to another based on how they\u2019ve voted in the past.<\/p>\n

In Texas, the gamble for Republicans is that Latino voters will\u00a0continue to back the GOP at the same level\u00a0as they did in 2024, when there was a dramatic shift despite Trump\u2019s rhetoric about immigration on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n

CNN Senior Data Analyst Harry Enten said on \u201cCNN News Central\u201d that polling suggests Texas Latinos could be having second thoughts about the president\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

Noting that many of the five newly redrawn districts Republicans are counting on in Texas are majority-Latino, Enten looked at Trump\u2019s favorability among Latino voters there and found that since just before the election, it\u2019s gone from being about an even split to net negative by 32 percentage points.<\/p>\n

That trend is playing out across the country, Enten said. The drop is even worse on the economy, which can be a motivating issue for many voters. Texas Latinos preferred Trump to Harris on the economy by 9 percentage points before the election. Now, he is decidedly underwater on the issue among Latino voters, according to a recent\u00a0University of Texas\/Texas Politics Project poll.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the bet is on Texas Latinos to stay in the Republican camp like they did in 2024, that is a bet that Republicans may not, in fact, be able to cash in at this point, based upon the polling,\u201d Enten said.<\/p>\n

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\"President<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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President Donald Trump departs the White House on September 7. – Andrew Thomas\/NurPhoto\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Democrats have history in their favor<\/h3>\n

Trump and Republicans are fighting the tide of history with their redistricting efforts. Only twice since the Great Depression has the president\u2019s party not lost seats in a midterm election. In both of those exceptions \u2014 1998 and 2002 \u2014 the president in question had strong job approval ratings. Trump does not.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also true that with fewer and fewer competitive seats, the pendulum does not swing as far. Democrats need to pick up a net of three seats to gain control of the House and gain a foothold of power in Washington, DC, to stand up to Trump.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden\u2019s Democrats only lost nine seats in 2022, compared with the 40 Republican seats Trump lost in 2018.<\/p>\n

No amount of redistricting is likely to save the House for Republicans if a true wave against Trump should materialize, but in this world of historically narrow House majorities, five to 10 more friendly seats could certainly change the equation.<\/p>\n

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at\u00a0CNN.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A version of this story appeared in CNN\u2019s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1829,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions\/1829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}