Things ain’t going too good for Republican’s in redistricting….
The US House majority looking more asnd MORE like it’s gonna slip from the Republican’s to Democarts come Jan. 1, 2027…..
A panel of federal judges in Texas on Tuesday blocked the state’s new GOP-favored House map from being used ahead of the 2026 midterms, dealing a blow to Republicans who have looked to pick up seats in the House next year.
In a 2-1 vote, the panel ordered Texas Republicans on Tuesday to use the congressional lines they had in place before they redistricted earlier this year. The new map would have offered Republicans up to five pickup opportunities in the House in 2026.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote for the majority.
“To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map,” he continued. “But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
The ruling leaves Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and state Republicans free to appeal to the Supreme Court….
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The ruling is a significant defeat for Republicans, who moved to redraw the Texas map earlier this year. That move kicked off a national redistricting arms race, with California Democrats quickly moving to counter the Texas GOP with their own redrawn maps….
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Gerrymandering looks like a worse and worse bet for GOP…
It is certainly still too soon to say what the effects of a spasm of mid-decade gerrymandering will be on the results of the 2026 midterms, but one thing we can say for sure already: It won’t have been worth it.
After three furious months that began when Texas’s August gerrymander kicked off a national game of tit for tat, there are only 35 or 40 House seats that we can already expect to be at least somewhat competitive next year. About half of those are guaranteed battlegrounds — the perennial swing districts. But of the larger swing set, it’s Republicans who have slightly more exposure.
A light breeze would probably be enough to deliver the three red-to-blue flips necessary to see a fifth change in partisan control of the House this century. You’d have to go back to the 1870s and 1880s to find another equivalent period of partisan turmoil.
Another change in power would be no surprise for a House in which neither party has been able to find anything like a stable majority. But what we learned from the elections at the start of this month was that there are another 15 or more seats, all currently held by Republicans, that now have to be considered in play next November…
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