Top Democrats are laying out the stakes of a national congressional redistricting fight, after Texas obeyed Donald Trump’s order to adopt a new, wildly gerrymandered congressional map in advance of the 2026 midterm elections. On a conference call organized by party chair Ken Martin, Democratic leaders justified their plan to respond to Texas’ provocation with an equally brazen redistricting effort in California — to “fight fire with fire,” as Governor Gavin Newsom put it.
The fight is over creating partisan advantage in advance of the next year’s midterms, which will likely be a referendum on President Trump’s deeply unpopular policies, ranging from high tariffs to massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Republicans in the Texas legislature voted on Wednesday to redraw the state’s congressional district map to maximize the party’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. The geographic boundaries of such districts are typically re-drawn at the turn of the decade, following the Census. Texas’ sudden move was prompted by Trump, who has said he feels he’s “entitled” to more GOP House seats from the Lone Star State.
California currently uses a non-partisan commission to draw its congressional districts. The model earns praise by advocates of good governance, but reflects a high-minded idealism that is out of place in our era of shattered norms. Newsom is now accelerating a plan that would offer voters a different path forward: Adopt highly partisan maps in explicit response to Texas. If voters agree, the new maps would be in play for the midterm elections, and are projected to help Democrats pick up about five seats, the same number Republicans are projected to gain in Texas.
Texas and California might cancel each other out, but other states — both red and blue — are now weighing sudden, partisan redistricting efforts, and risk sparking a gerrymandering arms race that could dramatically warp America’s representative democracy. “Game on,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote in response to Texas Republicans passing the new map. Trump’s allies are meanwhile pressuring red states like Indiana to redraw their congressional maps in the party’s favor.
The stakes are high. Republicans currently enjoy a razor thin margin in the House. If Democrats can take over the body in 2026, they would be able to not only block GOP legislation, but restore a measure of accountability to Washington by mounting investigations and issuing subpoenas.
The Wednesday conference call featured Newsom, Martin, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker — still riding high after his record-breaking filibuster — and Texas State Rep. Nicole Collier. Collier is one of the state representatives who fled Texas in an attempt to deny the legislature a quorum to pass the new Texas maps. Texas Democrats skirted arrest warrants by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and succeeded in foiling one special session, but they were unable to sustain their protest to counter a second. Since returning to the state, Collier has been under de facto house arrest inside the state Capitol for refusing to consent to a police escort. She spoke on the call from inside a noisy bathroom at the statehouse.
The Democratic Party organized the call for reporters, and Martin set the frame. “There’s been a lot of talk out there about wanting Democrats to fight harder,” he said. Martin pointed to the redistricting battle as proof of the party’s spine: “Republicans wanted a showdown. We’re going to give them a showdown.”
The party chair argued that redistricting was an act of desperation. “The Republicans know they can’t win on their merits,” Martin said. “They have a historically unpopular president. They voted to kick more than 17 million Americans off their health insurance. They gave the biggest tax handout to the ultra rich in history.” Martin said the GOP was “trying to cheat” and “ready to steal,” but insisted that Democrats would not “roll over” while Republicans “try to rig the game.”
Collier used her time to explain what’s been happening in Texas, painting the Republican power grab as not just wrong but racist — designed to dilute the voting power of minority districts in ways she believes are unconstitutional: “These are the most segregated maps that have been presented in Texas since the 1960s.”
Collier praised Newsom as well as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for their willingness to take the fight to the national level. “We’re ready to meet Trump where he is — which is on a dirt road,” she said. “And we’re ready to get down and dirty.” At one disturbing point in the call, unseen state authorities forced Collier to cut her appearance short, “I have to leave,” she said. “They told me it’s a felony to do this.”
Watching this unfold, Booker denounced the infringement on Collier’s speech as “freaking outrageous,” adding: “Representative Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office.”
The New Jersey senator emphasized that in an ideal world, Democrats would champion non-partisan districts for all voters. But he insisted the current stakes require throwing elbows, like in a basketball game where the refs aren’t calling fouls. “We see Donald Trump trying to pervert the rules of the system in order to make sure that he preserves his political power,” Booker said, adding, “If we don’t fight here, we will continue to see their efforts to erode our democracy for their own benefit.”
Newsom has taken center stage as a Democratic counterweight to Trump, including by trolling Trump and his MAGA minions on social media. He first laid out Trump’s many provocations — from deploying the National Guard in American cities; to demanding a cut of corporate deals for the U.S. government; to bullying universities and media companies — as a threat to democracy. “Nothing about this is normal,” he said of Trump’s attempts to “light democracy on fire.”
He insisted California was fighting for the “rule of law, not the rule of Don.” And he accused Republicans of “trying to rig this [2026] election before one vote is even cast.”
Newsom argued that the maps he’s proposed would be “temporary” and talked up the “transparency” of presenting state voters with a choice to approve his strategy, insisting it was the best path to “address the emergency that is this moment in time.” But he insisted: “It’s not about whether we play hardball anymore. It’s about how we play hardball.”
Not long after the conclusion of the call, California’s redistricting proposal received backing from the biggest heavyweight in the Democratic Party: former President Barack Obama.
In a social media post on X, Obama gave a (somewhat professorial) endorsement of Newsom’s plan, which is worth quoting in full, for its nuance:
Over the long term, we shouldn’t have political gerrymandering in America, just a fair fight between Republicans and Democrats based on who’s got better ideas. But since Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House and gerrymandering in the middle of a decade to try and maintain the House despite their unpopular policies, I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this. He’s put forward a smart, measured approach in California, designed to address a very particular problem at a very particular moment in time.
For his part, Trump praised Texas Republicans who passed the newly gerrymandered map in Austin on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that it marks a “Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!!” Trump touted “FIVE more Congressional seats” while pointing to other GOP-led states that may soon redraw their own maps, including “Florida, Indiana, and others.”
