President Donald Trump's drive to redraw congressional maps in the middle of the decade did little to protect House Republicans in this week's midterms, as Democrats captured districts the GOP had reshaped for its own benefit and, in North Carolina, turned the effort into a liability.
By Thursday afternoon, Democrats had secured 247 House seats, comfortably past the 218 needed to control the chamber, compared with 153 for Republicans. Thirty-five contests were still uncalled.
The redistricting fight started in Texas in the summer of 2025 and spread quickly, with Republican- and Democratic-led states racing to lock in favorable lines. Republicans hoped the new districts would soften the losses a president's party usually suffers in a midterm, and perhaps even preserve a slim majority.
By one nonpartisan estimate, the new Republican maps could have yielded as many as 15 additional seats. GOP-controlled legislatures moved them forward in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
A Supreme Court ruling in late April fueled another round of mapmaking. By sharply limiting federal safeguards against racial gerrymandering, the decision let Southern states carve up majority-Black districts, which often send Democrats to Congress.
An analysis released Wednesday by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee found Republicans came away without a single net pickup across the states where they redrew lines to go after Democratic seats. The group's chairman, former Attorney General Eric Holder, cast the outcome as a lesson against yielding to those who misuse power.
Southern maps backfire
North Carolina produced the starkest reversal, with Republicans on pace to lose six seats there. In the 1st Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Don Davis held on with just over 50% of the vote despite a GOP-drawn map, in what became the costliest House race ever.
In Alabama, the legislature had redrawn Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures' district to tilt toward Republicans. Figures won Tuesday with nearly 54%.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a map in May designed to add four Republican seats, yet Democrats appear on track to keep all four. At a news conference Wednesday, the Republican governor offered a grim assessment of his party's losses.
This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country
Ron DeSantis, Florida governor
Texas lawmakers had set out to hand Republicans five more seats. Instead, the party flipped just one of the newly drawn districts and ended up a seat down overall.
Shifts among Latino and Black voters
Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist, said Republicans drew most of the targeted Texas districts on the assumption that Latino voters would stick with the GOP. A significant share voted Democratic instead: 19% of Texas Latinos who backed Trump in 2024 supported Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa this year, voter polls found.
Black voters moved decisively as well. Exit poll data showed 81% backed Democrats, compared with 70% in 2024 and 73% in 2022, and the NAACP reported strong Black turnout. Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, said turnout was especially high in states that redrew maps after the Supreme Court ruling, including Alabama, Florida and Louisiana.
Democrats' own redistricting gambit paid off in just one state, California, where the party won the five seats it had targeted. Virginia voters approved a Democratic-drawn map, but the state Supreme Court threw it out, while a state court in Utah imposed a Democratic-leaning district.
