In 2025, with the Republican House majority shrinking, Donald Trump had an idea. What if Republicans in red states created more House seats for themselves by gerrymandering Democrats out of their districts in red states?
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Because Trump knows nothing about history, he gave himself credit for coming up with an election hack to save the Republican House majority. After all, it worked in 2022, when Gov. Ron DeSantis further gerrymandered the map in Florida and created four new Republican seats, which, not coincidentally, match the Republican margin in the current Congress.
It didn’t matter to Trump that redistricting experts warned that mid-decade gerrymanders might not deliver the dozens of seats he hoped for, or, at worst, could backfire and cost Republicans seats by weakening the party’s advantage in other districts.
The Democratic voters who get moved out of their districts don’t disappear. They vote in new districts, weakening the Republican advantage elsewhere.
There were signs almost immediately that the Texas gerrymander would backfire and, unlike California’s response, would not net Republicans the five seats that Trump promised.
Florida was already over-gerrymandered and risking a dummymander that could actually cost Republicans House seats in the state.
With a week and a half before the midterm election, there are signs that the Texas and Florida gerrymanders have badly backfired.