Chapter 1
A congressional map is normally drawn once a decade
A congressional map is normally drawn once a decade, after the census. In July 2025 President Trump urged Republican legislatures to redraw in the middle of the decade, and Texas adopted new districts in a special session, a map Politico reported was drawn to add five Republican seats. California answered with a map approved by its voters in November 2025. North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee passed maps of their own. Ohio redrew because its state law required it.
Chapter 2
Two states redrew under the courts rather than against them
Two states redrew under the courts rather than against them. Louisiana adopted a new map after the US Supreme Court struck down its previous one in Louisiana v. Callais, and Alabama returned to a 2023 map the Court allowed. Utah’s lines follow a state court decision. The Associated Press counts all nine new maps as favouring Republicans except California’s and Utah’s, and estimates that about one in ten potential voters is in a different district than in 2024.
Chapter 3
Several attempts failed
Several attempts failed. Virginia’s voters approved an amendment allowing a new map in April 2026, and the state’s supreme court struck the amendment down in May; the US Supreme Court declined to intervene. Missouri drew a map in 2025 and used it in its August primary, but its supreme court held it could not take effect without a referendum, and the US Supreme Court refused three times in September to let it be used in November. Indiana’s Senate voted down a map in December 2025, South Carolina’s Senate shelved one in May 2026, Georgia’s leaders declined to take one up, and Maryland and Kansas legislators did not bring theirs to a final vote. With Missouri settled, the districts for November are fixed in every state.
Chapter 4
What the maps are worth is a claim
What the maps are worth is a claim, not a fact, until the votes are counted. The Associated Press puts the Republican gain at up to nine seats if every map performs as designed. Elaine Kamarck of Brookings counted as many as nine from Cook’s ratings; Politico judged at least six; the data journalist G. Elliott Morris put it at two; The New Yorker reports analysts now say anywhere from six seats to none, and that Texas’s map could yield two or three of the five it was drawn for. Each estimate is recorded here with its author, to be compared with the certified results district by district.
And now
Every state’s lines for 3 November are settled, and the remaining fights are about 2028. On 27 October the three-judge federal court in Shreveport heard Louisiana and civil-rights groups argue that the Callais case is over, and the challengers’ lawyer argue for keeping it open to examine the 2nd District, the state’s last majority-Black seat. The court did not rule; its next date is 15 December, and no decision can change this year’s map.
In Missouri, Proposition A asks whether the 2025 map, which would make Kansas City’s 5th District one Trump carried in 2024, replaces the 2022 lines from 2028. The opposing committee reports more than $5 million in large contributions; the map’s backers say no campaign is organised for it.
On this year’s maps, the Cook Political Report’s 17 House toss-ups as of 23 October included five Democratic seats Republican legislators redrew, the Times reported. An Associated Press analysis on 20 October found the new maps moved the House’s deciding seat 1.4 points toward Republicans, and Republican leaders concede they will not win every seat drawn for them.
Where it stands today →