Trump's Push to Redraw Districts Could Cement Republican Rule in US House

Party Controls 23 State Legislatures and Governorships, Against 15 for the Democrats

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WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump's push for Republican-led states to redraw their House of Representatives districts to protect their majority in next year's mid-term elections could set the stage for Republicans to dominate the chamber in decades to come, political analysts and experts said.

Republicans hold a 219-212 House majority, and Mr. Trump is looking to break the streak of mid-term House losses for the sitting president's party — as happened to him in 2018 and to then Democratic president Joe Biden in 2022 — by pushing states starting with Texas to aggressively redistrict.

Democratic states, led by California, have threatened to retaliate by redrawing their own districts for partisan gain, a longstanding feature of US politics known as gerrymandering that has grown far more potent thanks to modern data analysis tools.

But Republicans hold the advantage, with control of the state legislatures and governorships of 23 states, compared with 15 for Democrats. Further, independent analysts say, population shifts could create as many as 11 new congressional seats in Republican Southern and Western states after the 2030 US Census.

Democrats enjoyed 40 years of unbroken House control beginning in 1955 and ending in 1995 as conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party in earnest.

The current redistricting battle has raised concerns about a new era of gerrymandering, with Republicans and Democrats jockeying for advantage and further dividing an already polarized nation.

"I feel like it's cheating," said Mr. Adam Kinzinger, a Trump critic and former Republican congressman who lost his Illinois seat to redistricting after the 2020 census. "Every time we break a norm in politics now, that norm never comes back. It'll be an avalanche of constant redistricting. I worry about that."