#gerrymandering

In 2024, the Republicans narrowly retained control of the House with 220 seats to the Democrats' 215, the slimmest majority since 1930. That razor-thin margin is why the redistricting battle matters so much.

Every 10 years after the US census, the country’s 435 House seats are reapportioned based on population shifts, triggering a nationwide redrawing of congressional districts. The number of seats in the House has been 435 since 1912, and the only exception was made in 1929 to allow the admission of Alaska and Hawaii into the US.

The most recent census was in 2020, and states completed their redistricting by 2022. Since 2024, however, several states have redrawn their congressional maps again - some successfully, some blocked by the courts - with accusations of gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to favour one political party over another. The tactic exists in many countries with district-based voting systems but is most closely associated with the US.

Florida’s new congressional map is expected to strengthen Republican control of the state’s 28 House seats and could help the party gain up to four additional Republican-leaning districts before the midterms.

Texas Republicans redrew congressional districts before the midterms as Democrats fled the state, leaving lawmakers missing during key votes. The new map added five more seats for the Texas Republicans.

Missouri Republicans redrew congressional maps before 2026, aiming to gain one extra House seat for their party.

In October, the North Carolina Senate approved a new congressional map that is expected to make one more US House seat Republican-leaning by reshaping several previously competitive or Democratic-leaning districts.

California voters approved a new Democratic-backed map under Proposition 50, known as the Election Rigging Response Act, in a 2025 special election.

The new boundaries are designed to help Democrats protect and potentially expand their existing 43-seat majority in the state.

Ohio was once considered a major presidential swing state, but Republicans now hold 10 of its 15 House seats, and the redraw is expected to further strengthen the party’s advantage.

A panel of federal judges blocked Alabama from using Republican-supported congressional district maps that would dilute the votes of Black people in November’s midterm elections.

The ruling in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, which found that the maps “intentionally discriminated based on race,” sets the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether the maps, which were first proposed in 2023, can be used by Alabama this year.

Earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court blocked maps for Democratic-leaning congressional districts in that state, which had been approved in a statewide referendum in April.

Republicans last year began a series of congressional redistrictings in an effort to retain their ultra-thin majority in the House. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 4 signed a law creating a new congressional map that is projected to help Republicans add control of four House districts from the state.

Two judges on the panel were appointed by President Donald Trump: Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer. The third judge, Stanley Marcus, was first nominated to a federal district court by President Ronald Reagan and then was nominated to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where he currently sits, by President Bill Clinton.

“We do not lightly intrude in state affairs, but our previous review of the undisputed evidence left us in no doubt that Alabama’s legislatively enacted plan (the ’2023 Plan’) intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution,” the panel said. “Our re-examination in light of Callais yields the same conclusion. We again cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than intentionally discriminatory.”

"The public perception of this case is that it's about politics," US Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote in the decision. "To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map."

Has anyone considered that they are lawmakers and could consider reforming the law to prevent the gerrymandering rather than accentuate it?

We bridge the gap between mathematics and the law to achieve fair representation through redistricting reform