The Dictatorship
Republicans are suddenly having some regrets over the redistricting war
Ten months after President Donald Trump pressed Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to help secure more GOP seats in the midterm elections, the nationwide redistricting war could end up yielding either a small GOP advantage or, as it stands now, a small Democratic gain.
With Virginia voters opting to redraw their map Tuesday, Democrats are on course to pick up four seats in the commonwealth, as long as the map survives legal challenges. A circuit judge on Wednesday blocked the state from certifying the congressional map, ruling that the voter referendum was unconstitutional.
Virginia’s Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones has already vowed to file an appeal.
While the new map will have to survive legal challenges, Democrats may have mitigated the impact of GOP gains in other states that redrew their maps, such as Texas, North Carolina and Ohio, when you add in Democratic pickups in California from its new map.
The whole exercise raises an important question: Was this push to redraw maps in the middle of the decennial process really worth it?
When MS NOW asked Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chair of the House GOP’s campaign arm, that question, he did not exactly offer a ringing endorsement of the redistricting war.
“Not for me to decide that,” Hudson said. “Wasn’t my decision.”
Other Republicans were decidedly more blunt, with some suggesting they wished Republicans had not started this fight.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, the former head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, made it clear he was not thrilled to see his state shake up its map, telling MS NOW, “No one cared to listen to the delegation.”
Asked if he wished the president had not requested that Texas redraw its map given what followed, Sessions left it at, “The president will live with the results.”
And Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., told Politico on Wednesday, “It was a mistake to go down this road.”
“The problem is, at the end of the day, whatever party wins, we all have to govern,” he said. “It’s harder to do when we’ve eroded our constituents’ trust in our democracy and the fairness of our elections — which is what mid-cycle redistricting does.”
The national redistricting fight began last summer, when Trump demanded Republicans in the Texas Statehouse redraw their congressional lines to help pick up an additional five seats in the House — in a pinkish state where the map was already gerrymandered in the GOP’s favor, 25-13. Republicans in Texas eventually complied with the president’s demands, drawing a map where the intended breakdown is 30-8, in a state where former Vice President Kamala Harris won 42% of the vote in 2024.
California, where the map was already gerrymandered in Democrats’ favor, 43-9, decided to retaliate. After putting the question to voters, the state voted to redraw the map further in Democrats’ favor, with the intention of picking up another five seats. Soon after, other states got into the game, looking to undo the effect of California’s redistricting effort. But on Tuesday, Virginia Democrats succeeded in passing a voter referendum to redraw its lines, with the intended breakdown being 10 Democratic House seats and one Republican.
While Florida may still get in on the battle and functionally give Republicans a slight advantage on the mid-decade redistricting battle, Democrats appear to be winning the gerrymandering game — at least for the moment. And that fact has vulnerable Republicans wondering whether either party should have gone down this road.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told MS NOW he does not believe “this tit-for-tat is especially beneficial to anybody in the end.”
“When everything is said and done, it’ll probably be a net wash,” he said.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., argued the math of which party comes out ahead is “irrelevant,” because mid-decade redistricting like this is “terrible policy.”
“We should be un-gerrymandering every district, not gerrymandering every district in America,” he said. “It’s crazy.”
And Senate Minority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said these are the “kinds of outcomes you’re going to run into” when “you go down the path of starting to do these things mid-decade.”
“States are, depending on who’s in power, going to try and work the maps to their advantage,” he said.
Some Republicans shied away from casting any blame on the president for setting this gerrymandering battle in motion.
Instead, many accused Democrats of starting this fight — specifically pointing to a previous redistricting feud in New York during the 2022 and 2024 elections cycles.
Rep. John McGuire, R-Va., who called the results of Tuesday’s election in Virginia “illegal and unconstitutional,” told MS NOW, “It did not start in Texas. It started in New York, by Democrats.”
Lawler echoed that sentiment, arguing that because the 2022 congressional map in New York “wasn’t good enough” for Democratic leaders, “they filed a lawsuit, came back, and won four seats as a result” in 2024.
Many of the lessons either party will learn from this exercise will depend on Florida, where state lawmakers are set to meet next week to consider their potential new map. But illustrating the unease among Republicans about redistricting, not all GOP lawmakers in the Florida delegation are cheering on an effort to squeeze out more Republican seats, which could weaken a number of their districts and leave many susceptible to a Democratic challenger — particularly in a wave election.
Rep. Maria Salazar, R-Fla., who represents parts of Miami, said she likes her current district as it is.
“I think I’m doing well,” she said. “I’m representing them well, I think.”
But she remained deferential to Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla.
“If the governor of the state of Florida and the legislature believes differently, who am I to say?” she said.
Still, in an interview with Politico last month, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., urged caution.
“I think the legislature needs to be very cognizant of the fact that if they get too aggressive,” he said, “you could put incumbent members at risk.”
Earlier this week, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was asked by known what he thought of the redistricting war. Issa, a longtime Republican who decided not to run in 2018 as a blue wave gathered over the midterms during Trump’s first term, came back to Congress in 2021.
With his purple-ish district turned blue during this latest redistricting, Issa is one of the GOP casualties of the gerrymandering war. He looked at running in Texas, in one of the new districts Republicans had drawn, but ultimately decided he would not seek another term in Congress.
“There’s the obvious question of, is it ever a mistake to start a war?” Issa said Tuesday before the Virginia vote. “I don’t know.”
For their part, Congressional Democrats have dismissed Republican complaints that the 10 to 1 map in Virginia is unfair — even as some grapple with their own disdain for gerrymandering.
Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., who backed the creation of a bipartisan redistricting commission in Virginia in 2020told MS NOW he has reached the conclusion that the GOP is “only going to join us in supporting non-partisan redistricting when they learn that — best case — they’re going to fight to a draw.”
So far, Walkinshaw said, Republicans have concluded that “gerrymandering is in their interest politically, that’s why they oppose our national ban on partisan gerrymandering. We’ve got to show them that it’s no longer in their interest.”
And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., reaction to the GOP complaints was to mimic a baby.
“Wah wah wah,” she said.
“Democrats have attempted and asked Republicans for 10 years to ban partisan gerrymandering, and for 10 years, Republicans have said no,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Republicans have fought for partisan gerrymanders across the United States of America, and these are the rules that they have set.”
Jack Fitzpatrick and Nora McKee contributed to this report.
Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.10.26: Democrats pour into Maine race to replace Platner
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In Maine’s closely watched Senate raceGraham Platner has until Monday to officially withdraw his Democratic candidacy. And according to multiple reportshe intends to wait until Monday to file the paperwork. It’s not at all clear why he’s dragging out the process.
In the meantime, the field of contenders hoping to replace him on the general election ballot is growing quickly. Former state Senate President Troy Jackson, for example, announced his candidacy less than an hour after Platner left the race. Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company, is also in, along with former gubernatorial hopeful Nirav Shah, who led the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic.
As Thursday progressed, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows joined the party’s field, as did Jordan Wood, who recently lost a competitive House primary race in the northern part of Maine.
Over the past 30 years, there have been only nine instances in which a major party replaced its Senate nominee. Two of those nine won.
* Despite credible concerns about Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s eligibility to run for governor in Alabama, a state judge this week dismissed a lawsuit that argued he does not meet the residency requirement to run.
* In Texas’ closely watched Senate raceRepublican Attorney General Ken Paxton raised over $9 million in the second quarter (spanning April through June), while Democratic state Rep. James Talarico raised a staggering $30 million over the same three months. According to The Texas TribuneTalarico’s haul “is a record total for a U.S. Senate candidate in the second quarter of an election year.”
* As Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Republican gubernatorial campaign prepares for an Aug. 6 primary, the senator launched a new television ad this week that has been widely panned as racist.
* Rep. Mike Collins’ Republican Senate campaign in Georgia was already facing long oddsand it probably won’t help that the far-right congressman is now struggling with staffing issuesincluding the departure of two chiefs of staff.
* And while it’s undeniable that Republicans enjoy a financial advantage headed into the midterm electionsSenate Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with the Senate Democratic leadership, and its affiliated nonprofit raised $147 million in the second quarter. That’s the best quarter it’s ever had.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not the target of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that resulted in his fatal shooting, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, told MS NOW.
Salgado, a Mexican immigrant who moved to the United States 35 years ago, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday. According to Garcia, acting ICE Director David Venturella told her that neither Salgado nor his brother, who was in the vehicle with him, were the individuals that ICE officers were looking for. But Venturella “refused” to provide further information, Garcia said.
In a statement to MS NOW, a DHS spokesperson said that “officers conducted surveillance on a target’s address” where “they noted two white vans at the property. On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop.”
The New York Timesciting a DHS spokeswoman, also reported on Thursday that ICE officers had been looking for a different person.
The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has ruled Salgado’s death a homicide.
How the incident escalated to result in Salgado’s killing is unclear. Three other men arrested in the operation have disputed in handwritten statements to The Washington Post the claim by DHS that Salgado “weaponized his vehicle” against an officer.
“That is a lie,” Jose Trinidad Rojas said. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over … there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.”
The officers engaging in the operation were also not wearing body cameras, nor were there cameras on the car dashboard. A DHS spokesperson told MS NOW in a statement that officers had not been issued body cameras because of the government shutdowns over funding for the department, saying the process of acquiring the equipment for ICE field offices “was interrupted by the Democrats multiple government shutdowns.”
Salgado’s death has sparked a firestorm across the country. His family said he was in the process of obtaining his work permit and was en route to a construction site when he was killed.
They have also called for an independent investigation into his killing, pointing to the similarities in DHS’ claim about the circumstances of Salgado’s death to that of Renee Good’s in Minneapolis.
DHS has said its Office of Inspector General is probing the incident. A spokesperson for the FBI in Houston previously told MS NOW that it is “leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Laura Barrón-López covers the White House for MS NOW.
Rosa Flores is a national correspondent for MS NOW.
Sara Weisfeldt is a field producer for MS NOW.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Voters in Colorado haven’t elected a Republican governor in more than two decades, and now that this year’s GOP gubernatorial primary has been called, it seems the streak will continue for four more years. The Associated Press reported:
Marine Corps veteran Victor Marx won the Republican primary for Colorado governor on Thursday, inching past a state senator who had the establishment’s backing.
Marx, described as a “high risk humanitarian” and the fastest gun disarmer in the world, defeated Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, his stiffest competition, in the June 30 election.
The results were incredibly close, and as of the latest tallies, Marx’s lead over Kirkmeyer was only about half a percentage point. That said, the advantage was good enough for news organizations to call the contest.
For her party, Kirkmeyer thanked her supporters and volunteers in a statement Thursday evening, signing off by saying, “I’m still proud of the campaign we ran … and, for the record, I still haven’t killed anyone.”
That might sound like a strange thing to say, but in this case, it was highly relevant: According to Marx, who founded a group called All Things Possible Ministries, he had an abusive stepfather who effectively forced him, at just 7 years old, to kill a man.
Asked in May how many people he has killed since then, the GOP candidate paused before telling Kyle Clark, an anchor at the NBC affiliate in Denver, “Does it matter?” He went on to call it an “odd question.”
(For the record, there are lingering questions about whether Marx actually killed a man as a child, and according to local law enforcementthere are unsolved murders from that time period.)
In case that weren’t quite enough, in the same interview, Marx explained that he also performs exorcisms, which he added can be completed over the phone.
He did not appear to be kidding.
A recent Slate report noted that party insiders not only expect him to lose badly, they’re also concerned that having Marx at the top of the GOP ballot “could imperil other Republican seats in the statehouse and Congress, plunging the fractured, marginalized party into chaos.”
Marx will face Phil Weiser, the Democratic state attorney general, in November. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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