{"id":12882,"date":"2025-09-04T03:46:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T03:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-face-an-increasingly-frustrated-base-over-redistricting\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T03:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T03:46:37","slug":"democrats-face-an-increasingly-frustrated-base-over-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-face-an-increasingly-frustrated-base-over-redistricting\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats face an increasingly frustrated base over redistricting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Democrats are scrambling to keep their nascent crusade against President Donald Trump\u2019s national redistricting push from fizzling out.<\/p>\n

House Democrats are considering establishing an organization to raise and spend for their remapping efforts as they look to counter an aggressive Republican move that could determine control of the chamber next year, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has privately discussed redistricting with blue-state governors, according to another person.<\/p>\n

The Center for American Progress is urging blue states to abandon their independent redistricting commissions<\/a>. And, through private strategy sessions and public appeals,<\/a> Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu is asking Democrats across red and blue states to take a no-holds-barred approach to resisting GOP redistricting. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin praised Wu during a meeting in Minneapolis last week for \u201cigniting a national movement within this party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an all-out call to arms,\u201d Wu, who helped lead Texas Democrats\u2019 quorum break<\/a>, said in an interview. \u201cThat chorus of ‘everyone needs to get off their ass and do something’ is growing louder and louder. And more and more elected Democrats who are seen as doing nothing \u2014 their commitment to our country is going to be questioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Democrats face a lopsided fight.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re hamstrung by constitutional restrictions or independent commissions in some states, while Republicans are generally free of those legal barriers and have leadership trifectas in Indiana, Florida, Missouri and Ohio, promising state lawmakers fewer restrictions to draw Democratic rivals out of their seats. Florida’s constitution has language restricting partisan gerrymandering<\/a>, though its conservative-majority state Supreme Court recently upheld a GOP redraw.<\/a><\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, Democrats are grasping for ways to counter Trump\u2019s maximalist campaign to redraw congressional maps to protect Republicans\u2019 three-seat House majority in the midterms. With a counteroffensive already underway in California<\/a>, Democrats are turning to other blue states to take up the charge \u2014 and finding some open-minded participants in governors with 2028 ambitions.<\/p>\n

Democrats see the promise of netting three seats in Maryland and Illinois, whose governors \u2014 Wes Moore and JB Pritzker, respectively \u2014 have spoken with Jeffries about redistricting, according to one person granted anonymity to describe those private conversations. The minority party is also eyeing a pickup opportunity in Utah<\/a>, after a judge ruled the state must redraw its map. Jeffries has also spoken with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a>, though any changes in the Empire State are unlikely before 2028 and thus wouldn\u2019t impact the upcoming midterms.<\/p>\n

The blowback started as a tit-for-tat response to Trump\u2019s efforts to grow the GOP\u2019s majority next year, kicking off with a push for five more red House seats in Texas<\/a>. Now Missouri is moving ahead with a new map<\/a> as the White House bears down on Indiana<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One national Democratic operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the tumultuous situation, described jumping into the redistricting arms race as \u201cthe price for entry to the 2028 presidential primary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose popularity<\/a> is soaring<\/a> as he emerges as Democrats\u2019 remapping champion, has been encouraging his counterparts to follow his lead, saying at POLITICO\u2019s California Summit<\/a> Wednesday, \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to see other governors move in a similar direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

An array of party officials and organizations are lining up. <\/p>\n

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee is fielding calls, providing technical support and legal expertise to state leaders looking at their own congressional maps, according to a person directly familiar with their efforts.<\/p>\n

Wu, the Texas House Democrats leader, discussed messaging and other tactics with legislators from seven states where Republicans are eyeing redistricting during a Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee strategy session last week, per a summary of the call provided to Blue Light News. And former President Barack Obama called Texas state Rep. James Talarico \u2014 a potential U.S. Senate candidate \u2014 to voice support<\/a> for his role in his state’s redistricting battle.<\/p>\n

But in some states, messaging is all Democrats can do. Republicans in Indiana, for example, hold a supermajority and can pass any map without a single Democrat in the chamber.<\/p>\n

It’s not just Democratic officials who are getting involved. Unions that banded together to condemn Republicans\u2019 gerrymandering in Texas are now pledging to put manpower<\/a> behind Newsom\u2019s ballot campaign in California and holding strategy discussions about combating Trump\u2019s next moves in other states. And activists affiliated with the progressive group Indivisible have made roughly 5,000 calls to governors and lawmakers across 15 states with Democratic trifectas urging them to responsively redistrict.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t something we had to go pitch people on the importance of. This is something people were banging down our doors about,\u201d said Andrew O\u2019Neill, Indivisible\u2019s national advocacy director.<\/p>\n

And it \u201cdoes seem that this is something that has broken through with these governors and has the potential to create what I\u2019ve been calling a productive ambition,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. \u201cThese people might be thinking about future job prospects for themselves and they view being a leader in this fight as a route to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats\u2019 pressure campaign is struggling in Colorado, Washington and Oregon, whose governors have all but closed the door to redistricting, and the party lacks the legislative means or the interest to change their maps.<\/p>\n

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib sent a recent memo to county officers outlining the near-insurmountable challenges in mimicking California\u2019s ballot campaign, according to a copy obtained by Blue Light News. Petitions attempting to circumvent the state\u2019s independent redistricting commission are being filed without the state party\u2019s backing.<\/p>\n

Washington Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen shut down the possibility in a letter to a concerned constituent shared with Blue Light News, noting Washington\u2019s Democratic-heavy congressional delegation already does not reflect the political makeup of the state. And state Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad acknowledged \u201clots of pressure and desire\u201d to take up redistricting, but pointed to a broad recognition that it\u2019s \u201cpracticably impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the East Coast, New Jersey Democrats are similarly hamstrung<\/a> by state constitutional issues and though Moore told Blue Light News “everything’s on the table” when it comes to redistricting, a state court tossed<\/a> Maryland Democrats’ previous attempt to gerrymander.<\/p>\n

But Democratic activists are increasingly discontent to let anyone in their party sit on the sidelines as they fight what they view as Trump\u2019s latest power grab.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are serious times, and I\u2019m not sure how much more serious things have to be for [Democratic governors] to get off their ass and get in the batters box and swing for the fences,\u201d said California-based Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo. \u201cThis is infuriating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natalie Fertig and Brakkton Booker contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats are scrambling to keep their nascent crusade against President Donald Trump\u2019s national redistricting push from fizzling out. House Democrats are considering establishing an organization to raise and spend for their remapping efforts as they look to counter an aggressive Republican move that could determine control of the chamber next year, according to three people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}