Midterm redistricting fails to save GOP seats in four states

Trump would have won North Carolina's redrawn 1st District by nearly 12 percentage points, yet Democratic Rep. Don Davis held onto the seat on Tuesday night. That gap illustrates the scale of the Republican effort to reshape maps and the degree to which that strategy collapsed.

President Trump urged his party to engage in mid-decade redistricting last year. He expected the coalition that voted for him in 2024 to deliver GOP wins in 2026. Instead, Democrats captured several of the specific districts Republicans had redrawn to boost their party.

In Florida, Associated Press race calls confirmed Democratic victories in multiple redrawn districts. Kathy Castor, Pia Dandiya, and Jared Moskowitz all won their seats. In Alabama, Shomari Figures held the 2nd Congressional District, a map change enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.

Texas served as the early test for the new strategy, being the first state to redistrict at Trump's urging. Republicans designed new maps with a focus on gains among Latino voters. The party expected those voters to support GOP candidates this cycle, but many shifted their support to Democrats instead.

The failures spanned multiple states. Republicans had braced for losses and acted preemptively to change the rules. The results on Tuesday show that the new lines did not produce the expected outcome for the party.