Trump's GOP on verge of big Texas win, but battle for power is only starting: 5 takeaways

A partisan battle in Texas over who holds power in Washington during the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term has unfurled into a nationwide debate drawing in top political figures as voters brace for another divisive election in 2026.

The Lone Star State's Republican lawmakers are poised to send new congressional maps to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Aug. 21 that Trump and his allies hope will give them a strategic advantage in holding on to their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But the fight in Austin has spread beyond the state's borders and created significant uncertainty about who will be in position to govern during the second half of the Trump administration and after the next race for the White House.

“Game on,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote Aug. 20 in a social media post. She is one of several Democratic leaders considering their own steps like the Texas Republicans to redraw congressional district borders inside their state.

Here are five takeaways on the fast-spreading redistricting wars:

Republicans have the upper hand if the redistricting war expands.

States typically redo their congressional boundaries for voters every decade, specifically in the two years that follow a new census. But Trump has encouraged redistricting to happen ahead of the 2026 U.S. House elections.

His motivation? The tendency of the party in the White House to lose seats in the U.S. House during the congressional elections between presidential elections. Recent examples include the 1994, 2010, 2018 and 2022 political cycles. Trump and the GOP are hoping to break that trend or increase their 219-212 U.S. House majority through states with Republican legislatures that can draw congressional maps.

By contrast, many Democratic states have passed laws and constitutional amendments creating independent commissions to draw their congressional district maps instead of politicians. That’s part of why states such as Missouri and Indiana have discussed redistricting for Republican advantage, but the Democratic stronghold of Washington has ruled it out.

Additionally, Ohio needs to redraw its own congressional maps under a constitutionally required process regardless of today’s political climate, and Florida has created a special committee to redraw congressional maps.

Taken together, that means that there are three high-population states actively pursuing Republican seats, and so far California is the only major state likely to redistrict for Democrats ahead of 2026.

A legal fight over the new Texas maps is brewing

What's happening this week in Texas won't be the final say on whether the maps are permanent. That's for the courts to decide, though fights like this can take years to work their way through the system.

Democrats and Republicans previewed their legal arguments during the Texas Legislature's floor debate Aug. 20 that ended in the House's approval of the Republican-favored new maps.

Democratic lawmakers accused their GOP colleagues of “packing” Hispanic voters into some districts and “cracking” or “diluting” their representation. Those are all key terms referring to practices that opponents have used when challenging maps. They also asked Republicans whether they drew maps based on voters’ Hispanic ethnicity, because race-based gerrymandering is illegal.

Texas state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Republican author of the bill that changes the maps, explained that an outside law firm drew the maps, not members of the Legislature or their in-house staff. He said he asked the firm to redraw the maps to improve his party’s “political performance” in the state, using a term he said was backed up by a recently decided federal court case.

Hunter used the term repeatedly during hours of questioning by Democrats.  

Americans still don’t like gerrymandering

Americans haven't historically liked it when politicians draw maps in their favor, but they may support the practice when it benefits the party they agree with.

A nationwide Reuters/Ipsos poll Aug. 13-18 found that a small majority of respondents thought the redistricting plans were “bad for democracy,” and Democrats were more likely to think this than Republicans. A poll by the market research firm YouGov Aug. 1-4 found that three-quarters of adults saw it as a “major problem” when states draw maps to intentionally favor one party, and another one-fifth saw it as a “minor problem.” These proportions, too, are higher among Democrats and lower among Republicans.

But in California, where Democratic lawmakers wants voters to decide in a Nov. 4 special election whether to redraw their own maps in favor of Democrats, a majority of voters support the initiative. The proposal has support from 57% of California voters, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom's own polling, as reported by Axios, including overwhelming support from Democrats and overwhelming opposition from Republicans.

A Politico-UC Berkeley Citrin Center poll of nationwide voters that ran through Aug. 20 found about one-third of respondents said Democrats in California should “fight back” with their own maps. That broke down to almost two-thirds of Democrats, one-third of independents and about one-tenth of Republicans.

New Democrats are getting their time in the spotlight

Americans are seeing new faces emerge from the Democratic Party as they make national headlines fighting back against often better-known Texas Republicans.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely seen as a front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028, is one of them. His decision to go toe-to-toe with Texas and leverage his position in the only state with more congressional seats than the Lone Star State has meant an introduction to Americans all over the country and a national spotlight on his ideas.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, one of the names floated for vice president in 2024, got his name out there when he hosted Texas Democrats who fled their state for nearly two weeks. But the fight has also highlighted what anti-gerrymandering advocates have called an unfair map tilted toward Democrats in Illinois. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who says she wants to retaliate against Texas, is also gaining some attention.

Another new face is Texas Rep. Nicole Collier of Fort Worth, who slept on the floor of the Legislature. Texas Republican leaders have been requiring the Democratic lawmakers who broke quorum in August to sign permission slips to leave the chamber and have a state police escort follow them around 24 hours a day to make sure they don’t try to leave the state again.

“Today is not the end,” Collier said after the House passed the bill Aug. 20. “It is the beginning, the start of a new Democratic party where we won’t back down. … And we will push and push and push until we take over this country.”

Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are all involved

Trump kicked off the firestorm when he called on Texas lawmakers to redraw the maps and provide five more Republican-leaning congressional districts. Now he's facing off with Democratic Party standard-bearers who have come into the fight.

Former President Barack Obama posted on X that the attempt to redraw districts in Texas was an “assault on democracy,” and he praised Texas Democrats. Now he has endorsed Newsom’s plan to redistrict California’s congressional maps in retaliation.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris also called Collier while she stayed in the Legislature: “You really are inspiring so many people, and I just want you to know that you are among those who history will reveal to have been heroes of this moment. So you just stay strong and do what you are doing.”

Harris has ruled out a run for governor of her home state of California in 2026, leaving Americans to wonder whether she'll run for president in 2028.

Contributing: Kathryn Palmer