Redistricting wars: Can our politics get any more polarized? (Yes)

The redistricting wars are raging.

What happens next?

History provides little guidance, because never before has there been a cross-country campaign to redraw congressional districts at mid-decade and on the fly. But the repercussions, both immediate and far-reaching, are likely to bolster Republican prospects in the midterms, weaken the political middle, reduce minority representation in Congress and intensify the nation's polarization.

Texas Republicans, urged on by President Donald Trump, began the redistricting bidding last August. California Democrats responded in kind. And a U.S. Supreme Court ruling April 29 opened the floodgates even as the November elections loom.

"Texas will be the biggest one," Trump had boasted to reporters at the White House in July, a prediction that turned out to be accurate. "And that'll be five [seats]."

In all, eight states have redrawn their congressional districts over the past year in search of a political edge, though some of new maps still face court challenges.

The new lines in six states are designed to imperil incumbent House Democrats in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee as well as Texas.

The new map in California is intended to help defeat up to five Republican members. But an effort to redraw the congressional map in Virginia to flip up to four GOP-held seats was rejected May 8 on procedural grounds by the state Supreme Court, a seismic setback for Democrats.

In Utah, a judge ordered the Republican-controlled state legislature to abide by an anti-gerrymandering proposition passed by voters in 2018. That created a House district centered in Salt Lake County that Democrats are favored to carry.

Bottom line: Republican candidates now face friendlier terrain in 14 House districts, Democrats in six.

In a political world where the GOP's House majority is just five seats, those inch-by-inch advantages could temper Republican losses in the midterms despite the headwinds of an unpopular war and high gas prices.

And there's no ceasefire yet.

Redistricting isn't over this year

Tennessee didn't tarry.

A week after the Supreme Court ruling weakening the Voting Rights Act was handed down, the Volunteer State legislature approved and Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a redistricting plan designed to vanquish Tennessee's only Democratic-leaning House district.

The district, which had been centered on Memphis, was split among three predominantly Republican districts. The new lines run down the middle of part of Beale Street and stretch hundreds of miles to the suburbs of Nashville.

Three other Southern states are scrambling to try to redraw their congressional lines, too.

In Alabama and South Carolina, Republicans hope to make one Democratic-held House district in each state lean more to the GOP. In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry delayed the primaries to give time to redraw districts with the goal of flipping one or two Democratic seats.

The political middle shrinks

The number of competitive congressional seats had already been shrinking, both a consequence of and a contributor to the nation's sharp political divide.

Of the 435 House districts, no more than 18 remain toss-ups, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter now estimates. That's the smallest number since independent analyst Charlie Cook began publishing his ratings more than four decades ago.

"The leaders of both parties may think it is good for their political fortunes," said Dan Webb, a former U.S. attorney and board member of the bipartisan group No Labels. "But it is terrible for America and the vast political center."

Politicians from districts that are safely Republican or safely Democratic have little electoral incentive to reach across party lines during campaigns or in office. Winning their party's nomination all but guarantees a victory in the general election, and the prime risk to another term is failing to satisfy the most partisan voices.

Minority representation is likely to drop

The Louisiana v. Callais decision on the Voting Rights Act is all but certain to reduce the number of districts with a majority of minority voters − and that is likely to reduce the number of racially diverse members of Congress.

By November, majority-minority districts are likely to have been redrawn in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas. In South Carolina, Republicans hope to target the district of Rep. Jim Clyburn, the only African American in the state's congressional delegation and former House majority whip.

The impact is expected to accelerate after the 2030 Census prompts redistricting in almost every state. Nearly 70 House districts that had been covered by Voting Rights Act protections would be open to change.

That is likely to lead to the sharpest decline in the number of Black members of Congress since 1877, during Reconstruction in the years after the Civil War. Then, the new Congress had four fewer Black representatives than the previous one.

Of the current 119th Congress, 133 House members are Black, Hispanic, Asian American or multiracial, according to the Pew Research Center. That is a record, though Congress remains less racially and ethnically diverse than the United States as a whole.

The geographic base for nearly three-fourths of those members are majority-minority districts, which no longer can count on being protected.

There's more: The modern art of drawing districts

Most of the new maps look less like a sensible grid and more like abstract art with tendrils in red and blue, though that was also true of some of the majority-minority districts that are being erased.

In Texas, for instance, the new congressional lines zigzag through the big cities − Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio − in an effort to divide their Democratic-heavy precincts into sprawling Republican-dominated territory.

(That's not new, of course. The word "gerrymander" was dubbed in 1812 to describe a district redrawn by then-Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry that looked, with a little imagination, like a salamander.)

Today, a clutch of states that didn't have the time or the political momentum to redistrict in 2026 are looking at the possibility of redrawing lines next year. Those efforts may well be spurred if this year's redistricting helps Republicans blunt their expected losses.

In Mississippi, the state legislature already has scheduled a special session in late May to review state Supreme Court districts. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp says the state is likely to draw new congressional maps before the 2028 elections.

Some Republican officials are discussing redistricting in other red-leaning states, among them Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire.

So are some Democratic leaders in such blue-leaning states as Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Washington State.

"It's time to fight fire with fire," Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vows. "All is fair in love and war."

And this is a war.