A new report finds that roughly one-tenth of Americans, or about 34.8 million people, have been moved into new House districts through mid-decade redistricting. That works out to around 35 million people affected by the changes, which means they now live in a different district than they did during the 2024 election cycle.
President Donald Trump’s call for the Republican-controlled Texas legislature to redraw its congressional map in favor of his party kicked off the rough partisan fight over House district lines. That move came from the second most populous state. In response, California, the most populous state, passed a referendum to shift its map toward Democrats.
The Numbers Behind the Shift
More than a fifth of all Americans call districts home where over a quarter of voters are new since the last election cycle. The research shows that nine states rely on nonpartisan commissions for drawing congressional district lines, even if those rules come with certain limits.
Last year, California abandoned its nonpartisan maps after voters responded to Texas’ redistricting measures by suspending them through a referendum.
The Race for Seats
Mid-decade redistricting is reshaping November’s midterm ballots across several states, leaving voters uncertain about which district they call home and which candidates will show up on their ballots. That confusion may work to Republicans’ advantage: the party is now positioned to potentially pick up nine seats because of the redrawn lines.
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in after conflicting decisions from lower courts and blocked new Missouri districts backed by Trump that had already been used in the primary, forcing the state to fall back on its earlier districts for the general election.
What Mapmakers Control Now
Ben Raderstorf, a policy advocate at Protect Democracy and one of the paper’s co-authors, said: “If this trend continues, it really brings into question whether or not elected officials are really representing their constituents anymore, or if the voters are being randomly picked by mapmakers to squeeze out partisan advantage.”
Raderstorf added the remark “This is only going to get worse until somebody stops it. The logic of gerrymandering points inevitably towards maximalist partisan advantage on both sides. There is no off-ramp other than reform. It is the only way to break the cycle.”.
The Limits of Nonpartisan Commissions
Nine states currently rely on nonpartisan commissions to draw congressional district lines, though those arrangements come with limitations. A study has found that California put its own nonpartisan maps on hold with a referendum last year, a move made in reaction to changes in Texas’ redistricting process.
What the Report Recommends
Pbs’s report closes with a push for new voting arrangements that the authors think would do away with the harms of partisan redistricting, among them:
- Proportional representation
- A formal truce between the parties to implement nonpartisan districting plans
Congress and statehouses both present long odds for such remedies, yet scholars say they see few other paths to cooling the partisan battles over redistricting.
The Pattern That Concerns the Report
According to the report, gerrymandering lowers trust in elections while protecting incumbents from public opinion. Each party may react to the other’s actions, leading to a ‘doom loop’ where both sides engage in increasingly aggressive map-drawing.
The Bottom Line
The research fails to resolve the disagreement, yet it offers the clearest picture yet of how many Americans have been affected. Roughly 35 million people have been placed into new House districts, and the fight over those maps remains unresolved.
A temporary resolution was reached in Missouri through the Supreme Court’s intervention, but the report argues that lasting change demands new electoral arrangements that remove the reasons parties have to draw their own districts.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs neither side’s push for mid-decade redistricting and instead backs letting the existing maps stand until the next regular cycle, with decisions made by the people themselves rather than by a president or legislature acting alone. The report’s finding that roughly one-tenth of Americans — about 35 million people — have been moved into new House districts shows the scale of this disruption. When a president and a legislature act together without the people’s consent, they gather power for themselves, and that power gets abused.
The report’s own framing captures the problem: gerrymandering lowers trust in elections while protecting incumbents from public opinion. Each party reacts to the other’s actions, creating a ‘doom loop’ where both sides draw ever more aggressive maps. The report’s recommendation of proportional representation and a formal truce between the parties shows the need for real reform, not just another round of map fights.
The reader should watch for any attempt by either party to use mid-decade redistricting as a tool of political advantage. The people deserve maps drawn by fair process, not by a president or legislature acting alone.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.