Trump Eyes Florida And Indiana In Redistricting Push

White House: President Trump — Source: The Washington Post / Getty

It appears the gains made by the Texas redistricting effort weren’t enough for President Trump, who is working to convince legislators in Indiana and Florida to begin redistricting efforts in their respective states, with Florida legislators signaling their openness to drawing new maps.

According to CBS News, Florida Republicans are actively considering a redistricting effort targeting three to five House seats currently held by Democrats. In 2022, Florida’s redistricting effort resulted in a map that’s already heavily gerrymandered and faced legal pushback for diluting the power of Black voters. State Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat in South Florida, told CBS News that another round of redistricting would amount to “a straight-up power grab, politicians picking their voters, instead of voters picking their representatives.”

“The Republicans drew the damn maps, and now they want to come back and cut out Black Democrats and even Democrats who have worked across the aisle for their district,” Jones added.

Earlier this month, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced the formation of a committee focused on congressional redistricting, with the first meeting scheduled for Oct. 6. The tentative plan is for the committee to discuss what a new map would look like, with further debate and passage of a new map potentially added to the legislative session set to begin in January 2026.

The nationwide redistricting battle began in July when President Trump asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to trigger a rare, mid-decade redistricting effort. President Trump is desperately trying to maintain GOP control of the House of Representatives, as the Democrats only need a net gain of three seats to flip control during next year’s midterms. Abbott called a special legislative session in July that was supposed to provide relief for Texans affected by the devastating July Fourth floods, but instead focused on a new congressional map. Texas Democrats eventually left the state to deny Texas Republicans the quorum needed to pass a new map that adds five seats in districts Trump won.

After Gov. Abbott ordered their civil arrest and filed a lawsuit to remove Texas Democratic Rep. Gene Wu from his seat, the Texas Democrats returned home. The first special session ended without a vote, though Gov. Abbot quickly launched a second one. Even after the Texas Democrats returned home, they were subject to more Republican nonsense when Rep. Nicole Collier was held political prisoner for not agreeing to police surveillance ahead of a vote on the new map.

As a result of the Texas redistricting effort, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the Election Rigging Response Act. California will hold a special election on Nov. 4, where voters will determine whether redistricting power will temporarily shift from an independent redistricting committee to the state legislature. If voters choose yes, Gov. Newsom has vowed to implement a congressional map that will neutralize the gains made in the Texas map.

“With California moving forward with their maps, there’ll be even more pressure to [redistrict],” an anonymous Florida GOP operative told CBS. “I do think Washington’s going to look at Florida and be like, ‘All right guys, you gotta fix this.'”

A potential Florida redistricting isn’t the only effort on the table, as Indiana state legislators met with President Trump to discuss potentially launching a mid-decade redistricting effort in their state. That move doesn’t seem to be popular with Indiana voters, though, as a recent poll revealed 52% of voters oppose an Indiana redistricting effort. Republicans already hold seven of Indiana’s nine House seats, so any Indiana redistricting effort would likely only gain one seat.

I’m curious how quickly Florida and Indiana could actually get their redistricting efforts underway. The midterms are slightly over a year away, and most candidates are usually staging their campaigns around this time so they can spend the year leading into the election building voter awareness. It sounds like the soonest either state can get their map together is early 2026, and that doesn’t even account for any potential legal action that could come if there are concerns the maps violate the Voting Rights Act.

There’s also the fact that voter turnout is historically lower in non-presidential elections. The GOP runs the risk of hurting its own incumbents by moving Republican voters from traditionally safe districts into Democratic districts. In their play to consolidate power, the GOP could very well risk undercutting their own representatives.

“If you were in a +20 district towards your party, are you okay making it go +5 or +6? People get worried and they don’t want to be in a non-safe district. It’s a little more horse trading than people think,” Florida Atlantic University political science professor Kevin Wagner told CBS.

“The assumptions from redrawing the maps is that voters are going to vote in the same magnitude and pattern that has existed previously. Sometimes that turns out to be true and sometimes it does not,” Wagner added.

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