Shawn Griffiths
In just a few weeks, millions of Americans will vote for Congress in a different district than they did just two years ago.
But they didn't move. The boundaries did.
An AP analysis estimates that more than 24 million potential voters (roughly 1 in 10 nationwide) are now in a different US House district because of redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The largest shifts can be seen in 3 states in particular:
- Texas, with more than 6.9 million potential voters moved into new districts;
- California, with more than 6.3 million; and
- Florida, with more than 4.5 million.
But this doesn’t show the complete picture because “potential” or “likely” voter doesn’t account for everyone affected by new maps.
A separate analysis from the nonpartisan organization Protect Democracy found that 34.8 million people were reassigned to different congressional districts between 2024 and 2026.
Further, 1 in 5 Americans now live in a district where more than a quarter of the electorate is different from what it was during the last election.
And there are indications that more shifts could happen between now and 2028.
9 States, Millions of New Political Neighbors
Congressional maps are normally redrawn after the census every 10 years to account for population shifts.
States can lose or gain seats depending on these changes, but demographics may also be different.
Traditionally, this means the next round of redistricting wouldn’t happen until 2031 at the earliest. However, many states chose not to wait this time.
Specifically, 9 states will use different congressional boundaries in November: Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
It was almost 10 states, but the Missouri State Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court ruled that the state had to use maps approved in 2022 because of a veto referendum on the ballot.
To quickly recap, the scramble to manipulate congressional districts began in 2025 after President Donald Trump pressed GOP lawmakers in Texas to redraw the state's map. The goal was to create at least 5 additional Republican opportunities.
California Governor Gavin Newsom quickly responded and said his state would “fight fire with fire.” Proposition 50 was put on the November 2025 ballot, which asked voters to suspend an independent congressional map with lines drawn by the state’s Democratic majority.
Now, about 80% of congressional districts in Texas are designed to favor Republicans, while 92% favor Democrats in California.
This was only the beginning. Seven additional states approved new maps. Some states—like Indiana, Virginia, and Maryland—tried, but the efforts were either blocked in the legislature or by the courts.
Virginia held a vote on a map that heavily favored Democrats before a court ruled the referendum violated the state constitution.
Utah is different from the other states. A court ordered its new map after it was determined that the legislature did not adhere to a voter-approved law designed to reduce a single party’s influence over redistricting.
The Numbers Look Different from the Voter’s Perspective
Most coverage of redistricting—much like the redistricting itself—focuses on the scoreboard. How many seats will Republicans gain? How many can Democrats offset? Which party will control the House?
The AP estimates that if the new maps perform as intended, Republicans could emerge with a net gain of as many as 9 seats, although changing political conditions mean there is no guarantee the districts will vote the way mapmakers anticipated.
Still, this framing ignores the impact on individual voters.
Protect Democracy calculated that more than 10.4 million people in Texas, 9.2 million in California, and 6.2 million in Florida were reassigned to different congressional districts. No one talks about what that means for their representation.
Suddenly, some of these voters have a different congressional representative. Others may encounter candidates they have never heard of or find themselves grouped with communities hundreds of miles away from those that previously made up their district.
Even voters whose district number stayed the same could experience a dramatically different election if large portions of the constituency around them have changed.
“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,” said Ben Raderstorf, who co-wrote Protect Democracy’s analysis.
But it seems like the numbers have already answered this question.
Redistricting Doesn't Just Change Who Wins. It Can Change Whether There Is a Race.
There is another consequence that gets little attention in the national press: competition.
The latest Cook Political Report ratings put just 43 of the nation's 435 House races in its “Toss Up” or “Lean” categories. The overwhelming majority are rated Likely or Solid for one party.
The trend toward diminishing competition isn’t new. But the mid-cycle redistricting efforts have escalated it.
This year, just 9% of primary voters effectively elected 90% of Congress.
Shawn Griffiths
Notably, redistricting is not the sole cause of uncompetitive elections. Voters are increasingly self-sorting geographically and there are advantages to incumbency.
But deliberately concentrating Democrats and Republicans into predictable districts can further shrink the number of November contests that actually matter.
And for independent voters, it means losing any say in their representation at all. Especially if they live in a state with closed primaries.
If voters do not belong to the dominant party, the election that effectively chooses the representative is one in which they cannot participate.
It was not just the lines that moved. The meaningful election moved with them.
However, as states look to make additional changes ahead of the 2028 presidential cycle, there is another possibility: the parties could stretch their advantages too much.
The new congressional boundaries were constructed using past election results, demographic data, and assumptions about how particular communities are likely to vote.
But the political environment in 2026 is already testing some of those assumptions. Just look at Texas.
Prior to redistricting, Republicans had an advantage in 25 of the state’s 35 congressional seats. Then, state lawmakers redrew the lines to give them 5 additional seats.
Yet with Election Day approaching, the Texas Tribune identifies 6 congressional races in the state as genuinely competitive. Four are districts Republicans redrew in hopes of flipping them. The other 2 are seats Republicans are now defending.
All 6 have eligible voting populations that are majority Latino.
Why is that important? Because Latino voters are often misunderstood by both major parties. Their voting behavior is not easy to predict from one election to the next because Latinos are more likely than any other demographic group to be independent-minded.
Much of the Texas strategy was built around Republican gains among Latino voters in 2024. For example, the newly configured 34th District would have voted for Donald Trump by roughly 10 percentage points two years ago.
Today, four weeks from Election Day, it is considered competitive.
This does not mean the redistricting will fail. Moving voters can still make a district substantially easier for one party to win (as we have seen in all modern elections up to this point).
But aggressive gerrymandering carries a mathematical risk—especially with an electorate that is increasingly identifying and registering independent of the two major parties.
To create more favorable districts, mapmakers often spread their own voters across a larger number of seats. If voters shift away from the party in power by just a few points, districts designed to be safe for that party could suddenly become competitive.
This may not mean the controlling party loses its majority, but it could mean they put all that effort into rigging the process even more in their favor only to potentially lose some seats.