As Texas Republicans move forward with an effort to redraw the state’s congressional map to be more favorable for the GOP, states around the country are considering whether they too should revisit their district lines ahead of next year’s midterm elections. 

The White House is encouraging at least one other state — Missouri — to join Texas in redistricting, while Democrats in California, New York and elsewhere are weighing how to respond if Texas lawmakers do finalize a new map. 

If Texas Republicans meet their goal – and overcome a new Democratic effort to deny state lawmakers a quorum – the House GOP could be poised to win up to five additional seats just from the Lone Star State next year. That could be an important buffer as Republicans seek to hold on to their slim majority. 

Democratic leaders increasingly argue that they need to respond in kind.

“We’re going to respond and respond forcefully,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told MSNBC on Monday. “We need fair maps and one national standard, and that’s why responses in Democratic states will be required.” 

Here’s a rundown of the states that are considering redrawing their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 elections or that have been mentioned as potential spots for mid-decade redistricting:

Texas

Democratic members of the Texas state Legislature left the state Sunday as part of a bid to block Republicans from redrawing the congressional map to make five additional seats favorable to the GOP.

Since then, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the arrest of those state lawmakers, while the GOP-controlled state House voted to track down and arrest the Democrats who were not present when the chamber met Monday, although the Texas Tribune reported that the warrants are largely symbolic given that they only apply within state lines. Democratic lawmakers could also be subject to daily fines when they aren’t present in the statehouse. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for Senate, said Tuesday that he would seek to declare Democrats’ House seats vacant if they do not return to Austin by Friday.

“​​Starting Friday, any rogue lawmakers refusing to return to the House will be held accountable for vacating their office. The people of Texas elected lawmakers, not jet-setting runaways looking for headlines. If you don’t show up to work, you get fired,” Paxton said in a statement. 

Texas Democrats’ move to deny GOP legislators a quorum came after Republicans unveiled a draft map that would reconfigure several blue-leaning districts near the state’s major cities and in South Texas. 

Such changes would bring more Republican-leaning voters into Democratic Rep. Julie Elizabeth Johnson’s district northeast of Dallas and condense Democratic-leaning voters into just two districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 

Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar’s and Vicente Gonzalez’s South Texas districts, which both went for Donald Trump last fall, would become more Republican-leaning. And the map would also dismantle a Democratic-held seat in Houston and another that stretches from Austin to San Antonio.

All told, the five redrawn seats would each have backed Trump by at least 10 points in last year’s election, according to an analysis by Sabato’s Crystal Ball. 

Under Texas’ current map, Republicans hold 25 House seats to 12 for Democrats, with one vacancy following Democrat Sylvester Turner’s death in March.

Missouri

The White House has reportedly urged Republicans in Missouri to alter the state’s House map, under which the party currently holds six of eight seats. The target: Democrat Emanuel Cleaver II’s seat in the Kansas City area.  

“There’s some crazy jagged edges — in St. Charles County, in Clay and Jackson County near Kansas City,” Republican Rep. Jason Smith told Punchbowl News. “And so I think that you could have a more compact map.”

Gov. Mike Kehoe, who would need to call a special session to redraw the map, has said officials in the state were weighing their options.

“I think it’s safe to say that in Missouri, along with other states, we’re always trying to make sure that we have as much Republican representation because we believe that’s who we are,” he said, according to Ozarks Public Radio.

Florida

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also among the Republican governors talking up the prospects of mid-decade redistricting, in what could be an effort to squeeze in at least one more GOP-favored district in the Sunshine State.

He said last week that redistricting “was something that we’re looking at very seriously,” though he admitted he hadn’t yet talked to any members of the GOP-controlled state Legislature about it. 

His comments come after the Florida Supreme Court recently upheld the state’s current map, which DeSantis had pushed through and that dismantled a Black-majority seat in northern Florida. Republicans currently hold 20 of the state’s 28 House seats. 

Indiana

In GOP-controlled Indiana, Republicans currently hold seven of the state’s nine House seats. Punchbowl News reported that Vice President JD Vance is weighing a trip to the Hoosier state on Thursday to talk to Gov. Mike Braun and state Republicans about redrawing their congressional map. 

Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan’s right-trending 1st District in the state’s northwest corner is seen as a potential target. 

But to attempt such a redraw, Braun, a former senator, would need to call the legislature in for a special session, which he hasn’t yet said he’s planning to do. Politico Playbook reported last week that there appeared to be “little-to-no appetite for remapping” among Indiana Republicans.

California

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has spoken openly about the prospects of redrawing his state’s congressional lines in an effort to blunt the effects of the new Texas maps on the 2026 landscape.

A retaliatory move wouldn’t be as simple as what’s playing out in Texas. Newsom and California Democrats would likely need to put the issue on the ballot to bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission, which drew the current House map. 

Newsom said Monday that Democrats are working on a plan to let voters weigh in this November on a redrawn map  in response to the efforts in Texas. But the plan would contain a “trigger,” the Los Angeles Times reported, meaning Californians would vote only if Texas Republicans go forward with their new map.

The regular session of the California Legislature ends Sept. 12, meaning state Democrats, who hold supermajorities in both chambers, have time to come up with a plan without a special session. The real challenge may be getting voters out for an off-year special election.

California Democrats already hold a strong advantage in the state’s House delegation under the commission-drawn map, holding 43 seats to Republicans’ nine. Some Democratic lawmakers have expressed a willingness to run in more competitive seats if it would mean increasing the party’s pickup opportunities under a new map. 

At least five House Republicans from California could be redistricted into more difficult races, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

New York

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has been open to a redraw of the state’s congressional map to favor her party. 

“We don’t want our democracy lost. And that’s why I’m sick and tired of fighting these battles with my hands tied behind my backs because we have an independent redistricting commission,” Hochul said Monday night on MSNBC. “We love good government ideas. They’re fabulous. But you know what? It puts us at a political disadvantage to all the Republican states who are able to gerrymander at will.”

New York Democrats currently hold 19 House seats to seven for the Republicans under a map that was approved by the Democratic-controlled state Legislature after making modest changes to lines drawn by New York’s independent redistricting commission. 

Legislative Democrats unveiled a measure last week that would amend the state constitution to allow New York to redraw its district lines mid-decade if another state did so first. But the legislation has a long path to becoming law, NBC News reported. Lawmakers would need to approve the measure in two consecutive sessions before it went to voters as a ballot measure. 

That would likely mean that any new map wouldn’t take effect until the 2028 elections.

Maryland

The eight-member House delegation in deep-blue Maryland is, unsurprisingly, dominated by Democrats, with Rep. Andy Harris holding the lone Republican seat on the state’s Eastern Shore.

Maryland House Majority Leader David Moon has said he is drafting legislation to allow the state to craft a new map if another state “breaks from our shared norms and chooses to redraw their lines more than once this decade,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Hill. 

But during the last round of redistricting after the 2020 census, a state judge rejected a Democratic effort to make Harris’ district more competitive as a “product of extreme partisan gerrymandering” that violated the state constitution. 

The Maryland legislature isn’t expected to meet again until January. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore hasn’t said if he supports Moon’s plan and if he’d call for a special session to pass it, The Baltimore Sun reported. 

Illinois

Several Texas Democratic state legislators have landed in Illinois since leaving the Lone Star State on Sunday. Many appeared alongside Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and members of the Texas congressional delegation at a news conference Tuesday. 

Pritzker has kept the door open to a potential redraw of Illinois’ map in response to what transpires in Austin. 

“If they’re going to cheat, then all of us have to take a hard look at what the effect of that cheating is on democracy,” Pritzker said Tuesday. “That means, we’ve all got to stand up and do the right thing. So as far as I’m concerned, everything is on the table.”

Still, Pritzker said that redistricting is “not something that I want to do.”

“We’re hoping that this will be successful, the fact that there’s no quorum in Texas will be successful,” he added.

Redrawing the Illinois map could be complicated because the current lines already advantage Democrats, who hold 14 of the state’s 17 seats. Last week’s announcement that longtime Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis will not seek reelection to his deep-blue Chicago-area seat, though, could give the party an opportunity for some reconfiguration.

Ohio

Ohio was already set to see its congressional map redrawn this fall before the redistricting conversation went national. 

The Buckeye State is required under state law to redraw its lines before next year’s elections, as its current map was crafted by the GOP-controlled Redistricting Commission without bipartisan support. Ohio Republicans hold major sway over the redistricting process. The GOP-led state legislature and the redistricting commission could each get a shot at redrawing the map with bipartisan support. But if bipartisanship proves elusive, Republicans would be able to pass a map on party lines, subject to certain restrictions.

Ohio’s House delegation currently includes 10 Republicans and five Democrats. Districts thought to be potential targets for Republicans include the ones represented by Democrats Marcy Kaptur, Emilia Sykes and Greg Landsman.

Louisiana

The Supreme Court punted on a decision on Louisiana’s congressional map earlier this year and is set to rehear a challenge to the lines when it returns for its next term in the fall. That means it is possible there could be a third set of maps in three elections in the Bayou State by 2026.

The map that the Supreme Court allowed to be used in 2024 created a second Black opportunity district. Democrat Cleo Fields won the seat and returned to the House nearly 30 years after his previous congressional stint. 

On Friday, the high court asked the state and map challengers to address whether drawing that second Black opportunity district was constitutional, setting the stage for a court fight that experts say could potentially change redistricting rules nationwide.

Wisconsin

Opponents of Wisconsin’s congressional map have launched more legal challenges since the state Supreme Court’s liberal majority declined in June to hear a pair of lawsuits that called for a redrawing of district lines. 

Wisconsin Republicans hold a 6-2 advantage in House seats despite the state being a perennial battleground that sees some of the closest elections in the country. 

The current map, approved by the state high court’s then-conservative majority in 2022, was submitted by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers under “least change” guidelines set by the court. The guidelines required mapmakers to hew as closely as possible to the previous map, which had been drawn by Republicans.

Utah

In Utah, there’s ongoing litigation over whether the current district lines, put in place after the 2020 census, should have been drawn by an independent commission pursuant to a 2018 ballot initiative. 

Republicans control all four of the state’s House seats after GOP state lawmakers split the Democratic-leaning Salt Lake City area between the four districts.  

Other states

Several other states have earned mentions as places that could redraw their congressional lines, but prospects here appear remote. 

Kentucky and Kansas have lone Democratic representatives who could be targeted, and Republicans hold legislative supermajorities in both states. But the states’ respective Democratic governors would be unlikely to call for a special session this year to redraw the maps.

In New Jersey, where Democrats hold a governing trifecta, Gov. Phil Murphy hasn’t ruled out a response to the action in Texas, but there seem to be no immediate plans to pursue efforts to target any of the Garden State’s three Republican House members. The state may also be out of time for voters to amend its Constitution and allow for mid-decade redistricting before the 2026 elections.

Democrats in Washington state, where they also hold full control, have said mid-decade redistricting is almost certainly unlikely to happen, the Washington State Standard reported. Democrats already dominate the state’s House delegation — holding eight of 10 seats, including one that Trump carried — under a map drawn up by a bipartisan redistricting commission. 

In Democratic-leaning Colorado, an independent redistricting commission, created by voter-approved 2018 constitutional amendments, drew the state’s current map. The House delegation is currently evenly split between the parties, with four seats each. Former Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who is seeking a comeback in the competitive 8th District, has called on Gov. Jared Polis to take steps to scrap the redistricting commission in response to Texas. But such a move faces constitutional and legal hurdles, as Colorado Pols reported.

Michael Macagnone contributed to this report.

An earlier version of this report misattributed a reference to redistricting rules in Indiana. The report has been updated to remove this reference.