Republican gerrymandering worked pretty well in Texas and Florida, even if it backfired in North Carolina and Ohio

During the 2026 election cycle, Republicans enacted a series of gerrymanders – a form of partisan redistricting – in a handful of states to give them a disproportionate edge over Democrats in their congressional delegations. Democrats responded with a successful redistricting effort in California and an unsuccessful one in Virginia. Gerrymandering has obvious implications for fairness and democracy, characterized by some as politicians picking their voters, not voters picking their politicians. There’s also a practical consideration for those doing the gerrymandering: The efforts can fail when they overplay their hand. By spreading their supportive voters across many districts, parties can create more seats that may lean in their direction. But if spread too thin, these efforts can backfire and net seats for the other party, particularly in a “wave” election year that favors the other party. This unintended consequence is often referred to as a “dummymander.” So, with such massive Democratic majorities poised to enter the 120th Congress, did Republican attempts to gerrymander actually end up costing them some seats in the U.S. House? The answer isn’t as clear-cut as you might think. Newly elected members of the U.S. House of Representatives gather on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 12, 2026. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images Dummymanders in North Carolina and Ohio? Republican state legislatures in Ohio and North Carolina redrew their congressional maps in 2025, crafting a set of districts they believed would maximize the number of seats they could win in the House. Despite both states being traditionally competitive in statewide elections, their state legislatures drew a collection of seats Republicans believed they would win: 12 of these 15 new seats in Ohio and 11 out of 14 in North Carolina included a majority of voters who voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. But in 2026, Democrats across the country won dozens of seats that had previously seemed out of reach, including districts Trump won by double digits in 2024. Many of these seats were in heavily gerrymandered Republican seats. In Ohio and North Carolina, the size and scope of the midterm backlash against Trump and his party put many of the seats Republicans targeted in these states, including ones Trump won by as many as 20 points, in serious jeopardy. In the end, the Democratic wave overcame so many Trump-won seats in these states that their new delegations to Congress may be more Democratic than they would have been without the gerrymanders. Democrats held the line in the deep South Texas and Florida also targeted a series of Democrat-held seats to flip their way in 2026. Nine such seats across these two states, as well as a vulnerable seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures in Alabama, were the targets of gerrymanders that created new districts that Trump won in 2024, all by 9 percentage points or more. But once the 2026 Democratic wave swept through the deep South, these gerrymanders were essentially canceled out. Despite the gains the party projected, Republicans in these three states appear likely to enter the 120th Congress with delegations the same size as they had in the 119th. Other Republican gerrymandering attempts were successful, but only barely. In Tennessee’s 9th District, the last remaining Democratic seat in the state was gerrymandered into a district Donald Trump won by 21 points in 2024. Republicans did hold that seat as expected, but only by 2,500 votes, or just over 1 percentage point. Gerrymanders that worked – and didn’t Many of these gerrymanders were not maximally successful. But were they true dummymanders? In North Carolina and Ohio it does appear that Republicans overplayed their hand by counting on past Trump voters in a national environment that proved so favorable to the Democrats. In Ohio, a gerrymander that aimed for a two-thirds Republican majority in their House delegation will net them less than half of that in the 120th Congress. That outcome ended up producing a more representative result, one that was roughly in line with the two parties’ 2026 popular vote shares in the state. North Carolina was a more drastic dummymander: The Republicans aimed to design districts where they would win seats accounting for almost two-thirds of their congressional delegation. But the party is currently poised to hold, at best, less than one-third of their state’s seats. And California, which Democrats gerrymandered in reaction to Republican efforts in other states, is a partisan success story. The state is projected to send only 8% of their delegation to the House as Republicans, despite voting 30% for Republicans statewide. In Texas and Florida the story is more complicated. Democrats in those states retained most of the seats they held that their Republican legislatures targeted in their gerrymanders, thanks to historic shifts by Hispanic voters who had voted for Trump in the 2024 election. But gerrymanders can be effective beyond marginal, targeted districts. Taken as a whole, Texas’ and Florida’s district boundaries were drawn so favorably for Republicans that even a Democratic tsunami managed only to keep these states’ delegations identical in the next Congress, since many other districts remained safe for Republicans. In these states, Republicans still enjoy a greater proportion of House seats than their popular vote margins would reflect. And in a less Democrat-leaning election cycle, many of these gerrymandered seats could very well shift back toward Republicans. Failed GOP gerrymanders would have produced an even bigger blue wave As poor as the outcome of the 2026 midterms was for Republicans, it could have been even worse. In fact, some Republican states might count themselves lucky that their attempts to gerrymander failed in the lead-up to the midterms. In traditionally Republican states such as Missouri and Utah, courts struck down gerrymanders that would have created a series of districts that Trump won by around 20 percentage points. If the gerrymanders had not been struck down, Democrats’ shocking success in similar districts across the country could have netted them as many as five additional seats in these states. A similar situation played out in Indiana and South Carolina. New maps pushed by Trump that failed in their state legislatures were intended to produce even more lopsided Republican gains. But analysis from the Cook Political Report found that these maps might have netted Democrats as many as six out of South Carolina’s seven House seats, and eight out of Indiana’s nine. Instead, Democrats seem likely to end up with only a pair of seats in each state. What’s next in gerrymandering wars? The 2026 election cycle demonstrates that gerrymandering is a far more complex and dynamic proposition than it is often treated by pundits and parties. Wave elections of this size can often overcome the intended effects of gerrymandered maps, but subsequent elections might find them much more effective. Plus, parties often draw gerrymandered maps based on the previous election’s presidential results – a measure that may be less reliable as voters continue to make more unexpected choices. Moreover, both red and blue states are dealing with the aftermath of the Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court decision, which made the gerrymandering of racial groups easier to do without court interventions. Over the next two years, Republicans may attempt to implement even more new maps in many new states, particularly in the South. Those new districts will likely aim to dilute majority-Black districts that are no longer protected by the Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, Democratic state governments appear poised to continue with their pushback against last cycle’s Republican efforts with gerrymanders of their own over the next two years. But the Republican redistricting failures of the 2026 cycle, including their near misses, should make both parties cautious about future attempts.