{"id":481,"date":"2026-06-24T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=481"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:37:00","slug":"how-trumps-redistricting-could-backfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=481","title":{"rendered":"How Trump\u2019s redistricting could backfire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The dust from the first round of the \u201credistricting wars\u201d \u2014 the unusual mid-decade redrawing of congressional maps in search of a partisan edge in the 2026 midterms \u2014 is settling, and Republicans have a clear advantage: about 10 congressional seats, give or take. But that clear-cut number obscures something else. While the GOP may have won a momentary victory, there\u2019s potential for redistricting to backfire on Donald Trump and his party, in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n

Read more Zohran Mamdani just became a congressional kingmaker<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump kicked off the redistricting wars in 2025 by pressuring Texas lawmakers to redraw the state\u2019s maps to create more likely Republican seats. Since then, seven other Republican states have passed new maps. On the other side of the ledger, only California successfully redrew its maps to benefit Democrats (Virginia voters approved a redistricting measure, only for it to be blocked by Virginia\u2019s state Supreme Court). Democrats also got some good news in Utah, where a court decision created a new Democratic seat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the whole, the voters who have lost out are largely Democrats in red states, who could soon be without representation on a federal level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Other voters are feeling disaffected, too. Take Mike Beltran, who runs a smoke shop in Kissimmee, Florida. The sun-baked city outside of Orlando falls within Florida\u2019s 9th District, and it\u2019s a hub for a large and growing Latino population. Florida Republicans recently redrew the district to make it more white, rural, and Republican, in hopes of ousting incumbent Democratic Rep. Darren Soto.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Beltran, who voted both for Soto and Trump in 2024, told Vox that he thinks the Republican-led redistricting was \u201ca little messed up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think they\u2019re trying to dilute the minority votes, especially the Hispanics and African American votes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Beltran told us he was disappointed by the redistricting, but a lot of voters who are now casualties of redistricting are feeling something else \u2014 anger. As Jonathan Martin, politics bureau chief and senior political columnist at Politico, recently put it to Today, Explained <\/em>co-host Sean Rameswaram, \u201cI don\u2019t think the juice is worth the squeeze for the Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Martin recently wrote for Politico about how Republican redistricting in the South is firing up Black voters; he spoke with Sean about that column, why he thinks voters are more likely to be angry than apathetic, and the \u201cprofound cynicism\u201d shaping American politics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There\u2019s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained <\/em>wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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You wrote for Politico that this whole operation that we\u2019re seeing this year to redraw our political maps could backfire. How come?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the short term, you\u2019re only going to fire up Black voters more in a midterm election year in which Black turnout is crucial for Democrats. So why would you be helping the opposition by encouraging them to vote more? It\u2019s giving [Democrats] an obvious turnout issue, which is: [Republicans are] trying to, basically, dilute your voice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Secondly, from a raw political standpoint, when you start cutting the salami really thin district-wise, you risk imperiling some of your incumbents. Just take South Carolina, for example. Republicans backed off of the Trump demand to redistrict their state\u2019s House seats, in part because they thought that by canceling out Jim Clyburn\u2019s Black-majority district, they could have created as many as three competitive seats in a pretty good structural year for Democrats. Is it worth ending Clyburn\u2019s career and carving up his seat? Because you\u2019re going to run the risk of moving those voters somewhere else. They\u2019ve got to go somewhere, and you could unwittingly create new competitive seats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So you\u2019re saying, instead of getting rid of one blue district in a red state, you might accidentally create three?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Precisely. And I think that was part of the concern in South Carolina, which is why legislators there resisted Trump\u2019s demand. Because again, when the political weather, if you will, is favorable to your party \u2014 as it is for Democrats this year \u2014 some of these seats that could be a stretch get a lot more competitive if all of a sudden, the African American share in the district has gone from like 17 percent to 32 percent.<\/p>\n

Read more The shallow authoritarianism of Trump\u2019s Reflecting Pool<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How much is this animating voters so far? Do we have a sense of how much people are aware of this kind of wonky issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Typically when you say \u201creapportionment\u201d in a speech, the audience has fallen asleep before you even finish saying the word, right? This is pretty deep-in-the-weeds process stuff. That\u2019s starting to change, I think. The question is, has it gotten to the point where it\u2019s so obscene, and this arms race is so out of control, that the average voter says, \u2018This is just too much, this has gone too far\u2019?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More narrowly for this midterm election: Have the Republicans given Democrats a turnout weapon with Black voters, between the Trump-demanded reapportionment and the Supreme Court\u2019s voting rights opinion? Could that juice Black turnout this year to levels that it typically doesn\u2019t reach in midterms? That, to me, is the big question, because then a lot of these races get a lot more interesting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Take Texas, for example. It\u2019s a hard state for Democrats to win. They haven\u2019t won a Senate race there since \u201988. Talarico\u2019s chances get a lot better to win that Senate race for Democrats if you\u2019ve got historic Black turnout in places like Houston and Dallas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We talked to some voters in Florida who were angry about redistricting. Some had just kind of given up. They felt just fed up with this political process. When you talk to party officials, politicians, about what they\u2019re hearing from voters right now \u2014 what are they saying?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There is a profound cynicism among the electorate about not just politics, but about most every institution in America. We\u2019re approaching our 250th birthday with a pretty sour electorate. It is curdled. People don\u2019t trust institutions. They don\u2019t think anything\u2019s on the level. They think that they\u2019re being screwed, and that people with privilege and means are flourishing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Part of that\u2019s economic, but it\u2019s not just economic. I think part of this is that there\u2019s just a sense that institutions are rigged. And I think part of the long tail of the Epstein story is because it proves some of the conspiracy theories. I think it\u2019s driven, or at least reinforced, by social media, the algorithms they\u2019re on. And that has led to an electorate that\u2019s pretty fed up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I saw data that had 17 percent of American voters saying that they have faith in their government. I mean, that\u2019s really low. It\u2019s hard to sustain a democracy when the voters don\u2019t trust the government, don\u2019t trust any institution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It feels like Republicans were scared about these midterms, and that\u2019s what put us in this position in the first place, to have this race to the bottom with redistricting. Now voters are angry and\/or apathetic, which might mean lower turnout than usual in the midterms, which already historically have a bit of an issue with turnout. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Who does that favor? Do we know? If no one shows up, if people are fed up and cynical and just say, \u2018Forget the midterms, I\u2019m not interested,\u2019 does that help the Republicans or the Democrats?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I think there\u2019s a great alienation from people who otherwise don\u2019t care about the system or don\u2019t have faith in the system. For people with education, curiosity \u2014 that means the Democratic base in 2026 \u2014 they\u2019re going to show up. They\u2019re going to vote angry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The question is the people who are apathetic, who are not engaged, who are not following this stuff day in, day out \u2014 can you ever get them back? Is there somebody that can bring folks back, that can inspire people to vote happy, to vote optimistic? We haven\u2019t seen it yet.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s extraordinary welcome for white South Africans<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
See More:<\/span><\/p>\n
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  • Midterm Elections 2026<\/li>\n
  • Podcasts<\/li>\n
  • Politics<\/li>\n
  • Today, Explained podcast<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Democratic turnout could overwhelm Trump\u2019s attempts to rig the midterms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Trump\u2019s redistricting could backfire - American Living Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=481\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Trump\u2019s redistricting could backfire - American Living Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Democratic turnout could overwhelm Trump\u2019s attempts to rig the midterms.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=481\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Living Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-24T11:37:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=481#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=481\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/7b970e3bc484fe2e26860a4380d70de8\"},\"headline\":\"How Trump\u2019s redistricting could backfire\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-24T11:37:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=481\"},\"wordCount\":1398,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=481#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/db33744fca54d476e35645961a1dd19f.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=481#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=481\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=481\",\"name\":\"How Trump\u2019s redistricting could backfire - 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