ATLANTA (AP) — Fight! Fight! Fight!
Donald Trump’s influence on redistricting is extending beyond his own rhetoric. As the Republican president encourages states to reshape their congressional maps to benefit the GOP, Democrats are actively taking measures beyond mere complaints to utilize their resources and capabilities for victory.
The initiative began with Democrats in the Texas Legislature, who managed to temporarily halt Republican plans to increase their majority in the state’s congressional delegation. This effort is aimed at maintaining GOP control of the U.S. House by redrawing districts before the 2026 midterm elections.
Subsequently, several Democratic governors have committed to redrawing districts in their states to counterbalance prospective Republican advances in Congress. They are supported by national fundraising efforts, extensive media campaigns, and public rallies, including countrywide demonstrations held on Saturday.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who risks losing her seat as a result of new district maps, expressed the party’s readiness, stating, “For those questioning the Democrats’ presence and resolve, here is your answer.”
While there is no certainty that Democrats can block Republican-led redistricting, similar to their struggle to counter Trump’s initiatives in Washington, the shift marks a significant change for a party that has traditionally adhered to conventional strategies.
Progressive and established wings of the Democratic Party are currently working in concert, unifying what has been a divided opposition since the Republican takeover of the federal government in November. Party leaders believe that this approach strengthens their efforts to challenge Trump. It not only allows them to contest his redistricting maneuvers effectively but also enables them to counteract Republican tax and spending policies while arguing that Trump is undermining democratic norms in America.
“We’ve been imploring Democrats where they have power on the state and local level to flex that power,” said Maurice Mitchell, who leads the Working Families Party at the left flank of mainstream U.S. politics. “There’s been this overwrought talk about fighters and largely performative actions to suggest that they’re in the fight.”
This time, he said, Democrats are “taking real risks in protecting all of our rights” against “an authoritarian president who only understands the fight.”
Pairing fiery talk with action
Texas made sense for Republicans as the place to start a redistricting scuffle. They dominate the Statehouse, and Gov. Greg Abbott is a Trump loyalist.
But when the president’s allies announced a new political map intended to send five more Republicans to the U.S. House, state Democratic representatives fled Texas, denying the GOP the numbers to conduct business in the Legislature and approve the reworked districts.
Those legislators surfaced in Illinois, New York, California and elsewhere, joined by governors, senators, state party chairs, other states’ legislators and activists. All promised action. The response was Trumpian.
Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Kathy Hochul of New York welcomed Texas Democrats and pledged retaliatory redistricting. Pritzker mocked Abbott as a lackey who says “yes, sir” to Trump orders. Hochul dismissed Texas Republicans as “lawbreaking cowboys.” Newsom’s press office directed all-caps social media posts at Trump, mimicking his signature sign off: “THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”
U.S. Rep. Al Green, another Texas Democrat who could lose his seat, called Trump “egomaniacal.” Yet many Democrats also claimed moral high ground, comparing their cause to the Civil Rights Movement.
State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., invoked another Texas Democrat, President Lyndon Johnson, who was “willing to stand up and fight” for civil rights laws in the 1960s. Then, with Texas bravado, Romero reached further into history: “We’re asking for help, maybe just as they did back in the days of the Alamo.”
‘Whatever it takes’
A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that about 15% of Democrats’ own voters described the party using words like “weak” or “apathetic.” An additional 10% called it “ineffective” or “disorganized.”
Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman who is raising money to support Texas Democrats, has encouraged Democratic-run statehouses to redraw districts now rather than wait for GOP states to act. On Friday, California Democrats released a plan that would give the party an additional five U.S. House seats. It would require voter approval in a November election.
“Maximize Democratic Party advantage,” O’Rourke said at a recent rally. “You may say to yourself, ‘Well, those aren’t the rules.’ There are no refs in this game. F— the rules. … Whatever it takes.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin acknowledged the shift.
“This is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to a knife fight,” he said.
Andrew O’Neill, an executive at the progressive group Indivisible, contrasted that response with the record-long speeches by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. and the Democratic leader of the U.S. House, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, in eviscerating Trump and his package of tax breaks and spending cuts. The left “had its hair on fire” cheering those moments, O’Neill recalled, but were “left even more frustrated in the aftermath.”
Trump still secured tax cuts for the wealthy, accelerated deportations and cut safety net programs, just as some of his controversial nominees were confirmed over vocal Democratic opposition.
“Now,” O’Neill said, “there is some marriage of the rhetoric we’ve been seeing since Trump’s inauguration with some actual action.”
O’Neill looked back wistfully to the decision by Senate Democrats not to eliminate the filibuster “when our side had the trifecta,” so a simple majority could pass major legislation. Democratic President Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, he said, was too timid in prosecuting Trump and top associates over the Capitol riot.
In 2016, Democratic President Barack Obama opted against hardball as the Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, refused to consider Obama’s nomination of Garland to the Supreme Court.
“These unspoken rules of propriety, especially on the Democratic side, have created the conditions” that enabled Trump, Mitchell said.
Fighting on all fronts
Even on redistricting, Democrats would have to ignore their previous good-government efforts and bypass independent commissions that draw boundaries in several states, including California.
Party leaders and activists rationalize that the broader fights tie together piecemeal skirmishes that may not, by themselves, sway voters.
Arguing that Trump diminishes democracy stirs people who already support Democrats, O’Neill said. By contrast, he said, the GOP “power grab,” can be connected to unpopular policies that affect voters’ lives.
Green noted that Trump’s big package bill cleared the Senate “by one vote” and the House by a few, demonstrating why redistricting matters.
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said Democrats must make unseemly, short-term power plays so they can later pass legislation that “bans gerrymandering nationwide … bans super PACs (political action committees) and gets rid of that kind of big money and special interest that helped get us to this place.” U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, added that a Democratic majority would wield subpoena power over Trump’s administration.
In the meantime, said U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, voters are grasping a stark reality.
“They say, ‘Well, I don’t know. Politics doesn’t affect me,’” she said of constituents she meets. “I say, ‘Honey, it does’ If you don’t do politics, politics will do you.’”
