Republicans’ redistricting push is on ice in New Hampshire, in a blow to the White House’s aggressive effort to protect the GOP’s House majority in the midterms.
State Sen. Dan Innis has yanked his own bill that would have kicked off a mid-decade redraw of the state’s two congressional districts in the face of resistance from GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte.
“The governor wasn’t that supportive of it since it’s in the middle of the normal redistricting cycle,” Innis, a Republican who recently ended his U.S. Senate campaign, told POLITICO. “Rather than create a difficult situation in my own house, the New Hampshire State House, I thought it made sense to save this for another time.”
Innis’ decision to withdraw his bill deals the White House another setback in its pressure campaign to strong-arm GOP-led states into redistricting. Indiana Senate Republican leadership said this week that they lack the votes to pass a mid-cycle redraw in the Hoosier State, though Gov. Mike Braun is still eyeing a special session to redo the state’s maps. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about New Hampshire.
The White House had been ratcheting up pressure on New Hampshire Republicans to put forward a new map for months, threatening a take-no-prisoners approach that included weighing a primary challenge to Ayotte. Trump ally and longtime New Hampshire resident Corey Lewandowski, who is serving as a Department of Homeland Security senior adviser, said days later he was considering running for governor against Ayotte.
There is some interest among Granite State Republican lawmakers in remapping, because New Hampshire has been using a court-approved congressional map since then-Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, vetoed plans the Legislature sent him in 2022. Democrats need to net three seats in next year’s midterms in order to win back control of the House, and the Trump team was hoping to secure one seat in a New Hampshire redraw.
Both of the districts are currently represented by Democrats, although the state’s open 1st District will likely be a battleground next November even without new lines.
State lawmakers say they would want buy-in from Ayotte, who isn’t budging.
The first-term governor has repeatedly rejected the idea of a mid-decade redraw, saying the “timing is off” and insisting the Trump team’s pressure tactics wouldn’t change her mind.
“We’re in the middle of the census, I don’t think the timing is right for redistricting,” Ayotte recently told local television station WMUR, adding that “the thing [Granite Staters are] talking to me about is not redistricting.”
Republicans have recruited a Sununu to run for Senate in New Hampshire after all.
Former Sen. John E. Sununu said Wednesday that he is running to reclaim the seat he held for a single term before Democrat Jeanne Shaheen ousted him in 2008. Shaheen is retiring next year.
“Maybe you’re surprised to hear that I’m running for the Senate again. I’m a bit surprised myself. Why would anyone subject themselves to everything going on there right now?” Sununu said in a launch video posted online Wednesday morning. “Well, somebody has to step up and lower the temperature. Somebody has to get things done.”
The scion of a prominent GOP political dynasty, Sununu, 61, likely gives Republicans their best chance of flipping the seat after his brother, former Gov. Chris Sununu, rejected the party’s recruitment efforts for another cycle.
John E. Sununu brings access to his family’s fundraising machine and boasts close relationships with members of Senate GOP leadership, including Majority Leader John Thune. National and state Republicans consider him a strong candidate. Early polls put him ahead in the GOP primary and show him as the most competitive Republican against the Democratic front-runner, Rep. Chris Pappas.
Sununu has been in talks with the White House about his campaign and will soon meet with President Donald Trump about it, POLITICO first reported. Trump’s endorsement would be critical in the GOP primary, even though the state’s broader electorate thrice rejected him for president.
But Sununu’s path to securing Trump’s nod — and the GOP nomination — is not clear.
Sununu has long opposed Trump, serving as a national co-chair of former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential campaign and backing former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for president in 2024. He penned an op-ed lambasting Trump as a “loser” ahead of New Hampshire’s presidential primary last year (Trump went on to win by 11 points). He later derided Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies as “completely inappropriate” through his position with the Democracy Defense Project, a bipartisan group focused on restoring public trust in election security.
And Sununu faces another former senator, Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts before moving to New Hampshire and mounting an unsuccessful bid to unseat Shaheen in 2014. Brown was the president’s first-term ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa and is now seeking his own political comeback by positioning himself as the more Trump-aligned candidate in the race. Another GOP candidate, state Sen. Dan Innis, has already dropped his bid and backed Sununu. He’s called on Brown to do the same, but the former ambassador is battling on.
“Anyone who thinks that a never Trump, corporate lobbyist who hasn’t won an election in a quarter century will resonate with today’s GOP primary voters is living in a different universe,” Brown said in a statement.
Sununu, who is also the son of former Gov. and White House chief of staff John H. Sununu, served three terms in the House before defeating then-Gov. Shaheen to win his Senate seat in 2002.
He pledged in his launch video to focus on the economy and “making our lives more affordable.” He also called to “protect Medicare” and “really tackle our health care costs” as expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies take center stage in the government shutdown now spilling into a third week. WMUR was first to report on his official campaign launch.
Sununu starts with a polling advantage in the GOP primary. A University of New Hampshire survey from late September had him leading Brown 42 percent to 19 percent, with 28 percent undecided.
Early surveys also show him within striking distance of Pappas. The Democrat leads Sununu 49 percent to 43 percent in the UNH poll’s hypothetical general-election matchup; Pappas leads Brown by a wider margin of 52 percent to 37 percent. A survey from GOP-aligned co/efficient had Pappas leading Sununu by 3 percentage points and Brown by 10 points.
Alex Latcham, Senate Leadership Fund’s executive director, said in a statement that Sununu’s candidacy “instantly expands the Senate map and puts the Granite State in play for Republicans.”
His candidacy has also generated instant excitement in the Granite State. A group of prominent New Hampshire GOP donors and business leaders — including Phil Taub, Joe Faro, Al Letizio Jr., Nick Vailas and Kelly Cohen — will host a fundraiser for Sununu in Bedford on Nov. 3, POLITICO has learned first.
Still, Sununu could face challenges in his attempted comeback. While his family’s brand remains strong in New Hampshire, Sununu largely faded from elective politics after his 2008 defeat, ceding the spotlight to his younger brother. His post-congressional work on corporate boards has drawn him early fire from his opponents on both sides of the aisle. The state Democratic Party already has a website attacking Sununu for “selling out to corporations.” Pappas hammered Sununu for “cashing in … working for special interests” in a statement Wednesday responding to his launch.
And his past opposition to Trump could prove difficult to reconcile with the MAGA base, even though it could win him support among independents who can pull ballots in the GOP primary.
Sununu downplayed Trump’s importance in the Senate race in a WMUR interview last month, saying the contest “is going to be about New Hampshire.”
But Brown is working to weaponize Sununu’s repeated rejections of the president, even as he faces his own MAGA image problem after saying in 2021 that Trump “bears responsibility” for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Democrats’ hardline opposition to rising health care costs isn’t earning them voters’ trust on economic issues — a disconnect that lays bare the party’s challenge heading into next year’s midterms.
Voters blame Republicans more than Democrats for the federal government shutdown, according to a review of polling conducted after services shuttered. An Economist/YouGov survey of 1,648 Americans showed 41 percent hold the GOP accountable for the lapse in federal funding, compared to 30 percent who point a finger at Democrats and 23 percent who hold the parties equally responsible. A 2,441-person CBS News/YouGov survey also found Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats — 39 percent to 30 percent — with 31 percent faulting both. And a Harvard/Harris poll demonstrated 2,413 voters impugned Republicans more than Democrats by 6 points.
Those same voters, however, delivered the GOP a 4-point advantage when asked which party they trust more on economic issues. And a survey from Democratic-aligned firm Navigator Research showed 1,000 registered voters faulting Republicans for the shutdown by 11 points, but giving them a 2-point advantage on inflation and cost of living.
That dichotomy underscores an electoral hurdle for the party locked out of power: Even as Democrats hold the line over expiring health care subsidies that could send millions of Americans’ insurance prices soaring, voters still favor Republicans on the economy and cost of living.
“Are we going to get all the working class back? Probably not,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who is seeking reelection in a redrawn Texas district while facing federal bribery charges. “[But] I see an opening here. … And we need to jump on that and just really focus and repeat over and over and over that we Democrats are interested in bringing costs down.”
The next challenge for his party, he added: “Make sure people understand we are a viable alternative.”
The shutdown-polling paradox has shown up in surveys for months, as Democrats struggle to move voters who are souring on President Donald Trump and his party’s handling of the economy and inflation into their corner. And it underscores the uphill battle Democrats face in wresting power from Republicans, even as they narrow their scattered messaging to affordability.
Frontliner Rep. Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.) called her party’s shutdown stance “an important step” toward convincing voters Democrats can tackle rising costs.
“And it’s a crucial step to take right now … to make sure that people don’t see their premiums go up exponentially,” said Gillen, who is defending the Long Island swing seat she flipped last year. “But then it needs to be part of a broader discussion to show that we are on the side of the American people and we care about the economic pain they’re feeling and we have a concrete plan.”
The party is still hashing out the particulars of that plan, which depending on the candidate ranges from pitching a hardscrabble background to railing against a rigged economy and vilifying the billionaires that benefit from it.
Right now, Democrats are trying to leverage their minimal power to force Republicans to stop Affordable Care Act subsidies from expiring at the end of the year, attempting to squeeze out a policy win on a top cost-of-living issue as they scramble to regain working-class voters.
The political winds have been shifting in Democrats’ favor on the economy. Trump’s net approval rating on the subject has nosedived since the start of his second term, polling averages show. Voters routinely rank inflation as one of their top issues, but disapprove of his handling of it. The latest CBS/YouGov poll showed three-quarters of adults don’t think Trump is doing enough to lower prices — one of his 2024 campaign trail pledges. Labor Department statistics show the job market is slowing.
Despite signs of economic distress, Republicans consistently enjoy a polling advantage on the economy. And Liam Kerr, who co-founded the centrist WelcomePAC, warned that Democrats won’t be able to erase it through a single stand on health care costs.
“You can’t just do it one time and all is forgotten,” Kerr said. “Playing against type requires even more effort.”
Nevertheless, Democrats remain confident they can reverse their heavy losses in 2024 by drilling down on voters’ cost-of-living concerns, according to interviews with half a dozen congressional candidates.
They cast their party’s shutdown play as part of a broader strategy that ranges from hammering Republicans over tariffs that could drive up prices for consumers and for businesses, to battling utility companies over rising bills. And they believe the slate of working-class candidates the party is putting up for House and Senate seats, from a firefighter in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley to a waitress in western Wisconsin, can convince voters that Democrats care about blue-collar Americans who have turned toward Trump in recent years.
They’re getting backup from Democrats’ national campaign arm, which on Friday launched a five-figure digital-and-billboard ad campaign and organizing effort to alert voters to the pending increase in their premiums.
Still, shutdowns carry risks for both parties, especially the longer they drag on. The Trump administration on Friday began firing federal workers, which could increase pressure on both sides to bring their standoff to an end. And some polls already show voters think Democrats should cave and reopen the government; a sentiment expressed by nearly two-thirds of voters in the Harvard/Harris survey and just over half of respondents to the Navigator poll.
But Democrats are dug in.
“We have to give people a reason to fight, and we have to get back to catering to the many over the few,” Cherlynn Stevenson, a state representative running for the Democratic nomination in Kentucky’s open 6th District, said. “This can be a big turning point for our party.”
Democrats are pushing their candidates to go on the offense on crime ahead of the 2026 midterms, seeing upside in what’s been one of their weakest electoral issues.
A private polling memo that shows potential openings for the party to peel voters away from Republicans on one of their core issues is being distributed to House Democrats and their campaign committees, and was shared exclusively with POLITICO.
The battleground-district survey from Global Strategy Group — commissioned by gun-safety advocacy group Giffords and House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership — offers a bleak assessment of Democrats’ starting point: 89 percent of the 1,200 likely voters surveyed want their Congress member to take steps to keep them safe, but only 38 percent trust Democrats over Republicans with that task.
Voters also reported preferring Republicans to Democrats with preventing and reducing crime and cracking down on violent crime — gaps that grew among swing voters.
But, in a hint of hope for the party looking to neutralize a weakness President Donald Trump will exploit next year, those voters swung toward Democrats in all four categories after hearing messaging acknowledging crime is a problem and showing steps the party has taken to increase safety. Specifically, pollsters cited cracking down on gun trafficking and strengthening firearm background checks. The persuasion effort included criticisms of GOP cuts to gun-violence prevention funding, the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back firearm regulations and Republicans’ ties to pro-gun groups.
The double-digit swings gave Democrats a 2-point advantage when respondents were asked about crime reduction, 4 points on keeping people safe and 6 points on crime prevention. The shifts were even more pronounced among swing voters.
Democrats also shrunk the GOP advantage on preventing violent crime to 1 point.
Giffords, House Majority Forward and Global Strategy Group pollsters are in the midst of briefing top House Democrats, frontline candidates and party committees about the poll, which was conducted in July. The groups are angling to revamp Democrats’ crime messaging, urging candidates to project toughness on crime and campaign against traditionally law-and-order-focused Republicans for making cities less safe by slashing federal funding.
And they want the party to shift quickly, lest they give Republicans a runway to ramp up their attacks in the upcoming midterms, when Democrats look to deny the GOP its slim advantage in the House.
“We do not want people to get shot or stabbed or carjacked. We want to hold people accountable when they break the law. None of that is revolutionary. But we do have to actually say that,” Emma Brown, Giffords’ executive director, said.
Doug Thornell, the CEO of consulting firm SKDK, who advised the polling project and works with Democrats including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, called crime “personal and emotional to voters, and they expect their leaders to make it a serious priority.”
But Democrats face a difficult task in trying to figure out how to handle voters’ concerns over crime, with Trump fomenting those worries by sending the National Guard into blue cities across the country as part of a broader law-and-order crackdown.
Democrats are responding to the push with recent statistics that show violent crime falling from a pandemic-era spike and touting their investments in anti-violence initiatives. But they have struggled to change voters’ perceptions that they’re weak on crime — a belief that helped Trump’s 2024 victory.
And Democrats have spent years trying to distance themselves from the “defund the police” slogan that hurt them with their own constituents — touting support for law enforcement and tough-on-crime tactics in an acknowledgment they need to retool their approach to criminal justice.
“Anytime Republicans make an aggressive stance and the Democrats criticize it, it looks like the Democrats are defending the status quo. And no one believes the status quo is acceptable when it comes to crime,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres said.
The Democratic groups that commissioned the poll see political openings on crime and on gun violence. Mass shootings topped the list of crimes voters worry, and neighborhood shootings ranked third. Majorities of respondents said easy access to guns and illegal gun trafficking contribute heavily to crime.
Operatives point to Moore, as well as Mayors Justin Bibb of Cleveland and Michelle Wu of Boston, as Democrats who’ve prioritized public safety while parrying Trump’s National Guard push.
But Democrats are not unified.
Some battleground-district Democrats are imploring party leadership to do more to defend law enforcement funding, while others in the emerging slate of populist candidates hardly mention public safety as they position themselves to win back working-class voters on economic messaging.
Democratic-aligned think tanks and strategists disagree on the specifics of what more proactive messaging should look like.
A recent Vera Institute polling presentation to Democratic National Committee members suggested the party use “serious about safety” messaging instead of “tough on crime” talking points and was quickly panned by more centrist Democratic figures — even as other aspects of the progressive criminal justice group’s argument aligned with advice being doled out across the party.
“This is where we should be unifying,” Kim Foxx, a former state’s attorney in Cook County, Illinois, said. “It's right there that we don't have transparency on police killings anymore, that in [the Trump administration’s] effort to go after immigration, they're cutting funding to strategies that work to reduce violence. … We just have to be bold and call it out with a consistent message.”
Democrats are entering the government shutdown blaming their rivals for rising health care costs. Republicans are countering by leaning into culture wars and attacking Democrats for pausing paychecks.
The partisan salvos crescendoed into Wednesday as each side prepared to answer for shutting down federal government operations after reaching a stalemate over a short-term funding patch.
Democratic and Republican leaders accused each other of operating in bad faith. The parties’ major campaign arms readied a barrage of attacks to hit airwaves and social media feeds across battlegrounds. And congressional candidates rushed to pin blame on the opposition — all moves that portend the battles to come next year when they tangle for control of the House.
Democrats believe they’re starting off the shutdown with the upper hand, pointing to polling that shows they have an advantage with voters concerned about health care. A stringof surveys, including a Morning Consult poll shared first with POLITICO, reveal more voters are poised to blame Republicans than Democrats for the funding lapse — though swaths of Americans say both parties share responsibility. Independents across those surveys more readily point fingers at the GOP governing trifecta.
“Democrats have an advantage: It's a persuasive issue, it's a trust issue. And people care about it,” Brad Woodhouse, who runs a progressive health care group advising members of Congress, said of health care costs.
But Republicans aren’t ceding any ground as they, too, gear up for a shutdown-era feud.
The GOP already sees cracks forming across the aisle, prompting its Housecampaign arm to launch a digital ad across 42 competitive districts slamming Democrats over delayed paychecks for military members and other federal workers and accusing the party of “grinding America to a halt” to give undocumented immigrants “free health care.” The party's Senate campaign committee is yoking Democratic candidates in key races to what they’re referring to as Senate Minority Leader Chuck “Schumer’s shutdown.”
“If you want to talk about how to hold down people's health care premiums I’m all for that. If you want to talk about how to protect rural hospitals, I'm here for that. But I don't understand what shutting down the government has to do with that. I don't get why the two things are linked,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.
He was echoing Republicans who have blasted Democrats for attaching health care negotiations to government funding, accusing them of holding the federal workforce “hostage” over an issue Senate Majority Leader John Thune and several rank-and-file GOP senators said they were willing to engage in separate talks on. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that roughly 750,000 employees could be furloughed each day of the shutdown.
“The people who will be hurt the most are the people that they say they want to help. It’s going to be working people,” Hawley added. “I just think that's kind of crazy."
Congressional Democrats’ refusal to support a stopgap funding measure without extending expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies marks a stark role reversal for the normally risk-averse party that typically abhors government shutdowns. And it represents a strategy shift for Schumer, who infuriated fellow Democrats when he sided with Republicans during the last funding fight in March.
Now his party is confident it’s returning to what’s historically been one of its winning issues by emphasizing health care. Democrats are armed with polling that shows opposition to the health care cuts in Republicans’ megalaw and are backed by the same advocacy groups that railed against Schumer after his spring shutdown cave. They’re also supported by surveys that show broad support for extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire by year’s end.
Democrats have discussed framing their message around health care for months, seizing on the expiring subsidies as another opportunity to hammer Republicans over rising costs and to freshen their attacks against the megalaw passed in July. The party’s House and Senate campaign arms began running digital ads ahead of the shutdown, accusing vulnerable Republican lawmakers of voting to raise health care costs and “standing in the way of affordable health care — on purpose.”
House Majority Forward is continuing its $3 million ad campaign targeting 10 vulnerable Republicans over tariffs and the shutdown until at least the end of next week, according to the group.
The minority party's bullishness is owed to millions of Americans likely being hit with higher health care premiums, should subsidies expire at year’s end without congressional action — another strain on the health care system on top of looming Medicaid cuts that providers warn threaten access nationwide. Even President Donald Trump’s top pollster has cautioned those cuts could harm battleground Republicans in the midterms.
But there are some warning signs for Democrats.
In a New York Times/Siena survey released Tuesday, nearly two-thirds of voters, including 59 percent of independents, said Democrats should not shut down the government if their demands are not met — a stat Thune’s aides and Republican campaign arms circulated online in the hours leading up to the shutdown.
And some Democrats are breaking rank: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), one of the three members of the Democratic caucus who voted with Republicans on Tuesday, had cautioned his colleagues ahead of the vote that Democrats “run the risk of not getting any of those kinds of changes to health care” if the government shuts down.
“There’s no such thing as a totally risk-less strategy,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a brief interview Monday night. “But this strategy is the right one. It's the right thing to do morally, ethically and legally."
Republicans — sensing they’ll be vulnerable on an issue central to many voters determining the makeup of the House next year — are trying to redirect attention to a culture war fight, arguing Democrats are shutting down the government to fund free health care for undocumented immigrants and suggesting Schumer is acting out of self interest to avoid a primary challenge in 2028.
“Democrats are fighting for free health care for illegal aliens. And at the end of the day, that's not even what they're fighting for. What they're really fighting for is their left wing base that hates Donald Trump,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose push to defund President Barack Obama’s signature health care law in 2013 propelled a shutdown, told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday night.
Trump amplified Republicans’ immigration message in a vulgar, artificial intelligence-generated video mocking Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that he posted after a meeting Monday with congressional leaders from both parties.
Republicans are also highlighting the shutdown’s impacts — like cutting funding for Head Start programs — in Democratically controlled swing areas. The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a digital ad Wednesday hitting Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who voted against the plan to avert a government closure Tuesday, over how the shutdown will affect military families and veterans who may see delays in getting their paychecks and benefits. The NRSC also plans to blast out the ad to voters in a text campaign.
Ossoff is running for reelection in one of the Senate’s few tossup seats next year.
Georgia Democrats, however, are already blaming Trump for losing health care access. In Georgia and Virginia, several rural health care clinics recently announced closures explicitly tied to Medicaid changes under the megalaw officially called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And if the Affordable Care Act tax credits expire, 750,000 people across the Peach State could lose access to health insurance by 2034, according to KFF.
Seth Clark, a Georgia Democrat and Macon mayor pro tempore, dismissed attacks on Ossoff as ineffective, saying he anticipates Georgians will blame the party in charge for the shutdown as they see government services shutter.
“I definitely don't think a 30-second spot with a scary voice is going to be the one who pins that tail on the donkey,” Clark said. “It's who called for negotiations and who walked away.”
Democrats are scrambling to keep their nascent crusade against President Donald Trump’s national redistricting push from fizzling out.
House Democrats are considering establishing an organization to raise and spend for their remapping efforts as they look to counter an aggressive Republican move that could determine control of the chamber next year, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has privately discussed redistricting with blue-state governors, according to another person.
The Center for American Progress is urging blue states to abandon their independent redistricting commissions. And, through private strategy sessions and public appeals, Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu is asking Democrats across red and blue states to take a no-holds-barred approach to resisting GOP redistricting. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin praised Wu during a meeting in Minneapolis last week for “igniting a national movement within this party.”
“This is an all-out call to arms,” Wu, who helped lead Texas Democrats’ quorum break, said in an interview. “That chorus of 'everyone needs to get off their ass and do something' is growing louder and louder. And more and more elected Democrats who are seen as doing nothing — their commitment to our country is going to be questioned.”
But Democrats face a lopsided fight.
They’re hamstrung by constitutional restrictions or independent commissions in some states, while Republicans are generally free of those legal barriers and have leadership trifectas in Indiana, Florida, Missouri and Ohio, promising state lawmakers fewer restrictions to draw Democratic rivals out of their seats. Florida's constitution has language restricting partisan gerrymandering, though its conservative-majority state Supreme Court recently upheld a GOP redraw.
Against this backdrop, Democrats are grasping for ways to counter Trump’s maximalist campaign to redraw congressional maps to protect Republicans’ three-seat House majority in the midterms. With a counteroffensive already underway in California, Democrats are turning to other blue states to take up the charge — and finding some open-minded participants in governors with 2028 ambitions.
Democrats see the promise of netting three seats in Maryland and Illinois, whose governors — Wes Moore and JB Pritzker, respectively — have spoken with Jeffries about redistricting, according to one person granted anonymity to describe those private conversations. The minority party is also eyeing a pickup opportunity in Utah, after a judge ruled the state must redraw its map. Jeffries has also spoken with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, though any changes in the Empire State are unlikely before 2028 and thus wouldn’t impact the upcoming midterms.
One national Democratic operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the tumultuous situation, described jumping into the redistricting arms race as “the price for entry to the 2028 presidential primary.”
Caifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose popularity is soaring as he emerges as Democrats’ remapping champion, has been encouraging his counterparts to follow his lead, saying at POLITICO’s California Summit Wednesday, “We’re going to have to see other governors move in a similar direction.”
An array of party officials and organizations are lining up.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee is fielding calls, providing technical support and legal expertise to state leaders looking at their own congressional maps, according to a person directly familiar with their efforts.
Wu, the Texas House Democrats leader, discussed messaging and other tactics with legislators from seven states where Republicans are eyeing redistricting during a Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee strategy session last week, per a summary of the call provided to POLITICO. And former President Barack Obama called Texas state Rep. James Talarico — a potential U.S. Senate candidate — to voice support for his role in his state's redistricting battle.
But in some states, messaging is all Democrats can do. Republicans in Indiana, for example, hold a supermajority and can pass any map without a single Democrat in the chamber.
It's not just Democratic officials who are getting involved. Unions that banded together to condemn Republicans’ gerrymandering in Texas are now pledging to put manpower behind Newsom’s ballot campaign in California and holding strategy discussions about combating Trump’s next moves in other states. And activists affiliated with the progressive group Indivisible have made roughly 5,000 calls to governors and lawmakers across 15 states with Democratic trifectas urging them to responsively redistrict.
“This isn’t something we had to go pitch people on the importance of. This is something people were banging down our doors about,” said Andrew O’Neill, Indivisible’s national advocacy director.
And it “does seem that this is something that has broken through with these governors and has the potential to create what I’ve been calling a productive ambition,” O’Neill said. “These people might be thinking about future job prospects for themselves and they view being a leader in this fight as a route to do that.”
Democrats’ pressure campaign is struggling in Colorado, Washington and Oregon, whose governors have all but closed the door to redistricting, and the party lacks the legislative means or the interest to change their maps.
Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib sent a recent memo to county officers outlining the near-insurmountable challenges in mimicking California’s ballot campaign, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO. Petitions attempting to circumvent the state’s independent redistricting commission are being filed without the state party’s backing.
Washington Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen shut down the possibility in a letter to a concerned constituent shared with POLITICO, noting Washington’s Democratic-heavy congressional delegation already does not reflect the political makeup of the state. And state Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad acknowledged “lots of pressure and desire” to take up redistricting, but pointed to a broad recognition that it’s “practicably impossible.”
On the East Coast, New Jersey Democrats are similarly hamstrung by state constitutional issues and though Moore told POLITICO "everything's on the table" when it comes to redistricting, a state court tossed Maryland Democrats' previous attempt to gerrymander.
But Democratic activists are increasingly discontent to let anyone in their party sit on the sidelines as they fight what they view as Trump’s latest power grab.
“These are serious times, and I’m not sure how much more serious things have to be for [Democratic governors] to get off their ass and get in the batters box and swing for the fences,” said California-based Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo. “This is infuriating.”
Natalie Fertig and Brakkton Booker contributed to this report.
Donald Trump has strong-arming Congress down to a science. Now his redistricting gambit is putting his methods through a stress test.
It’s a strategy of intensifying levels of private coercion and public threats of consequence, driven by Trump and amplified by aides and allies behind closed doors and through the online MAGA echo chamber: White House visits, calls from the president, online insults and even primary threats.
That machine is whirring into gear again as the White House pushes Texas, Missouri and Indiana to gerrymander their congressional districts to protect Republicans’ House majority in the midterms. Vice President JD Vance and top aides have been dispatched to Indiana and staffers have phoned into Missouri. Trump is summoning Hoosier Republicans to the White House next week. Both his political operation and right-wing influencers have begun floating primary challenges.
“These folks are not sitting around thinking about redistricting. But in an instant, Trump can prioritize that issue for them and subsequently he can mobilize them on his behalf,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who has worked for House GOP leadership and on presidential campaigns. “I think he recognizes that formidable power and he’s willing to apply it far and wide.”
Now that redistricting pressure campaign is providing a significant test of whether the approach Trump has near-perfected within his governing trifecta in D.C. can translate beyond the beltway.
Every president has the power of the bully pulpit, wielding the heft of the Oval Office and inside-the-beltway pressure tactics to advance his agenda. But Trump also retains a uniquely powerful hold over the most enthusiastic voters in the GOP, and is able to leverage the grassroots support of his MAGA movement and Truth Social platform to compound pressure on any resistant Republicans to accede to his demands.
Marrying the two, Trump has a singular strategy that he’s employed to great effect so far this term to compel Republican lawmakers into supporting his appointees and legislative agenda.
There are very few exceptions, in part because Trump has made clear the consequences for dissent. Trump and his team have repeatedly threatened primary challenges for GOP lawmakers who do not bend to his will, going as far as standing up a super PAC that’s raising millions of dollars to target Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) for voting against the “big, beautiful bill.” And the White House is vetting potential primary challengers to Massie, including Kentucky state Sen. Aaron Reed, who traveled to Washington for a meeting last month, two people familiar with the trip confirmed to POLITICO.
“Incumbent presidents have broad sway over their party…The only real difference is that Trump will operate with language and threats we haven’t seen from other presidents,” said Doug Heye, a GOP strategist who has worked for House Republican leadership. “He’s more YOLO than lame duck.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Now Trump and his team are trying their playbook on GOP governors and state lawmakers as they push as many red states as possible into mid-decade redistricting. They are on the cusp of success in Texas, where the Republican-controlled Legislature is imposing a new map designed to net the party five seats.
Missouri Republicans are widely expected to follow suit when they return to Jefferson City in September for their annual veto session — despite still smarting from a knock-down, drag-out redistricting fight just two years ago in which they ultimately rejected drawing an additional GOP district.
While Republicans in the state Legislature are reluctant to revisit the difficult inter-party politics at play, the Trump administration is working to force them to submit anyway, calling up Gov. Mike Kehoe and local lawmakers who have expressed skepticism about the effort.
There’s also a less direct form of pressure at play — one that has guided GOP decision-making throughout Trump’s time as the party’s standard-bearer.
“No one wants to be seen as anti-administration or anti-Trump,” said a Missouri GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about private deliberations. “That does not do anyone any good when they go back to their district.”
But the potential limits of Trump’s pressure-campaign playbook are showing in Indiana, where Republicans are so far resisting a more intensive — and public — push. That includes several GOP state lawmakers who have publicly panned the effort, with one hard-right representative slamming it as "politically optically horrible.”
The White House dispatched Vance and top administration aides to Indiana to pitch the governor and GOP legislative leaders on gerrymandering the map. White House Intergovernmental Affairs Director Alex Meyer, in his personal capacity, hascalled several lawmakers to press them to redistrict. A group called Forward America flooded voters’ phones with robocalls and text messages urging them to call their lawmakers to back the effort. Trump’s political operation is considering primarying lawmakers who refuse to fall in line — a threat amplified by MAGA influencer and Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk.
As the pressure mounted, all seven of Indiana's Republican representatives in Congress issued a series of rapid-fire statements over six hours on Monday supporting Trump’s redistricting push — a clearly coordinated piling-on of pressure as state House Republicans huddled behind closed doors. The state’s two Republican senators backed the effort the following morning.
But progress remains elusive: Gov. Mike Braun is still undecided on whether to call a special session to advance a new map, and GOP resistance is still flaring from within the state house.
Trump and his team show no signs of letting up, bullish about Republicans’ advantages in the redistricting arms race that has exploded between red and blue states. The administration is planning to court more than four dozen Indiana Republicans — including the state House speaker and Senate president — at the White House next week.
And Trump’s allies believe his ability to get his party to fall in line on his agenda is nearly infinite.
“As Trump has said before: The party is what I say it is,” said David Urban, a Trump 2016 campaign adviser and longtime ally. “And that is largely true.”
Adam Wren contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misidentified the state Vance visited. It was Indiana.
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