Protesters gather in Milwaukee's Cathedral Square to march and rally as part of the No Kings Day protests nationwide. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Voting rights activists continue to be divided over gerrymandering. Here in Wisconsin, members of the Fair Maps Coalition, who just recently succeeded in getting representative voting maps for our state, are understandably alarmed by escalating threats to gerrymander the whole country, as Wisconsin Public Radio reports.

“I just hate it at its core,” Wisconsin League of Women Voters Executive Director Debra Cronmiller told WPR of the gerrymandering duel between Texas and California, as each state seeks to carve out more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“We can’t save democracy by suppressing voters, and this has to be an opportunity to think about a new process and standards, especially in Wisconsin,” iuscely Flores, Wisconsin Fair Maps organizing director, told WPR.

But the president and CEO of Common Cause, the national organization dedicated to voting rights and fair elections, told members last week that the group “won’t call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarianism.”

The Common Cause position is tricky. On the one hand the group reaffirms its commitment to nonpartisan redistricting commissions. On the other hand it gives its blessing to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to suspend exactly the sort of nonpartisan commission the group endorses — and which Wisconsin fair maps advocates have long been fighting for. Supposedly, suspending the commission is a temporary measure while Democrats in the legislature draw up gerrymandered districts in time for the midterms. After they do that, Common Cause, Newsom and various Democrats claim California can undo the gerrymander later and restart the fight for fair maps. Really?

“Independent redistricting commissions are one way — and by far the best way — to draw fair maps and achieve fair representation for every single American,” Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause president and CEO wrote in a letter to the group’s members. But, a follow-up email from Common Cause reiterated the group’s non-opposition to Newsom’s plan in California, saying, “As the nation’s leading anti-gerrymandering advocacy group, we understand that Trump and Republican leaders’ attempt to lock in unaccountable power poses a generational threat to our ability to decide our own futures.”

Maggie Daun brought up those same dire threats on her Civic Media radio show when she grilled me about my last column arguing that we can’t gerrymander our way back to democracy. What if this is the existential moment and Trump is about to send troops into cities across the U.S. and destroy democracy, Daun asked. I agree with her that we’re in an existential moment. But just because we want Democrats to do something to stop Trump, as so many people so passionately do, that doesn’t mean that gerrymandering to get a narrow Democratic majority in the House is the right thing to do. For one thing, a new House majority won’t be seated until 2027 and won’t fix the immediate crisis.

Trump is already sending troops into Democratic cities. And his plan to try more federal takeovers will likely unfold before the midterms. What we need right now is a massive popular movement to resist authoritarian overreach, local leaders who stand up to Trump, and courts that continue to hold the line on his administration’s assault on the rule of law.

The courts have played the biggest role in restraining Trump so far, issuing injunctions and blocking his orders Their power has been badly limited by the U.S. Supreme Court, which curtailed judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions and greenlighted some egregious administrative actions. The current Supreme Court majority has also helped Trump’s larger project of dismantling democracy by gutting the Voting Rights Act and by allowing partisan gerrymandering — which delayed but ultimately did not derail Wisconsin’s efforts to get fair maps.

Common Cause has led the fight against both partisan gerrymandering and the destruction of voting rights. On Saturday, the group declared a National Day of Action, with rallies in communities across the country, including in Wisconsin, to resist Trump’s Texas gerrymandering scheme and his unprecedented deployment of federal troops to run roughshod over local communities. But the group’s message is somewhat muddled, mixing strong language about fairness and voting rights with tolerance for the prospect of blue-state counter-gerrymandering.

One good thing about the gerrymandering brushfire spreading across the nation is that it has provoked a bipartisan backlash. Republicans in New York and California, facing the prospect of being drawn out of their seats, have begun speaking out against the gerrymandering plan for Texas, Politico reports.

Some quick math suggests that Republicans are likely to win a nationwide redistricting war that pulls in Missouri, Indiana, Florida and other red states. But Republicans who are in a minority in California and New York are still worried about losing their seats. “Redistricting is not really an ideological exercise as much as a self-interest exercise,” California-based GOP strategist Rob Stutzman told Politico. Hence blue state Republican House members are calling for their colleagues to stand down in Texas and other red states, lest they lose their seats in the blue state counter-gerrymander. 

Instead of looking to gerrymandering, which is unfair, diminishes democracy and escalates hyper partisanship, opponents of the Trump administration need to keep building a big, pro-democracy movement that unites a majority of the country against Trump’s authoritarian overreach.

Wisconsin could lead the way. 

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who has been holding town halls in Republican districts, reports being deluged with worried questions from both his own and his GOP colleagues’ constituents who don’t like the cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and Social Security staffing in the unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Most Americans don’t want to give away their health care, security and well-being so Elon Musk can get a tax cut.

Unfortunately, right-wing activists have played a long game, stacking the Supreme Court, blocking Democratic nominees, destroying the Voting Rights Act and putting the whole Heritage Foundation Project 2025 plan for authoritarianism in place. That won’t be undone in a single midterm election. But it is possible to leverage a broad-based populist movement of people who recognize it’s in their own interest to fight back. 

Hundreds of people came to the Capitol on Thursday, Oct. 28 2021 to testify against the new voting maps drawn by Republican legislative leaders which advocates characterized as 'gerrymandering 2.0' | Wisconsin Examiner photo

The drama in Texas, where President Donald Trump has demanded that Republicans quickly draw new GOP districts to thwart the will of the voters and ensure his party retains control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections, has created massive discord. 

Progressives and voting rights advocates are divided on whether California and New York should fight the Texas power grab by gerrymandering their own states, creating more safe Democratic seats, even if that means undermining fair maps and the authority of those states’ nonpartisan redistricting commissions.

In Wisconsin, which just got out from under one of the worst partisan gerrymanders in the U.S., and the impenetrable, outsized Republican majorities in the state Legislature it protected for a decade and a half, this issue hits particularly close to home.

It’s head-spinning to hear arguments for Democratic counter-gerrymandering in other states from the same people in Wisconsin who were recently crying out for fair maps. 

If Democrats are going to mount a serious challenge to the fascist takeover of our country by Trump and his minions, it’s hard to see how ceding the moral high ground and running roughshod over the principle that the will of the majority of voters should prevail is going to help. 

I get that it’s more satisfying to imagine a quick fix to the fascist takeover of every branch of government than to listen to a lot of vague talk about long-term plans to rebuild democracy. After all, election deniers and the architects of the Jan. 6 attack are now running the federal government, demanding access to voter lists across the country and deploying the FBI to arrest political opponents, including the Texas Democrats who’ve fled their state to stall the gerrymandering scheme there. 

But here in Wisconsin, where we’ve just finally beaten back the most gerrymandered map in the country, it’s depressing to imagine Democrats abandoning the high ground and scrambling to do exactly what Republicans did when they controlled all three branches of government, attempting to lock in permanent political control against the will of the people.

If we want democracy, fairness, and the rule of law, we need to champion, well, democracy, fairness and the rule of law. 

In this most extreme political moment, with every public institution and the continued existence of U.S. democracy in doubt, I understand why the long view frustrates people. The emergency is now. I understand that many voters want to see Democrats “fight fire with fire,” as Newsom put it.

But consider this: Republicans control more state legislatures (28 Republican versus 18 controlled by Democrats) and have trifecta control of all branches of government in more states (23 all-GOP states versus 15 all-Democratic). JD Vance just launched a tour of Republican states to encourage more mid-decade gerrymandering. And Trump wants to hold a new census for the purpose of redefining who can vote. Even if Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hochul succeed in gerrymandering California and New York, Democrats are not likely to win the nationwide redistricting war.

Meanwhile, democracy will be the first casualty of that war. California and New York would have to suspend the work of their nonpartisan redistricting commissions — the gold standard for fair, nonpartisan map-drawing — and take back partisan control of the process in order to carry out their threats. If they succeed, it is beyond unlikely that the politicians who pull off that short-term victory will ever cede back their power over the voting maps to the nonpartisan commissions again.

On a deeper level, the Democratic gerrymandering fantasy takes the whole movement to oppose Trump in exactly the wrong direction. Instead of building grassroots support to counter an unpopular, authoritarian leader, it rigs the system to benefit a party whose whole problem is that it has lost the broad, popular support it needs to win elections and create a better, more enlightened government. 

Instead of trying to rig the maps to ensure a Democratic House majority in the next election, Democrats need to focus on winning elections and flipping seats in areas of the rural and industrial Midwest that were once reliably blue but have turned deep red.

To do that they need to make the case that health care, education and an adequate social safety net are bedrock rights in the richest nation on earth, and that we should not be giving tax breaks to billionaires by taking food out of the mouths of hungry children. 

They need to offer something to the farmers and factory workers and disaffected voters in rural and urban areas alike that is clearly different and better than the hate, corruption, and a determination to run roughshod over democracy that Republicans offer.

In Wisconsin, voting rights groups have been working on a campaign to push through a constitutional amendment modeled on one in our neighboring state of Michigan, to make sure that our voting maps are never again drawn up by partisan legislators.

That’s the kind of grassroots fight that helped Wisconsin finally overcome Republican gerrymandering. One important aspect of the fair maps movement is the way it engaged citizens to feel like participants, not spectators, in democracy, and to find their common interests instead of focusing on the politics of division. This, not more politicians in safe seats who don’t have to listen to voters, is what we need right now. 

The battle to beat back fascism does not turn on a handful of Democrats in protected districts. It turns on an organized uprising by the majority of people in the U.S. who are willing to join together despite their differences because they are sick and tired of having their democracy stolen from them, along with their health, safety, opportunity and hope. There’s no short cut to leading that fight. 

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Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, left, and Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, right, listen as Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu speaks to reporters during a press conference at the DuPage County Democratic Party headquarters on Aug. 3, 2025 in Carol Stream, Illinois. Wu was with a group of Democratic Texas lawmakers who left the state so a quorum could not be reached during a special session called to redistrict the state. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Fueled by President Donald Trump’s aims to bolster the U.S. House’s razor-thin GOP majority in the 2026 midterm elections, a rare mid-decade redistricting fight in Texas grew increasingly bitter in recent days and engulfed other states.

As Democratic legislators in the Lone Star State fled to block a new congressional map, a handful of both blue and red states eyed their own redistricting plans, lawsuits cropped up and members of Congress pledged bills to curb redistricting wars.

While Texas is the only state that has so far taken formal action to redraw its U.S. House lines, a full-blown arms race could be imminent.

Here’s a breakdown on the redistricting battle as the drama unfolds:

How did all of this interest in redistricting kick off?

Republicans in Texas drew a new congressional map at the urging of Trump that could give the GOP five crucial new congressional seats in 2026.

Midterm elections typically lead to the loss of congressional seats for a president’s party. 

Meanwhile, the GOP currently holds 219 seats in the House, while Democrats hold 212 spots, with four vacancies. That extremely narrow majority has created immense challenges for U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, as he tries to enact Trump’s sweeping agenda and cater to the president’s demands as well as factions in the GOP conference.

Though congressional districts are typically redrawn every decade following each U.S. Census, the move, particularly in Texas, is not unprecedented and is allowed.

What’s going on in Texas?

Texas Republicans unveiled a draft of the new congressional map in late July, which looks to reshape and flip major metro areas’ districts held by Democrats.

According to The Texas Tribune, the Department of Justice sent Texas’ leaders a letter in early July that said four of its districts violate the U.S. Constitution. The proposed map would dismantle those districts, per the Tribune.

More than 50 of Texas’ Democratic legislators left the state to try to block the legislature from adopting the new map, according to the Tribune.

This move has drawn the ire of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who went so far as to file a lawsuit asking to remove the Texas House Democratic Caucus chair, state Rep. Gene Wu, after Wu left the state.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also said Tuesday that he will pursue a court ruling that declares the seats vacant for the House Democrats who do not return by Friday.

Texas GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has also called on the FBI “to take any appropriate steps to aid in Texas state law enforcement efforts to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state.” Trump on Tuesday, asked by a reporter if the FBI should “get involved,” said, “Well, they may have to.”

How is California reacting?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been among the most vocal Democratic governors in suggesting retaliating against Texas Republicans by redrawing his populous blue state’s own lines before the 2026 elections.

State laws in California and other Democratic states make mid-decade redistricting tougher than it is in Texas.

While pro-democracy groups have praised California’s nonpartisan commission as the “gold standard” of independent redistricting, Newsom has indicated he would ask state lawmakers to temporarily scrap it to join the arms race he says Trump started in Texas.

At a Monday press conference, Newsom justified his exploration of mid-decade redistricting in the Golden State by describing Trump’s recent and historic record as anti-democratic.

“These folks don’t play by the rules,” Newsom said. “If they can’t win playing the game with the existing set of rules, they’ll change the rules. That’s what Donald Trump has done … Here is someone who tried to break this country, tried to light democracy on fire on Jan. 6. He recognizes he’s going to lose in the midterms.”

What other states are looking at potentially redistricting?

Vice President JD Vance is slated to visit Indiana Thursday in an attempt to push redistricting, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Indiana GOP Gov. Mike Braun said that as of now, no commitments have been made, when asked about redistricting efforts in the Hoosier State, per the Capital Chronicle.

Leaders of large Democratic states, in addition to California, are considering their own redistricting in response to Texas.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote in an op-ed published in the Houston Chronicle Tuesday that she would “not sit on the sidelines” and watch “Republicans dismantle democracy.”

“What Texas is doing isn’t a clever strategy, it’s political arson — torching our democracy to cling to power,” Hochul wrote. “The only viable recourse is to fight fire with fire.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker appeared alongside Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and a group of exiled Texas Democratic lawmakers at a news conference Tuesday. Pritzker said it was “possible” the state would pursue redistricting, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Other Democratic governors — even including Laura Kelly of ruby-red Kansas — raised the prospect during a Democratic Governors Association meeting in Wisconsin last week of pursuing mid-decade redistricting if Texas follows through.

Republican states are also considering jumping in the fray.

Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican, told a news radio station last week that it was “likely” lawmakers would convene in a special session to redraw district lines after pressure from Trump.

And Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who holds the most competitive of Nebraska’s three U.S. House seats but plans to step down, told the Nebraska Examiner that Republicans in the state were having conversations about potential redistricting.

What downside do some see?

An arms race to shorten the cycle for redrawing congressional lines could come at a cost for efforts to overhaul the redistricting process.

Common Cause, a national pro-democracy group that advocates for election reforms including nonpartisan redistricting, urged Democrats not to respond to Texas.

A redistricting arms race would only result in “rigged elections across America,” Emily Eby French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, said on a press call last week. It was wrong for Republicans to put “a thumb on the scale” through redistricting, she said, but also wrong for Democrats to do the same.

“The real solution is for Democrats to help us lift the Republican thumb off of the Texas scale and every other scale in America until we reach free and fair elections for everyone.”

Are party leaders egging this on?

Trump, whose urging appeared to prompt Texas Republicans to action, has consistently pushed lawmakers in that state to reinforce the GOP advantage there.

Tuesday, he said on CNBC that Republicans were “entitled” to five more House seats in Texas.

Martin, the DNC chair, responded in Illinois.

“No party is entitled to any district,” he said. “We have to go out and earn the votes.”

Still, Martin advised Democrats in blue states to do the opposite by responding in kind to Texas Republicans.

In an interview with States Newsroom last week, Martin suggested Democratic states drop any commitment to nonpartisan redistricting in response to Texas.

“We’re not here to tie one of our hands behind our back,” he said. “We can’t be the only party that’s playing by the rules.”

How is Congress reacting?

At least two GOP House lawmakers — representing blue states looking at retaliatory redistricting efforts against Trump — are taking it upon themselves to introduce bills in Congress that bar these initiatives.

GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California introduced a bill in the House this week that would ban mid-decade redistricting across the country.

Kiley said Newsom “is trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California,” in a statement earlier this week.

“Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”

Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, also said he plans to introduce legislation to prohibit “partisan gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting.”

The New York Republican told CNN on Tuesday that “this is fundamentally why Congress is broken,” adding that “you do not have competitive districts and so, most members are focused on primaries and not actually engaging in a general election.” 

From left, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Kentucky Gov. Tony Evers said Democratic governors need to respond "in kind" to GOP mid-decade redistricting that's intended to protect the Republican House majority. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.)

MADISON — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and other Democratic governors said responding “in kind” to Republican mid-decade redistricting is necessary at a Friday Democratic Governors Association press conference.

Kelly said she thinks courts would rule that redrawn maps from Republicans and Democrats are unconstitutional. If Republicans take this path, however, Democratic governors must also pursue mid-decade redistricting to “protect the American people,” she said.

“It’s incumbent upon Democratic governors, if they have the opportunity, to respond in-kind,” Kelly said. “Things are bad enough in Washington right now. What it would look like if there’s even a greater majority that this President controls — God help the United States of America.”

Kelly and other Democratic governors were in Madison for the DGA’s summer policy conference. 

Discussion over redistricting ahead of midterm elections started in Texas, where President Donald Trump’s political team pressured state leaders to redraw its map to gain more seats in the U.S. House and help Republicans maintain their congressional majority in 2026. Trump said a “very simple redrawing” of the state’s maps could help pick up five seats. 

Redistricting, the process of redrawing state legislative and congressional district boundaries, typically happens every ten years after the U.S. Census. 

Other Republican-led states, including Florida and Ohio, also said they would look at redrawing their maps mid-decade.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was not at the press conference, was the first Democrat to float the idea of gerrymandering the Democratic state to have fewer Republican seats in response. Democrats in New York and Maryland have also been looking for a path to gain additional seats in their states as well. 

None of the governors at the press conference said they would pursue that route but said they supported those that had a path to use it. Kelly joked that she “could” do mid-decade redistricting. “But what would I do? I’d just give them another Republican.” 

Evers said the blatant direction from Trump to pursue redistricting is a “constant threat to our democracy.” 

“I’m really pissed frankly, and we’re going to do whatever we can do to stop this,” Evers said, adding that Wisconsin would not be changing its maps. He said the state has already worked hard to “get fair maps.”

The Republican-led Legislature and Evers adopted new maps for the state Legislature in 2024 following a state Supreme Court ruling. Some have been calling for new Congressional maps, though those efforts have so far been rejected by the state Supreme Court. 

Wisconsin’s current congressional maps were drawn in 2022 by Evers and selected by the state Supreme Court with a conservative majority at the time. Democrats and their allies filed a new challenge to the maps in Dane County Circuit Court in July, arguing they are unconstitutional because they’re anti-competitive. Republicans currently represent six of Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts. 

“Because of those fair [state legislative] maps that we had, we were able to pass a relatively bipartisan budget, and it was a good budget, and so, in my heart of hearts, this is where we have to be, but… when you have a gun up against your head, you gotta do something,” Evers said.

“This move is unconstitutional. It’s again breaking the system. It’s, again, meant to game the system,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said. “Democrats are expected to have the decorum — we’re expected to protect the institutions, we’re expected to follow the rules on this.”

The times call for a different approach, however, he argued. 

“We’re not playing with a normal administration,” Walz said. “We’re playing with one that has thrown all the rules out of there… I think it is incumbent upon states that have the capacity or the ability to make sure that we are responding in kind.”

Governors criticize GOP over effects of the Republican megabill 

The Democratic governors also warned about the potential effects of Republicans’ federal reconciliation package. Kelly, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, said government systems and programs being cut are not set up for states to operate on their own. 

“They were set up with the federal government as a very robust partner, and without them being a partner, there is no way that any of our states will be able to pick up the tail,” Kelly said. “The best we could do is perhaps mitigate the pain, but even that will be difficult.” 

The legislation, ” signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, made major changes to the federal Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Trump and Republicans in Congress are “trying to gut programs that Wisconsin families count on,” Evers said. “They’re willing to break our constitutional system to make that happen.” 

The megabill is just one tool, he suggested. “Whether it’s the Republican budget or the continued illegal action to fire Wisconsin workers, strip funds away from our state, damage public education, we have to fight.” 

A memo released this week by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that the exact effects of the federal reconciliation law on Medicaid and FoodShare in Wisconsin are uncertain, but will likely result in fewer enrollees.

Currently, about one in five Wisconsin residents rely on Medicaid for health care coverage. 

“The full impact of the Act’s Medicaid provisions on the state’s MA enrollment and costs remains uncertain,” the fiscal bureau memo states. “This is partly because some of the details of implementation requirements will depend upon forthcoming federal guidance, but also because the eligibility and enrollment requirements are new for the program and so little is known about their actual effects.” 

Starting in January 2027, childless adults will be required to complete 80 hours per month of paid work, school, employment training or community service per month to maintain their Medicaid eligibility. There are about 184,000 childless adults currently enrolled in Wisconsin. DHS estimates that 63,000 Wisconsinites will be at high risk of losing their coverage.

The LFB memo said that enrollment will likely drop due to the work requirement provisions. 

“Enrollment reductions could occur either because of the additional complexity of the application process or because the work requirements cause some individuals to increase their earnings to above the eligibility threshold. The magnitude of the program disenrollment, and associated reduction in [Medicaid] benefits costs, is uncertain,” the memo states. 

The governors warned that hospitals still face a difficult environment under the federal law. 

“Our rural hospitals in particular are extremely at risk,” Kelly of Kansas said. “We’ve already closed 10 of them in those 10 years and many more are on the brink, and this reconciliation bill is going to throw them over the edge.” 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said 35 hospitals are at risk in his state, making it the state with the most hospitals at risk in the nation. 

“Donald Trump’s big ugly bill is the single worst, most devastating piece of legislation that I have seen in my lifetime. It is a direct attack on rural America,” Beshear said. 

Three hospitals in Wisconsin have been identified as at risk of closure. 

Costs for the SNAP program will increase in Wisconsin as the law reduces the federal share of the program — known as FoodShare in Wisconsin — from 50% to 25%. This will leave states responsible for 75% of the costs, a change that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services estimates will require an additional $51 million annually from the state. 

The FoodShare program currently helps nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites access food, and nearly 90,000 Wisconsinites will be at risk of losing their benefits due to the new federal provisions, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. 

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee echoed concerns over the ability of the state  to pick up the gaps left by federal cuts in social programs.

“We’re not going to be able to absorb in funding what’s coming our way,” McKee said. “The taxpayers are going to pay for it in our states or the benefits are going to get reduced.” 

The law extends work requirements for SNAP recipients from the current top age of 54 to age 64. It narrows the work requirement exemption for caregivers and parents by changing the definition of “dependent child” from under 18 years of age to under 14, meaning that parents of 15- to 17-year-olds could now be required to have employment in return for their SNAP benefits. 

It provides an exception from work requirements for a married person responsible for a child under age 14 and residing with someone who complies with the work requirements. It also exempts individuals who are eligible for the Indian Health Services. 

“While Wisconsin just passed a Wisconsin budget that invests in our kids, cuts taxes for working families and supports our rural hospitals, Trump and Congressional Republicans are moving in just the opposite way,” Evers said. “Democratic governors aren’t going to just sit idly and watch it happen. When Trump tried to strip hospital funding, we moved real quickly to protect $1.5 billion dollars in health care funding for Wisconsin. When they threaten our schools, we stand up and fight back. When they attack programs that matter to working families, we find ways to fill the gaps.”

“Republican governors fall in line behind Trump’s agenda. Democratic governors are standing up for the people that we serve,” Evers said before mentioning 2026 elections. He said Wisconsinites will “make a choice about the future of our state when they elect our next governor. They’re going to choose a leader who will work together and expand health care, support working families and build an economy that works for everybody.”

Evers announced on July 24 that he would not be running for a third term in office, setting up the first open race for governor in Wisconsin since 2010.

“I know that [Evers’] leadership is not going to end just because the title might, and that he is going to be out there fighting for what he believes in moving into the future,” said Kentucky Gov Andy Beshear, who won’t be able to run for another term in 2027 due to term limits.

So far, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez has announced her campaign, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley is planning on entering the race and other Democrats are still mulling a decision. There will likely be a crowded Democratic primary. Two Republicans have officially launched their campaigns for governor, while U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany has been teasing a run.

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The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Tuesday, April 9, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

States led by Democrats should resist the temptation to conduct their own mid-decade redistricting in response to Republicans in the Texas Legislature moving to redraw U.S. House lines before the 2026 elections, officials with the nonpartisan election integrity group Common Cause said on a press call Tuesday.

While blasting Texas Republicans’ effort to remake congressional districts in the middle of a decade — instead of after the decennial census, as is typical — the officials said the creation of  nonpartisan redistricting commissions that take the job out of politicians’ hands was a better policy than joining a redistricting arms race.

Common Cause, a national organization with several state chapters, is often aligned with progressive causes, but advocates for fair redistricting regardless of party.

Emily Eby French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, said election infrastructure should be neutral, arguing against the suggestion from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats that blue states pursue mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage.

“Our election infrastructure is not supposed to have a thumb on the scale for either side,” French said.

“In Texas, conservatives press their thumbs so hard on the scale that it feels impossible to overcome,” she continued. “Maybe a quick fix would be to have Democrats press their thumbs on their own scales. But then it’s just rigged elections across America. The real solution is for Democrats to help us lift the Republican thumb off of the Texas scale and every other scale in America until we reach free and fair elections for everyone.”

Russia Chavis Cardenas, the deputy director for Common Cause California, added that Newsom should not “fight fire with fire.” Partisan redistricting processes inherently disadvantage communities of color, she said.

California’s independent redistricting commission, made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four nonpartisan members, is the “gold standard … (an) independent and community-led process,” Dan Vicuna, senior policy director for voting and fair representation at Common Cause’s national office, said.

The state should not sacrifice that model for short-term political gain, he said.

Texas redistricting

Republicans held a 220-215 advantage in the U.S. House following the 2024 elections. Those elections happened on district maps drawn after the 2020 census.

The GOP House majority was helped in part by Texas’ 2020 district map, which produced Republican wins in nearly two-thirds of the state’s districts.

Civil rights groups sued over the new lines, claiming that some districts discriminated against Black and Latino voters.

Texas Republicans resisted calls to redraw the lines, but the U.S. Justice Department this month sent a letter urging state leaders to reconsider.

The letter “was sloppily and transparently creating a pretext for Texas legislators to redraw the state’s gerrymandered congressional map and somehow gerrymander it even more in favor of Republicans,” Vicuna said Tuesday.

President Donald Trump quickly dissolved that pretext, putting the issue in nakedly political terms on a call with Texas Republicans. Trump said the state’s lines should be redrawn to create five additional U.S. House seats, the Texas Tribune reported. A president’s party typically loses congressional seats during midterm elections.

Following the letter, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called a special session to address redistricting, among other things.

Dem states respond

In addition to Newsom, leaders in the Democratic strongholds of New York and Illinois are considering retaliating by initiating their own mid-decade redistricting processes, according to a New York Times report.

Other prominent national Democrats are calling for the party to be more aggressive in redistricting.

U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego wrote on X last week that Democrats should break some heavily Democratic majority-minority districts to help win more seats.

In follow-up posts responding to replies, Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, wrote that Democrats should gerrymander districts in their favor.

“It’s bad when everyone does it,” the first-term senator and former House member wrote about gerrymandering. “But Dems should not unilaterally disarm till GOP does.”

Gallego’s post was retweeted by Jessica Post, a campaign strategist who previously led Democrats’ state legislative campaign arm. But the party’s current establishment is largely not commenting.

A July 23 memo to Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee contributors from Heather Williams, who succeeded Post as the group’s president, mentioned the Texas redistricting, but said it only raised the stakes for statehouse races in the next three election cycles in advance of 2030 redistricting.

“Today, as Donald Trump and his allies in the states are openly pushing to draw new, gerrymandered seats in Texas to protect the GOP’s meager House majority leading up to 2026, it’s clear this is just a preview of what’s to come,” Williams wrote. “The 2030 redistricting fight has already begun.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm for House Democrats, did not respond to a message seeking comment Tuesday.

Vicuna, with Common Cause, urged reporters to see redistricting not as a partisan conflict, but as an issue of voter representation.

“This familiar framing that makes redistricting entirely about a political fight between parties is also kind of the problem,” he said. “This is ultimately about fair representation for communities, getting to have a say, being at the table when decisions are made about whether they can have fair representation. And I think that’s what we’re really talking about here, not just the food fight between the parties.”

Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued two orders Wednesday, declining to hear cases challenging the constitutionality of the state’s congressional maps. 

Democrats had hoped that the liberal wing of the court retaining majority control of the body in this spring’s election would give them an opportunity to change the congressional lines. Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight congressional seats, and Democrats hoped they could flip the 1st and 3rd CDs under friendlier maps. 

Before Republicans drew new congressional lines in 2010, Democrats controlled five of the state’s seats. The current maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and approved by the state Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservatives. That Court had required that any proposed maps adhere to a “least change” standard that changed as little as possible from the 2010 maps. 

While Evers’ maps made the two competitive districts slightly closer contests, they’re still controlled by Republican U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden. 

The two lawsuits were brought by the Elias Law Group representing Democratic candidates and voters and the Campaign Legal Center on behalf of a group of voters. The cases argued the maps violated the state’s constitutional requirement that all voters be treated equally. 

The challenges against the maps drew national attention as Democrats hope to retake control of the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections. 

This is the second time in as many years that the Supreme Court, under a liberal majority, has declined to hear challenges to the congressional maps. 

In both cases, the Court issued unanimous decisions without any explanation as to why they weren’t accepting the cases. 

Aside from declining to hear the cases, Justice Janet Protasiewicz issued an order denying requests that she recuse herself from the case. Republicans have called for her recusal from redistricting cases because of comments she made during her 2023 campaign about Wisconsin’s need for fairer maps. Previously, after Protasiewicz joined the Court, as part of a new liberal majority, it declared the state’s legislative maps, which locked in disproportionate Republican majorities in the Legislature, unconstitutional. 

“I am confident that I can, in fact and appearance, act in an impartial manner in this case,” she wrote. “And the Due Process Clause does not require my recusal because neither my campaign statements nor contributions to my campaign create a ‘serious risk of actual bias.’”

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