Ahead of the midterms, Republicans in states across the U.S. redrew congressional maps in the hopes of increasing their chances of beating out Democrats come Election Day. But those efforts failed to stem the tide on Tuesday as a slew of Democratic victories, including in deep-red states, propelled the party to wrest control of the House from the GOP.
In states including Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Alabama, and Florida, Democrats pulled out wins in a number of districts that were reshaped in the effort to bolster Republican candidates, helping to fuel the biggest blue wave in 50 years.
Congressional maps are traditionally redrawn once a decade to adjust for population and demographic changes after national census data is released. In the summer of 2025, however, President Donald Trump pressed state Republicans to break with that tradition and redistrict mid-cycle—a push that multiple GOP-led states ultimately joined.
The party had hoped to gain as many as 10 additional seats nationwide as a result of the new maps. But political experts tell TIME that although redistricting can have a large impact on elections, in this instance it was no match for the challenge Republican candidates faced amid Americans’ historically low approval of Trump and his Administration ahead of the midterms, which they say soured many Americans toward the Republican party by the time Tuesday’s elections rolled around.
“There's only so much that redrawing the boundaries can do if your party is or your President is exceptionally unpopular,” Mark Jones, a professor of politics at Rice University, tells TIME. “One of the lessons was redrawing the maps was not enough to save Republicans in these districts.”
Here are some of the places where Democrats prevailed despite maps that were redrawn to favor Republicans—and why experts believe those maps failed to help the GOP add seats as they were intended to.
Texas
The mid-cycle redistricting battle started last year in Texas, where Republican lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional maps with the aim of netting the GOP up to five additional seats. When Election Day came, however, Democrats won in several redrawn districts.
Jones says that redistricting in Texas ultimately failed to produce the hoped-for results because it was based on the preferences of a key voting population from two years ago.
Many of the districts have high populations of Latino voters, who contributed to Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election but appear to have shifted notably toward Democrats in the midterms.
“Virtually the entire Texas redistricting plan was based on the premise that Latino voters, in particular, and other voters in general, would behave … like voters in 2024,” Jones says. He notes how much has changed since 2025 to make the President more unpopular, citing the war in Iran, Trump’s tariffs, his handling of the economy, and his aggressive immigration crackdown. These policy points, “combined with the president's combative nature and polarizing rhetoric and actions,” Jones says, “simply alienated a large number of independent voters who, in 2024, here in Texas, voted for the President.”
Jones says that Texas’ 9th District, which he describes as having been “created virtually out of whole cloth" into a new district for Republicans, exemplifies the impact of voters’ widespread disapproval of Trump. Democrat Leticia Gutierrez ultimately beat out Republican Alex Mealer in the race for the open seat, the AP called on Wednesday.
“This highlights the fact that while redistricting can potentially give one party an advantage, voters at the end of the day are the ones that render the verdict,” Jones says.
Alvaro Corral, a professor of political science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, tells TIME that in many newly redrawn districts in southern Texas—such as the 15th, where well-known Tejano musician Bobby Pulido flipped Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s seat, and the 34th, where Rep. Vicente Gonzalez secured re-election for a sixth term—voters were confused about which candidates represented them as a result of the newly drawn maps.
As a result, he contends, many Texans in those areas voted blue based on their enthusiasm for popular, celebrity-like Democratic candidates beyond their districts, or even their ballots. These candidates included James Talarico, who has been elected the state's first Democratic Senator since 1994; Pulido, who has won two Latin Grammys in his music career and is a “major local celebrity,” Corral says; and Gina Hinojosa, who hails from the Rio Grande Valley and took down Gov. Greg Abbott in the state's gubernatorial race.
With “generational talents” like those candidates boosting overall support for Democrats, on top of low approval for the Trump Administration, Democratic enthusiasm shone through in multiple districts, Corral says.
Ohio
Ohio, which was required under state law to redraw its maps ahead of the 2026 elections, enacted new district lines that reshaped two districts in Republicans’ favor. But the Democratic lawmakers representing both districts won re-election despite the change, the AP has called.
“The biggest failure on the Republicans' part in Ohio was their choice of districts,” David Niven, a professor of politics at the University of Cincinnati, tells TIME.
Republicans zoned in on Districts One, which includes part of Cincinnati, and Nine, which encompasses most of the northwestern portion of the state.
Niven argues that in District One, Republicans lost a “tremendous amount of ground” with affluent Republicans in suburban counties who have disassociated from the party as a result of Trump and his policies. “These used to be the Republican base, and it's slipping on them,” Niven says. “It shows some dangerous signs for Republicans that they've lost their grip on those ring counties.”
In District Nine, meanwhile, Niven asserts that incumbent Democrats were well liked and Republicans failed to produce a competitive candidate. “They went to the trouble of redrawing the map, and then didn't go to the trouble of finding a viable candidate,” he says. “You can draw a favorable district, but you can't make a candidate run for it.”
Rep. Greg Landsman ultimately held onto his seat in the 1st District, and Rep. Marcy Kaptur held onto hers in the 9th.
Niven contends that in addition to Trump’s actions, including the war in Iran and his hold on the economy, Ohioans also strayed from Republicans in those redrawn districts because GOP candidates failed to align with voters on the topic of data centers.
“In a lot of these districts, data centers are regarded as a clear and present danger,” he says. “Republicans were on the losing side of that conversation in Ohio, where Democrats were much more associated with fighting for the community's interest.”
North Carolina
“If you're looking for an example of Republican overreach on redistricting backfiring, North Carolina is probably Exhibit A,” Asher Hildebrand, a professor of political science at Duke University, says to TIME.
North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature approved new maps last year that redrew the state’s 1st District, represented by Democrat Don Davis, to improve Republicans’ chances of flipping the seat.
But Davis has defeated Republican Laurie Buckhout in the district to clinch another term, the AP has called.
Hildebrand says that the cost of living was the most important factor for North Carolina voters, which ultimately led them away from Trump and his party, as in other key races around the country.
“My sort of Occam's razor explanation for last night is that Trump told Americans to pretend he was on the ballot, and boy, did they ever,” Hildebrand says.
“They're pissed off,” he says of American voters, even those who have voted Republican in the past. “Trump promised them relief; he failed to deliver. They took that out on Republicans.”
Alabama
Ahead of the midterms, the Supreme Court allowed Alabama Republicans to restore 2023 congressional maps that were more favorable to Republicans but had previously been struck down as racially discriminatory, as they included only one majority-Black district.
The maps reshaped the state’s Second District, represented by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, bolstering Republicans’ chances of flipping the seat.
But Figures prevailed in his district despite the change, the AP has called, defeating Republican Rhett Marques. Richard Fording, a professor of political science at the University of Alabama, says there were three reasons for this.
The first, Fording says, is that the district “wasn't drawn to give Republicans a very big advantage.” With the new maps, the percentage of Black voters in the district dropped from nearly half of the district's population to 40%, maintaining strong representation. And the percentage of Hispanic voters increased slightly, Fording says, adding that this gave Figures a bump in support.
The second factor that worked against Republicans redistricting efforts was their timing, Fording says. Alabama’s maps changed in June, after the May primaries, which required a re-vote under the lines.
“It was crazy,” Fording says, noting that many voters weren’t happy with Republicans after they enacted the new maps. “You add just sort of insult to injury by making people go out and vote and then having them come out and vote again.”
The third reason Figures came out on top, Fording says, is what the expert refers to as the “Alabama factor.”
“Alabama is the cradle of the voting rights movement,” he says, referencing the activity of the Civil Rights Movement in his state leading up to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. “People literally died for that legislation. And that legislation, of course, was the foundation for the majority-minority districts we had here, including District Two.”
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which weakened a section of the Voting Rights Act intended to protect against racial discrimination in drawing electoral maps, Louisiana and other states—including Alabama—moved to eliminate majority-minority districts. Fording says that in response, Alabamians fought hard leading up to the midterms to mobilize Black voters for Democrats.
“Taking away that majority, redrawing that district in an attempt to essentially remove Shomari Figures and replace him with a Republican, I think especially angered a lot of Democrats and Black voters,” Fording says.
Fording adds that broader discontent with Trump and his party also contributed to greater-than-usual Democratic appeal in deep-red Alabama. “There's definitely just a statewide, kind of across the board anti-Republican effect,” he says.
Florida
Florida Republicans hoped to net their party up to four more seats under maps redrawn this spring.
But in District Fourteen, incumbent Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor defeated challenger Mike Beltran; Democrat Pia Dandiya won an open seat over Republican Casey Askar in District Twenty-Two; and incumbent Rep. Jared Moskowitz won in District Twenty-Five over Republican Scott Singer.
An extremely tight race is meanwhile playing out in the fourth Democratic-held district Republicans targeted, District Nine, where incumbent Rep. Darren Soto is up by less than one percentage point against Republican Dan Green as of Friday afternoon with 99% of votes counted. The Associated Race has not yet called the contest.
Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, adds that Republicans lost in districts that were redrawn due to using data from past elections that no longer reflects voters’ sentiments. “Voters wanted to have a check in Congress against the President,” he says. Smith adds that in redistricting with the aim of flipping Democratic seats, Republicans also jeopardized some of the 20 seats they already held in the state by diluting reliably conservative voters into those bluer districts, something the expert chalked up to “one word: greed.”
Sandra Pavelka, a political science professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, tells TIME that redistricting can only do so much in an election.
“The election exposed a major limitation of redistricting: changing district boundaries cannot guarantee that voters will support the party that drew them,” she says.
“These are particularly revealing,” she adds of the four districts Republicans targeted in Florida, “because the new districts had voted for Trump in 2024—in some cases, by substantial margins.”
