GOP Projected to Lose About Two-Thirds of the 15 Districts It Redrew Before the Midterms

Republicans spent the last two years redrawing congressional maps to lock in a House majority. Democrats are now projected to take the House anyway.

Of the 15 seats Republicans redrew to try to flip, ABC News projected as of Wednesday evening, Nov. 4, that the GOP would lose about two-thirds. CNN's tally has Democrats holding at least 11 of the 15 targeted districts. It also has them flipping all six of the seats they targeted in their own counter-redistricting. Exact counts differ by a seat or two depending on which uncalled races each tally includes.

Texas: the map that started it

Texas Republicans, at President Trump's urging, redrew the state's map in 2025 to try to gain five seats. Democrats won four of the five targeted districts, according to results compiled by The Epoch Times and CNN.

In the open 9th District, Democrat Leticia Gutierrez beat Republican Alex Mealer by 15 points. Cook Political Report had rated the seat likely Republican. Polls had Mealer ahead by 1 to 6 points.

Rep. Henry Cuellar won the 28th with more than 65 percent of the vote. A Texas Southern University poll had him up 11. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez took the 34th with 55.6 percent. Bexar County sheriff's deputy Johnny Garcia won the 35th with 55.43 percent, in a district Trump carried by 10 points in 2024.

Republicans held one: Jace Yarbrough won the 32nd, 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent.

The damage went past the five targeted seats. In the Rio Grande Valley, Democrat Bobby Pulido unseated two-term Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz. Cook Political Report said Trump would have won the redrawn district by 18 points in 2024. In the 23rd, Democrat Katy Padilla Stout beat Republican Brandon Herrera. Voters there had not elected a Democrat since 2012.

Jon Taylor, chair of the political science department at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told The Daily Wire that Republicans may have been overconfident that Latino voters would stay put. He said they should be seen as swing voters. Senator-elect James Talarico, who beat Republican Ken Paxton, said Democrats had taken South Texas for granted and that he showed up there.

Florida, Ohio, Alabama

Florida Republicans drew four districts to favor their party. Democratic Reps. Kathy Castor and Jared Moskowitz and newcomer Pia Dandiya are projected winners in three of them. Rep. Darren Soto's 9th District had not been projected as of ABC's latest update, though Fox News reported him narrowly ahead.

Florida was not a washout for the GOP overall. Rep. Byron Donalds won the governor's race, and every Republican incumbent in the state kept his or her seat.

In Ohio, a push to make districts held by Democratic Reps. Greg Landsman and Marcy Kaptur friendlier to Republicans failed. Both are projected winners.

In Alabama, Republicans redrew the map after the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision, which Democrats and Black leaders say gutted the Voting Rights Act. Rep. Shomari Figures still won, by eight points, according to Mother Jones.

Republicans did flip at least one redrawn seat, Tennessee's 9th, per ABC's tally. Louisiana's 6th and North Carolina's 1st were not yet projected in that tally.

Democrats' own gerrymanders worked

This was not a one-sided redraw. California Democrats responded with Proposition 50, which redrew five seats to favor their party. Democrats are projected to have picked up all five, plus one in Utah, for six total.

CNN also flagged a limit on the whole exercise. A party can win the seats a new map targets and still end up with fewer seats in a state if the redraw weakens its other districts.

Redistricting or the economy?

The cause of the backlash is disputed.

John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said Trump's gerrymandering "had a catastrophic impact for Republicans on the electoral results." Mother Jones argued that the redraws motivated Democrats to turn out in higher numbers. It reported that turnout in majority-Black Montgomery County, Alabama, rose from 36 percent in 2022 to 50 percent in 2026.

Candidates on the ground pointed elsewhere. "It doesn't matter what your district lines look like when people are paying $4 a gallon for gas," Figures said on the campaign trail. He also cited high diesel and fertilizer prices tied to the Iran war. Talarico said voters "desperately want to bring down costs."

Those explanations are not mutually exclusive, and none of the sources offers data that separates them.

Republicans had warnings. One House Republican, who spoke to Fox News Digital without being named, called the strategy "definitely the wrong move" and said it was overreach. Another person told Fox News Digital that Republicans in affected states had warned their governors for months.

What's still open

Florida's 9th, Louisiana's 6th and North Carolina's 1st were uncalled in ABC's last tally. ABC also showed Alaska's Senate race, where Democrat Mary Peltola led Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan by 0.3 points with about 75 percent of the expected vote counted. Results remain unofficial until states certify them.

The maps themselves now sit with the winners. Democrats are projected to hold the House under lines Republicans drew to prevent exactly that.