The administration has been testing a strategy of using the courts as leverage to force political outcomes. In Texas, the state’s leaders and conservative activists have been willing, if not eager, collaborators.

Republicans are plowing forward with plans for redistricting in several other states now that Texas is poised to approve its newly redrawn maps. The Lone Star State kicked off the redistricting arms race when Republicans in the state Legislature agreed to move forward with rewriting their congressional lines at the insistence of President Trump.

The two largest U.S. states have launched a congressional mid-decade redistricting war, and several other states are joining the fray ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, which Democrats hope will mark the end of Republicans’ control of the federal government.

It all amounts to the opening salvo in what is likely to become a national showdown to grasp power through gerrymandering.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s push to secure GOP congressional seats sparked a Democratic walkout, drew cameras from coast to coast and also gave California Gov. Gavin Newsom a new stage.