Donald Trump thought he had Democrats right where he wanted them.
But the courts just threw a wrench in his carefully laid plans.
And Ron DeSantis just got a nasty surprise after courts destroyed Donald Trump's master plan.
Texas court ruling puts Florida redistricting in jeopardy
President Trump launched an ambitious strategy this summer to help Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections.
The plan was simple: get Republican-controlled state legislatures to redraw congressional districts before the midterms to flip Democratic seats.
Texas led the charge, passing a new congressional map in August that could have given Republicans five additional seats.
California Democrats responded with their own redistricting plan that voters approved in early November, setting up a high-stakes battle for House control.
But a federal court in El Paso just blew up Trump's strategy with a devastating ruling.
A three-judge panel ruled November 18 that Texas cannot use its newly drawn congressional map because it amounts to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
"The public perception of this case is that it's about politics," U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote in the 160-page ruling. "To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map."¹
The court ordered Texas to use its previous map from 2021, which has resulted in Republicans holding 25 of the state's 38 House seats.
The new map would have increased GOP control to 30 seats.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott immediately appealed to the Supreme Court, but the damage was done.
If California's redistricting proceeds and Texas's doesn't, Democrats could gain a net advantage of five seats heading into 2026.
DeSantis scrambles as Florida becomes Trump's last hope
With Texas blocked, all eyes turned to Florida.
Governor Ron DeSantis has been pushing for months to redraw Florida's congressional map before the 2026 elections.
Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez scheduled the first meeting of the House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting for December 4.
DeSantis previously told supporters "I'm going to make the Legislature do redistricting" and predicted Republicans could flip as many as five Democratic-held seats.²
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1989400225140650002?s=20
The state currently has a 20-8 Republican advantage in its congressional delegation.
Florida Democrats hold seats in districts represented by Jared Moskowitz of Parkland, Kathy Castor of Tampa, and Darren Soto of Orlando that Republicans believe they can flip through redistricting.
But the Texas ruling creates a major legal problem for DeSantis.
Judge Brown's opinion focused heavily on how the Trump Administration's own Justice Department letter urging redistricting became evidence of racial gerrymandering.
"The Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race," Brown wrote about Texas. "The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor—the 2025 Map—achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded."³
That same Justice Department approach applies to Florida.
Trump explicitly called on Republican states to redistrict for partisan advantage.
Any Florida map drawn under those circumstances faces the same constitutional challenges that just torpedoed Texas.
Fair Districts amendments could doom DeSantis redistricting
Florida has stronger protections against gerrymandering than Texas through its Fair Districts constitutional amendments approved by 63% of voters in 2010.
Those amendments prohibit drawing districts intentionally to help or hurt a party or its candidates.
DeSantis has a checkered history with redistricting lawsuits.
In 2022, DeSantis vetoed the Legislature's redistricting plan and forced through his own map that eliminated a Black-majority district in North Florida represented by Democrat U.S. Representative Al Lawson.
A trial court ruled that map unconstitutional, but an appeals court and ultimately the Florida Supreme Court — now dominated by DeSantis appointees — upheld it.
Civil rights groups argued the map violated the Fair Districts amendments by diminishing Black voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice.
https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1989406836081225813?s=20
The Supreme Court ruled in July 2025 that federal equal protection law supersedes the state's Fair Districts protections.
But the Texas ruling shows federal courts won't tolerate racial gerrymandering even when states claim partisan motivations.
Florida Democrats are already preparing legal challenges.
"This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to rig the system and silence voters before the 2026 election," Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried stated. "Now, after gutting representation for Black Floridians and stacking the court to uphold it, he wants to further gerrymander and suppress the vote of millions of Floridians."⁴
Trump's redistricting gambit backfires spectacularly
The Texas court ruling exposed the fatal flaw in Trump's redistricting strategy.
Republicans argued they were redistricting for partisan advantage, which the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts cannot block.
But partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering often overlap.
When Republican legislatures draw maps to eliminate Democratic seats, they frequently target districts with large minority populations.
That's exactly what happened in Texas, where the new map reduced the number of majority-minority districts.
The same pattern would almost certainly emerge in Florida.
Democrat-held districts in South Florida and Orlando have significant Hispanic and Black populations.
Any Republican attempt to flip those seats would require cracking or packing minority voters — textbook racial gerrymandering.
Trump's push for immediate redistricting also undermined the GOP's legal position.
Courts are more likely to find racial discrimination when redistricting happens outside the normal decennial cycle without clear population-based justifications.
California Democrats may ultimately benefit most from Trump's failed gambit.
Their redistricting plan proceeds while Texas remains blocked, potentially giving Democrats control of the House even without winning additional seats nationally.
DeSantis now faces an impossible choice: abandon redistricting and disappoint Trump, or push forward with a map that courts will likely strike down just like Texas.
¹ Jay Janner, "Federal court bars Texas from using new Republican-friendly US House map in midterms," CNN Politics, November 18, 2025.
² A.G. Gancarski, "'Stay tuned': Ron DeSantis still expects Congressional redistricting," Florida Politics, November 18, 2025.
³ Eleanor Klibanoff, "Federal court blocks new Texas congressional map for 2026," Texas Tribune, November 18, 2025.
⁴ Nikki Fried, "Florida Democratic Party Responds to Governor DeSantis' Push for Mid-Decade Redistricting," Florida Democratic Party, July 25, 2025.
