High-stakes redistricting battles unfold in Texas and California as Republicans and Democrats push new congressional maps ahead of 2026 midterm elections.

A draft of newly drawn proposed congressional districts in California were made public last week, part of a countermeasure to a gerrymandering effort in Texas to secure more Republican-held seats in the House of Representatives.

Proposed new congressional maps in California could help Democrats flip five Republican seats and bolster around five Democratic incumbents in toss-up districts.

Gov. Gavin Newsom asked legislators to approve a Nov. 4 special election over the "Election Rigging Response Act," which would give voters a say on whether or not to temprarily change congressional maps.

The new, partisan maps come on the heels of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s launch of California’s redistricting campaign on Thursday, an effort he touted as meant to favor Democrats in California in the upcoming midterm elections as a counter to similar efforts in Republican-led states elsewhere in the country.

“We are entitled to five more seats” in Texas, Trump insisted Tuesday in a CNBC interview. He pointed to California’s existing maps, which are drawn by an independent commission unlike the Texas maps crafted by a partisan legislature: “They did it to us.”

The California Assembly on Friday night shared a map that the California Legislature may consider as the state moves ahead with a plan to redraw its congressional lines if Texas moves forward with its redistricting plan.

A partisan move by Texas to redraw its congressional maps in an unusually timed effort to secure five more GOP seats in the U.S. House before the 2026 elections has set off a clamor to replicate the effort in statehouses controlled by both parties.