How Trump’s 2026 Gerrymandering Push Backfired on Republicans

Underplayed in the post-midterm coverage is the role of the White House–driven campaign last year to redraw congressional maps in the middle of the decade. It was supposed to provide Republicans with insurance against midterm losses and blunt the structural advantage enjoyed by the opposition in year six (really year ten) of a presidency. Instead, it produced a remarkable assortment of failed gerrymanders, actual dummymanders, and near-catastrophes narrowly averted that netted out to more, not fewer GOP losses.

A dummymander is what happens when a party gets too clever with its , spreading voters too thinly across too many districts in an effort to squeeze out the most seats at the margins. Logically enough, when you go too far, you end up with more skin-of-the-teeth seats and fewer safe ones. That, uh, matters when you take a pasting like Tuesday’s.

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Daniel Foster

Daniel Foster is a contributing editor at National Review.

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Underplayed in the post-midterm coverage is the role of the White House–driven campaign last year to redraw congressional maps in the middle of the decade. It was supposed to provide Republicans with insurance against midterm losses and blunt the structural advantage enjoyed by the opposition in year six (really year ten) of a presidency. Instead, it produced a remarkable assortment of failed gerrymanders, actual dummymanders, and near-catastrophes narrowly averted that netted out to more, not fewer GOP losses.

A dummymander is what happens when a party gets too clever with its , spreading voters too thinly across too many districts in an effort to squeeze out the most seats at the margins. Logically enough, when you go too far, you end up with more skin-of-the-teeth seats and fewer safe ones. That, uh, matters when you take a pasting like Tuesday’s.