Trump Demands New GOP Maps in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina, Citing Supreme Court Voting Rights Ruling

President Donald Trump on Monday publicly urged Republican-controlled state legislatures in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to redraw their congressional maps before the November midterms, saying the Supreme Court's ruling last week in Callais v. Louisiana entitles the GOP to "five more seats in Texas alone" and an unspecified number of additional safe districts across the South.

Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box" before departing for an event in Florida, Trump argued that the high court's 6-3 decision — which struck down Louisiana's congressional map and gutted core protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — gives Republicans "every right and every reason" to redraw maps to lock in House control through 2030. "We are entitled to five more seats just in Texas," Trump said. "And the same thing should happen in other states. The court has spoken."

The remarks marked an unusually public articulation of what aides have for months described as the White House's central midterm strategy: protect a narrowing Republican House majority by squeezing more GOP-friendly districts out of states where the party controls the redistricting process. Five states — California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — had already passed new maps between the 2024 and 2026 elections, with litigation forcing a sixth in Utah, according to redistricting expert Jonathan Cervas of Carnegie Mellon University.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, has launched a sprawling effort to obtain nearly every state's voter registration file and review those files for suspected non-citizens and ineligible voters, despite a federal law that prohibits "systematic" removal programs within 90 days of a federal election. Civil rights groups have filed challenges in seven states, arguing that the timing and scope of the DOJ's requests violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

Democrats have responded with their own redistricting push. Voters in California and Virginia approved ballot measures last November that authorized Democratic-favoring maps in those states, and a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general has filed pre-emptive challenges to expected GOP redraws in Mississippi and Alabama. Cervas estimates that the cumulative effect of all the new maps will produce a net Democratic gain of 2.69 seats — a counterintuitive result that he attributes to "Democrats finally playing the same hardball game."

The Callais ruling, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by the court's five other Republican appointees, requires plaintiffs alleging racial gerrymandering under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to prove discriminatory intent — a far higher bar than the disparate-impact test that had governed for four decades. At least 15 majority-Black or Hispanic House districts are now seen as candidates for redraw, according to a Brennan Center for Justice analysis published Sunday.