Of Donald Trump ’s many second-term power grabs, perhaps the most momentous has been his effort to improve the low odds of his party maintaining trifecta control of Washington in the 2026 midterm elections by literally redrawing congressional maps wherever Republicans have the power to do so. This began with his successful demand that Texas Republicans hijack a special summer legislative session that was supposed to be about disaster recovery to conduct a rare mid-decade congressional gerrymander giving the GOP as many as five new U.S. House seats in 2026. That’s a done deal despite ongoing litigation. Under the White House lash, several other red states began reluctantly moving in the same direction. But Trump’s momentum seems to have slowed.

The thing about this sort of maneuver is

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