Only 38 of the 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives are considered competitive ahead of the November midterm elections, following an aggressive wave of partisan redistricting across multiple states.
According to figures from the Cook Political Report, the sharp drop in toss-up contests comes as both Republican and Democratic state officials have redrawn congressional district maps to favor their own candidates.
The House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress, with all 435 seats up for election every two years. Electoral redistricting, often referred to as gerrymandering, is the historical practice of redrawing legislative boundaries to give one political party an electoral advantage.
Since 2025, President Donald Trump has urged several Republican-led states to alter their electoral maps to boost the party's chances of retaining its House majority after November 2026. Texas initiated the push with a redistricting plan expected to yield five additional seats for Republicans, while Missouri, Florida, and Tennessee also modified their district lines.
In response, Democratic party officials in California enacted their own redistricting reform to defend and expand their political standing. Despite Democratic counter-measures, the nationwide map modifications are estimated to produce a net gain of ten seats for the Republican Party.
Impact on Democracy and Supreme Court Rulings
Andrew Koneschusky, a former Democratic Senate adviser and expert in political communication, said that partisan redistricting poses a fundamental challenge to representative democracy. Koneschusky said that voters are supposed to choose their representatives, rather than representatives choosing their voters.
He noted that when redistricting is pushed to extreme limits, elections become a contest over boundary maps rather than a debate over political ideas and public policies.
The pace of redistricting accelerated following an April ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision cleared the way for more partisan boundary changes, particularly across conservative states in the American South.
Displacement of Long-Serving Lawmakers
The revised electoral maps have already reshaped political careers and forced veteran lawmakers out of office. In Tennessee, the Memphis-area district represented for nearly 20 years by 77-year-old Democratic Representative Steve Cohen was split among three new districts designed to favor Republicans. Cohen decided against running for re-election, accusing Trump of targeting the political power of Black voters.
In Alabama, Democratic politician Shomari Figures also denounced the redrawing of his congressional district. Figures warned that the changes threatened to return civil rights and voting protections to conditions typical of the 1950s and 1960s.
In total, six Democratic elected officials have retired or lost their primary elections as a direct result of the redrawn maps.
Intra-Party Battles and Primary Polarization
Democratic strategists have similarly used map manipulation against political rivals. In California, party officials split the district of Kevin Kiley, a former Republican who became an Independent but continues to vote with the presidential majority in Congress. Kiley had previously warned against initiating a redistricting war, stating that such conflicts risk producing no clear winner.
The creation of safer single-party districts has also increased the significance of party primaries over general elections. In strongly Democratic or Republican districts, incumbent lawmakers face a greater electoral threat from primary challengers within their own party than from opposition candidates.
This dynamic encourages representatives to cater primarily to their most partisan voters, deepening political polarization and reducing the number of competitive districts nationwide.
