United States | News & Politics

“Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned -- and democracy won,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, posted on X after the Texas ruling, mentioning his Republican counterpart in Texas along with the president.

After a federal court panel struck down Republicans’ new map in Texas on Tuesday, the entire exercise holds the potential to net Democrats more winnable seats in the House instead.

“Trump may have let the genie out of the bottle,” said UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, “but he may not get the wish he’d hoped for.”

And when one party moves aggressively to draw lines to help itself win elections — also known as gerrymandering — it runs the risk of pushing its rival party to do the same.

That’s what Trump ended up doing, spurring California voters to replace their map drawn by a nonpartisan commission with one drawn by Democrats to gain five seats. If successful, the move would cancel out the action taken by Texas Republicans. California voters approved that map earlier this month, and if a Republican lawsuit fails to block it, that map giving Democrats more winnable seats will remain in effect even if Texas’ remains stalled.