The national tit-for-tat redistricting battle entered its next phase Thursday as California Democrats launched their final legislative push to redraw their congressional map to add up to five winnable seats for their party,

Texas lawmakers approved a new congressional map this week at the behest of President Donald Trump, seeking to preserve his Republican Party's slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 2026 midterm elections.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers moved quickly to create new districts that could help their party flip five congressional seats. Their plan still requires voter approval.

Texas and President Donald Trump struck first in a gerrymandering battle that could tilt the 2026 midterms. That puts California Republicans in a bind as they contest Gov. Gavin Newsom's redistricting.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed a series of bills calling for new congressional maps that could add up to five Democratic seats in Congress, a response to an ongoing, Trump-led effort in Texas to use redistricting there to carve out five additional GOP seats.

California lawmakers on Thursday passed the first of three bills aimed at drawing new congressional maps, as Democrats try to counter a Republican-driven effort in Texas.

A California legislative hearing turned into a shouting match Tuesday as a Republican lawmaker clashed with Democrats over a partisan plan to rewrite U.S. House maps to win Democrats more seats. A committee voted along party lines to advance a new congressional map in response to a Republican redistricting effort in Texas that President Donald Trump wants.

California is a crucial battlefront in a coast-to-coast political civil war over congressional redistricting, a war that Republicans nationally appear better positioned to win.