New York [US], October 28: Virginia and Indiana were poised on Tuesday to become the latest battlegrounds in a rare and widening mid-decade redistricting war instigated by President Donald Trump.
Democratic leaders have summoned Virginia legislators into a special session starting on Monday, where they are expected to consider a plan to counter Republicans' intended gains in the U.S. House of Representatives from recent redistricting by legislators in several red states.
Virginia Democrats are following the lead of California, where a plan to redraw congressional maps in their party's favor was passed by the legislature in August and will be decided by voters in a special election next week.
Separately on Monday, Indiana's Republican governor, Mike Braun, called a special session for November 3 to weigh whether to redraw the state's congressional map, bowing to a pressure campaign from the White House.
Republicans, including Trump, openly acknowledge that redrawn maps enacted in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina are aimed at preserving their party's slim U.S. House majority in the 2026 midterm elections.
Democrats have decried those redistricting moves as attempts by Trump to rig the outcome of next year's hotly contested races, in which Democrats need to flip just three Republican-held seats overall to win back a U.S. House majority.
Abruptly entering the redistricting fray in the midst of its own gubernatorial race is Virginia, a somewhat purple state with a Republican governor and Democratic-controlled legislature. Democrats currently hold six of Virginia's 11 seats in the U.S. House.
"Virginia's decision to convene and preserve the right to consider a new map in 2026 is critical to the fight to ensure voters have fair representation," Courtney Rice, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement last week welcoming Virginia Democratic leaders in calling lawmakers back to the Richmond statehouse.
In a radio interview on Friday, Governor Glenn Youngkin, a term-limited Republican whose successor will be determined by voters on November 4, called Democrats' steps toward redistricting "a desperate power grab."
Braun said he was calling for redistricting in Indiana to protect the state "from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair."
The Democratic leader in the state Senate, Shelli Yoder, responded in a statement, "This is not democracy. This is desperation."
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation