Former President Barack Obama delivered a forceful rebuke of Republican redistricting efforts on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, characterizing the moves as a brazen attempt to manipulate electoral maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Speaking to volunteers during a video call hosted by California Governor Gavin Newsom, Obama framed the Republican strategy as an unprecedented assault on democratic principles.
The former president accused President Donald Trump and his administration of attempting to change the rules of the game midstream to insulate themselves from public judgment. Obama described the Republican efforts as particularly audacious because party leaders are not even pretending to have legitimate justifications for the timing of their redistricting push. “They’re simply doing it because they think they can,” he stated during the call.
Obama’s appearance came less than two weeks before California’s special election on November 4, 2025, where voters will decide on Proposition 50. The measure, championed by Newsom, would temporarily set aside California’s independent redistricting commission to allow state lawmakers to draw new congressional maps targeting five Republican-held seats in the state. The initiative represents a direct countermeasure to redistricting efforts in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, and other Republican-controlled states.
The former president emphasized that Proposition 50’s passage would have critical implications extending far beyond California’s borders. He argued the measure aims to counteract systematic abuse of redistricting processes and create a level playing field for the upcoming midterm elections. Obama articulated a broader concern about whether American democracy can be manipulated by those already in power to entrench themselves further, or whether the system will continue to allow voters to decide their representatives.
The redistricting battles erupted after Trump pressured Republican-led state legislatures to redraw congressional maps mid-decade, breaking with the traditional ten-year redistricting cycle that follows each census. In Texas, Republicans moved to create five new GOP-leaning districts from the state’s 38-member congressional delegation, which currently includes 25 Republicans, 12 Democrats, and one vacant seat leaning Democratic. Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered law enforcement to arrest Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to prevent a quorum for voting on the redistricting proposal.
Trump defended the Texas redistricting during an appearance on CNBC, arguing that Republicans were entitled to five more seats because of his 2024 election victory in the state. The president characterized the effort as justified despite occurring outside the normal redistricting timeline established by federal law.
Democratic governors in multiple states responded with their own redistricting initiatives. In Virginia, Democrats began pushing to redraw congressional maps to add two or three House seats for their party, according to sources with knowledge of the plan. The move came as a surprise, as Virginia had not been widely discussed as a potential redistricting battleground. The state’s General Assembly would need to vote twice—once before Election Day 2025 and again in 2026—before putting new maps before voters for approval in early 2026.
Virginia’s redistricting effort faces logistical complications because voters approved a constitutional amendment creating an independent redistricting commission in 2020. Democrats narrowly control both chambers of the General Assembly and are expected to gain additional seats in the House of Delegates in the November elections.
In California, House Democrats in the state legislature took steps toward a plan that could create up to six new gerrymandered Democratic congressional seats to offset Texas redistricting. The California legislature voted on a redistricting proposal the week of August 18, 2025, which will place the new maps before voters during the November 4 special election. Recent polling showed strong support for Proposition 50, and Republican-aligned groups opposing the ballot measure began scaling back advertising ahead of the vote.
Obama appeared in an advertisement released to promote Newsom’s proposal, warning that democracy itself was on the ballot on November 4. During the Wednesday call, Newsom thanked Obama for joining the effort, noting the former president appeared on screens every hour of every day as the campaign’s closing messenger.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, has led Democratic efforts to fight proposed Republican maps. Holder called the redistricting push an authoritarian move during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” in early August 2025. John Bisognano, president of the committee, indicated that Virginia’s decision to retain optionality for potential redistricting should not surprise anyone, given Republicans’ aggressive reshaping of congressional districts nationwide.
Republicans hold a narrow majority in the U.S. House, making the redistricting battles particularly consequential for control of Congress in the 2026 midterms. Democrats currently hold an aggregate lead of 2.6 percentage points over Republicans in polling of the generic congressional vote, with Democrats leading in eight of the ten most recent national polls. Trump’s approval ratings have declined since he took office, creating additional urgency for Republican redistricting efforts.
