Ohio commission and Virginia lawmakers consider moves toward mid-decade congressional redistricting

Mid-cycle congressional redistricting efforts could move forward Friday in two more states amid growing maneuvering to influence which party will control the U.S. House after next year’s midterm elections.

A Republican-controlled Ohio commission is meeting to consider a proposed map that could give the GOP a chance at winning two more seats. Meanwhile, senators in the Democrat-led Virginia General Assembly are expected to vote on advancing a proposed constitutional amendment that would let them temporarily bypass a bipartisan commission and redraw congressional districts to their advantage.

Their scheduled vote comes after the Virginia House passed the same resolution on Wednesday. President Donald Trump kicked off the redistricting fray this summer by urging Republican-led states to redraw voting districts ahead of next year’s congressional elections. Republicans in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina already have done so. Voters in Democratic-led California are deciding on new districts.

GOP-controlled Ohio commission considers new map

In Ohio, the map proposed by the commission appears to increase Republican chances in districts held by Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Landsman in Cincinnati and Marcy Kaptur around Toledo, an area that voted for Trump in last year’s presidential election. Kaptur won a 22nd term last fall by about 2,400 votes, or less than 1 percentage point, while Landsman was reelected with more than 54% of the vote.

If the Ohio commission fails to adopt a map, the job goes to the Republican-led Legislature, which could enact a map designed to bolster the size of the state’s GOP congressional delegation, now with a 10-5 Republican majority.

In Virginia, the proposed constitutional amendment being considered by senators is in its early stages. After Friday, the resolution would need to pass the state Legislature again next year, then go before voters by way of a referendum.

Along with California, Virginia would be one of the few states with a Democratic-led statehouse to enter the national redistricting battle.

“There’s a double standard for Democrats in authority that somehow we have to lay down while Donald Trump seizes power that we’ve never seen, and the Republicans run the play,” Virginia House Speaker Don Scott said this week.

Through the constitutional amendment, Virginia’s Legislature would have the power to create a new congressional map only when other states do so between now and 2030. Democrats have not unveiled their planned map.

Asked about whether his party has begun drafting new districts, Scott said: “You’re not naive.”

The developments come as Virginia has statewide elections Tuesday, where all 100 seats in the House of Delegates are on the ballot. Democrats would need to keep their slim majority in the lower chamber to advance the constitutional amendment next year.

The party’s bullish approach to redistricting reflects members’ confidence in holding onto power. There are roughly a dozen Republican-held seats that are vulnerable to being flipped this year, with Democrats vying to expand their legislative edge.

Conservatives in the statehouse and in Congress blasted Democrats for undoing efforts to put the maps in the hands of a bipartisan commission, arguing the proceedings went against a Virginia custom of bipartisanship and decorum.

Republican U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, who represents a competitive seat, said earlier this week that “there’s partisan games in Washington that it seems like the partisan games have now trickled down here in Richmond.”

A new Virginia way?

Virginia Republican Minority Leader Terry Kilgore said: “Because we have a disagreement with the President of the United States, we’re going to throw Virginia’s constitution to the wind.”

Still, most Republicans rebuking Democrats curtailed their anger when it came to Trump’s role in the national redistricting fight. One GOP Virginia delegate was a prominent exception.

“Candor requires admitting that this bad idea of mid-decade redistricting did get its 2025 watch by the President,” Del. Lee Ware said, though he later added: “To travel down this tortuous path is to transgress long-standing precedent in Virginia. It is to turn our backs on the Virginia way.”

Democratic Del. Cia Price, the first Black woman to chair the House’s elections committee, rebuffed Ware’s argument.

“I know, that as a student of history, that the Virginia way was once used to quiet dissent in the guise of decorum, but I’m living for the future,” she said. “That’s why new times and unprecedented times call for a new Virginia way. ”

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Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.