Editorials & Other Articles

The severity of the presidential arm-twisting over the course of several months was extraordinary. It was so intense that at least 11 Indiana Republicans were targeted with threats or swatting attacks after Trump started calling out individual state lawmakers. One legislator told The Atlantic he was worried the president’s followers felt so strongly about this that his house might be “firebombed.”

And yet, despite all of this, Trump’s power grab flopped. After months of White House arm-twisting, the gerrymandering plan mustered just 19 votes — with a majority of the Republicans in the state Senate voting with the Democratic minority against it.

It was one of the most brutal and humiliating failures of the president’s second term.

Except, to hear Trump tell it, this fiasco wasn’t that big of a deal.

Reporter: The senate in Indiana voted against the redistricting effort.

Trump: I wasn't working on it very hard. I wasn't very much involved

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2025-12-11T23:22:46.212Z

...But this unprecedented initiative has racked up some big losses, too. The scheme obviously fell far short in Indiana, and related efforts were rejected by Republicans in Kansas, New Hampshire and Nebraska, at least for now.

What’s more, Democrats are pushing back in ways the White House apparently didn’t anticipate, with California poised to add five additional Democratic seats next year and officials in other blue states eyeing related plans of their own.

Meanwhile, a state court ruling in Utah has created a near-certain win for Democrats, and progressive activists have collected more than enough signatures to force a fight over the future of Missouri’s map.

To put it mildly, this isn’t what Trump had in mind when he picked this fight several months ago.