Trump ups aggressive redistricting war with call for new census

President Trump is going all in on the national redistricting war with his call for the Commerce Department to conduct a new census ahead of the next scheduled one in 2030.

Trump said in his Truth Social post on Thursday that the census would not count those who are in the country illegally and use the “results and information gained” from the 2024 presidential election. The plan would likely face significant legal hurdles, as the Constitution’s 14th Amendment states that the census should be conducted on the basis of the total number of people in each state.

But it adds a new dimension to the fight in which Republicans are trying to gain the upper hand ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

“From a messaging standpoint, it is ingenious to push the envelope on this front,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has pushed for such a change in how the population is counted and seats in the House are subsequently apportioned. He issued an executive memorandum during his first term in July 2020 to prevent those in the country illegally from being counted in the census, but this faced legal challenges that prevented it from taking effect, and former President Biden ultimately withdrew the memorandum upon taking office the next year.

But his renewed effort is taking place before the backdrop of a wider conversation about how people are counted for purposes of their representation in Congress. Trump himself kicked off the arms race seen in various states with his call for Texas Republicans to approve a new map that would allow the GOP to pick up five seats in the state in next year’s midterms. 

And now his call for a new census, to be conducted in the midst of the redistricting battles and years ahead of schedule, shows he’s doubling down on this strategy of adjusting the terms of engagement in the elections to come. 

Republicans were enthused by Trump’s tactics, even if his census plans face an uncertain future, and expect to gain a boost ahead of the midterms at least in the short term. 

A source close to the administration said the GOP’s efforts will set off an “arms war” between the parties fighting for political power, but they argued what's happening is Republicans catching up to Democrats in drawing congressional lines more favorably for them. This means Republicans have more room to grow through this redistricting process than Democrats do, they said. 

They pointed to various Democratic-led states that are significantly gerrymandered to cut Republicans out of power, including states that Democratic Texas state lawmakers went to in order to prevent the state Legislature from passing the new map. 

“What I think the Democrats, or their theatrics, are so hysterical about is the fact that they pretty much squeezed all the juice out of the lemon on this front and they just did it behind closed doors, so no one actually ever talked that way,” the source said. 

O’Connell said Trump’s push will be particularly useful as part of the GOP’s message because many voters don’t understand how redistricting works and don’t realize that those who are in the country illegally are currently counted for how many votes a state receives in the Electoral College and how many seats it receives in the House. 

The 14th Amendment’s second section lays out how apportioning representation works, stating that “the whole number of persons” should be counted in each state. While those who aren’t citizens aren’t allowed to vote in federal elections, they are still included in determining a state’s population, even if they entered the country illegally. 

O’Connell said making this change would likely cost Texas and Florida, two Republican strongholds, some seats, but it would also take seats away from Democratic-led states. Making people realize how the system currently works will be beneficial to winning them over to Trump and the GOP’s broader argument, he said. 

“On that front, that will be mind-blowing to a lot of American people, and Trump, by doing this, is able to drive that home by getting around the minutia of what is redistricting, what is gerrymandering,” he said. 

Experts raised some doubts about the feasibility of Trump’s proposal but said they believed it could add more enthusiasm to his base and sharpen the GOP’s message. 

James Thurber, a professor of government at American University, argued that not enough time is left ahead of the midterms to find all the immigrants without legal status and exclude them from census counting. He also pointed to likely legal challenges that the move would face, which would also take time. 

Various groups sued in 2018 when the Trump administration sought to add a question asking people if they were citizens to the census. The legal battle took a year, and the Supreme Court eventually rejected the change. 

Thurber said Trump’s push could hurt Democrats even if it doesn’t go into effect, saying it could turn off immigrants in the country legally from wanting to engage with government officials and voting. 

While the redistricting battle is still in early stages and which states will ultimately redraw their lines is uncertain, he said the overall battle isn’t helpful for Democrats, though they could still win in 2026 anyway.

“It's not good for the Democrats, but that doesn't mean that they won't pick up enough seats to be in the majority,” he said. 

Democrats brushed off Trump’s census plan as unrealistic, unconstitutional and designed to increase pressure on Republican governors to go along with his plan for gerrymandering.

Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said the proposal doesn’t “fundamentally” change the debate given Trump’s power in the Republican Party, but Trump is turning to his “classic” playbook. 

He argued the strategy could backfire on Republicans to a certain extent in adding onto a narrative that the Trump administration isn’t listening to its constituents. He pointed to the unpopularity of the “big, beautiful bill” and Trump’s tariffs. 

“It fits into a broader narrative of a president who is out of touch with where the majority of the population is, and that I think people will be angry about,” Leopold said. “The redistricting battle won’t be the A-side of the record of why Donald Trump's in trouble for the midterm, but it could be the B-side.” 

Thurber said Texas’s past mid-decade redistricting effort in 2003 proved effective at ousting a few Democrats, but the country hasn’t experienced a true national redistricting “war” before. He said he isn’t convinced that the country is at that point yet despite “rhetoric” and speeches. 

“If it evolves into that, it will be unique, historic and something to watch,” he said.