By The fight over who draws America’s political maps has erupted into a full-scale partisan brawl, with Democrats and Republicans hurling charges of hypocrisy and election-rigging as each side maneuvers for advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms.
As liberals scream about Republican attempts to redo congressional maps, though, they keep running into one problem: Republicans are just copying what Democrats have done for decades.
At the center of the clash stand Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who are defending Democratic-drawn maps in Illinois while denouncing Republican efforts in Texas. Their GOP counterparts, led by President Donald Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, counter that Democrats are condemning tactics they have already perfected in their own states.
The dispute intensified after dozens of Texas House Democrats fled to Illinois and other Democratic strongholds in early August, a coordinated move to block a Republican-led mid-decade redistricting plan in Texas. The walkout, designed to prevent a quorum in the Texas legislature, has drawn national headlines—and the attention of the FBI, which is now assisting in locating the missing lawmakers.
On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Pritzker dismissed Texas quorum laws as irrelevant in Illinois and framed the GOP effort as an abuse of power. “What [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott is doing and what [President] Donald Trump is attempting to do is to cheat mid-decade here,” Pritzker charged. “They’re attempting to change the map.” He accused Republicans of trying to “steal seats” because “they know that they’re going to lose in 2026, the Congress.”
Of course, Illinois has received an “F” rating for being one of the most gerrymandered state in the country.
NBC: Every major group that grades the fairness of congressional maps gives your state an F… it’s been called “a nearly perfect model for everything that can go wrong with redistricting.”
Gov. Pritzker: That’s just a distraction!pic.twitter.com/CXO7zXN7yD
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) August 11, 2025
Pritzker defended Illinois’ process as lawful and transparent, pointing to adherence to the decennial census, public hearings, and the Voting Rights Act. What is unusual, he argued, is mid-decade mapmaking at the behest of a president. “What’s even rarer is to do it at the behest of the president of the United States, who’s clearly attempting to and says that he deserves to have five more seats.”
Pritzker wasn’t the only Democratic governor called out for their cynical responses to gerrymandering in Texas. New York Governor Kathy Hochul claimed she was ready to “fight fire with fire” over what she’s called a Texas “insurrection” of redistricting.
“What Texas and Republican states are doing at the direction of Donald Trump, I say, is nothing short of a legal insurrection against our Capitol,” Hochul said. “Legal meaning they’re using the legal process. It does not mean it’s legal, and it must be stopped.”
“If Republicans are willing to rewrite these rules to give themselves an advantage, then they’re leaving us no choice. We must do the same,” she continued. “All is fair in love and war. That’s why I’m exploring, with our leaders, every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible.”
What she failed to mention, however, is that she tried the exact same move in 2022 before being stopped by a court because the New York congressional maps she drew were so obscene.
“It was only 3 years ago that New York’s Democrat legislature drew up a map so brazenly contemptuous of basic rules… that the Democrat-dominated Court of Appeals threw it out. The New York Times … called those maps comically contorted.”
Kathy Hochul: “We followed the rules.” pic.twitter.com/dqv1VfP1IV
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 10, 2025
The standoff underscores the enduring reality of redistricting for Democrats. They are merely just threatening to continue doing what they’ve done for decades. It’s no wonder that Republicans have looked at their warnings and merely shrugged while Texas Democrats have been laughed at for ‘fleeing‘ the state.
