Red state judge chooses new congressional map in fight that could reshape House control

In a blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge rejected a congressional district map drawn up by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Republicans currently control all four of the red state’s congressional districts, but Utah District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled late Monday that a map drawn up by GOP lawmakers “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.”

Utah is the latest battlefield in the high-stakes redistricting showdown between President Donald Trump and Republicans versus Democrats to shape the midterm landscape in the fight for the House majority.

The faceoff over redistricting in Utah, a state Trump carried by nearly 22 percentage points in last year’s presidential election, was triggered by a lawsuit by the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, which prompted Gibson to throw out the state’s current congressional map.

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Utah Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson, left, and the Utah state capitol building in Salt Lake City. (Utah State Courts; Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Gibson’s move required state lawmakers to draw a new map, which the legislature approved last month.

The judge had ordered lawmakers to draw a map in compliance with a 2018 ballot measure approved by Utah voters that reformed redistricting standards, in order to prevent the drawing of districts to favor a political party, which is a practice known as gerrymandering.

Gibson rejected the Republican lawmakers’ map and instead ruled in favor of one of two presented by the plaintiffs. It keeps nearly all of heavily populated Salt Lake County in one congressional district. The current congressional map divides the Democratic-dominated county among all four of the state’s districts.

The judge had said she would rule by Monday, which was the day Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said any new congressional map must be in place to be used in next year’s elections.

Democrats have not controlled a congressional seat in Utah since the current map went into effect at the beginning of the decade.

“The DNC applauds the decision to choose a fair, impartial map that reflects the diversity and ideological makeup of the state. Utah Republicans gerrymandered the maps because they knew they were losing power in the state. Republicans doubled down when they chose to submit another gerrymandered map, but today, they were once again thwarted by impartial Courts,” Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin argued in a statement.

And Martin vowed that “Democrats will continue to fight for fair maps in Utah, regardless of what Donald Trump and Utah Republicans try next.”

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Republicans, who have argued that Gibson does not have legal authority to enact a map not approved by the legislature, criticized the ruling.

“Judge Gibson has once again exceeded the constitutional authority granted to Utah’s judiciary. After stretching the law to justify taking control of redistricting, she has now rejected Map C — the only option that respected the Legislature’s constitutional role — and imposed a map of activists who are not accountable to Utahns,” Utah Republican Party chair Robert Axson argued.

And Axson charged, “This is not interpretation. It is the arrogance of a judge playing King from the bench.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an election night press conference at a California Democratic Party office Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Sacramento, California. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)

The ruling in Utah comes six days after California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative which will temporarily sidetrack the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democrat-dominated legislature.

That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which would counter the passage earlier this year in the reliable red state of Texas of a new map that aims to create up to five right-leaning House seats.

“California stepped up. Now, we are taking this fight across the country — helping Democrats in other states push back against Trump’s election rigging,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement to Fox News Digital last week, as he pointed to the push by Trump and Republicans for rare mid-decade redistricting.

President Donald Trump points to a reporter in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Washington.  (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

It’s part of a broad effort by Trump’s political team and the GOP to pad the party’s razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats. Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push.

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Trump is aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are moving towards redistricting or are seriously considering, as are the red states of Indiana, Kansas, and Florida.

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