New scheme aims to delete 4 Republican House seats in key state

Wisconsin Democrats are considering a scorched-earth mid-decade redistricting if they win unified control of the state government this year, which would potentially net Democrats four new House seats.

This follows a wave of Republican redraws in the South to chop up and eliminate Black seats in the wake of the Supreme Court making it harder to challenge this under the Voting Rights Act, which has Democrats around the country champing at the bit to retaliate.

According to The New York Times, "Perhaps no state holds greater potential for a dramatic partisan swing in its congressional map than Wisconsin, a perpetual battleground state where Democrats are now eagerly eying the prospect of flipping a 6-to-2 Republican map on its head in time for 2028. 'Tempering our ambitions is not something we here at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin are known for,' said Devin Remiker, the state party chairman, who believes a 6-2 Democratic map is doable. 'Aim for the stars, land in the clouds.'"

Democrats have already been hoping that the state's liberal Supreme Court majority would overturn the current GOP gerrymander and force a redraw of a fair map that gives each party four seats. However, that is almost certainly off the table for 2026 due to the time constraints of such litigation.

Wisconsin is one of the few swing states where such a redraw is potentially possible; for years, Republicans enjoyed strong supermajorities in the legislature due to those districts also being heavily gerrymandered, but the liberal Supreme Court majority, first elected in 2023, forced those maps to be redrawn, significantly boosting the chances Democrats could win unified control in November.