TOPEKA, Kansas – While Kansas Republican lawmakers won’t call a special session, that doesn’t mean the redistricting battle is over as President Donald Trump and Democrats continue the battle over who can create the most friendly campaign terrain for their party heading into the 2026 midterms.
Republicans in Kansas are promising to continue the effort to gerrymander the congressional maps for the express purpose of ousting the only Democrat from the state’s congressional delegation.
Kansas state Senate President Ty Masterson, a Republican, vowed that redistricting will be “a top priority when the Legislature reconvenes in January.”
“We’re not backing down, and we’re not sitting out of this fight,” Masterson said.
His fellow Republican, Kansas state House Speaker Dan Hawkins, also suggested there will be “a conversation about redistricting” when the lawmakers return to Topeka for the 2026 legislative session.
While Kansas Republicans — led by House Speaker Dan Hawkins, left, and Senate President Ty Masterson — failed to call a special session on redistricting, the GOP gerrymandering effort targeting U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids is not over.
“Even though they failed to force this special session, we know that this fight is not over,” said U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas.
She said the November 2025 election results nationwide, which favored Democrats, has Republicans in Washington, D.C., “panicking.”
“They’re going to stop at nothing to tighten their grip on Kansas,” Davids said. “They’re going to take another run at this in January, another attempt to carve up Johnson County to redraw maps that voters never asked for all to protect their own political power.”
The openly partisan mid-decade redistricting was kicked off by Trump ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. It started in Texas and spread to both red states and blue states.
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While the Kansas state Senate had enough signed petitions to call a special session scheduled to start Nov. 7, there were enough holdouts in the Kansas state House to block the effort. Republican legislative leaders had spent weeks circulating the petitions.
Masterson, who is running for governor in 2026, said Senate Republicans “did our part” to answer Trump’s call. Hawkins said the House faced “an uphill battle with multiple agendas, scheduling conflicts and many other unseen factors at play.”
“We are absolutely celebrating this small victory today,” Davids said.
Redistricting has become part of the GOP gubernatorial primary
The politics of gerrymandering in Kansas have become intertwined with the GOP gubernatorial primary in 2026.
Among the candidates promising to continue pushing partisan redistricting is Philip Sarnecki, whose campaign aired ads urging unnamed GOP holdouts to join the effort.
“Career politicians failed again to support President Trump and redraw the congressional maps in Kansas,” Sarnecki said. “It’s time for new leadership in the state. As your governor, I will redraw the congressional maps in Kansas and add a Republican seat to Congress.”
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, the state’s top election official and a Republican candidate for governor, reacted to the news of no special session with a post on X.
“Disappointing,” Schwab said. “CA and Laura Kelly 1, KS 0.”
California voters pass Prop 50 in response to Texas
In California, voters passed Proposition 50, a constitutional amendment to allow temporary redistricting. Democrats pushed the measure as a direct response to Republican gerrymandering in Texas. Prop 50 and Democratic gerrymandering in California essentially negates the five new Republican-leaning districts in Texas.
The Texas maps were created at Trump’s urging.
“California Democrats are working overtime to silence Republicans and steal the House majority,” Masterson said.
Redistricting push comes ahead of 2026 midterm elections
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (R) speaks as his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom (L) looks on during an election night gathering at the California Democratic Party headquarters on Nov. 4, 2025 in Sacramento, California.
Trump’s push for mid-decade redistricting comes seeks to secure the slim Republican majority in the U.S. House ahead of the 2026 elections. Historically, the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections.
“This whole thing got kicked off,” Davids said, “because Donald Trump knows that the policies that they’re pushing are so extreme and so unpopular that they’re not going to be able to win unless they cheat.”
Davids said the November 2025 election results nationwide show “just how frustrated and, frankly, angry a bunch of people are.”
Sarnecki has said Republicans losing control of Congress “would be the end of the Trump agenda, and you can be 100% certain that Democrats will then try to impeach President Trump.”
Matt Gertken, the chief geopolitical strategist at BCA Research, is among those who are predicting that Republicans will lose control of the House.
“Democrats will definitely take the House,” Gertken said. “And some of you are thinking, well, they don’t have any leadership. No, they don’t. They don’t have a plan. They don’t have a leader. Doesn’t matter.”
Gertken, who spoke at an October public meeting of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System trustees, said Republicans may retain control of the Senate in 2026. But losing the House would mean Trump “won’t be able to pass legislation” and “will have to rely much more heavily on executive orders.”
“The President’s approval rating is about 45%,” Gertken said. “It’s not a terrible approval rating for President Trump, 45% is actually pretty good for President Trump. I’ve been watching his data for 10 years, so 10 years of evidence. But … his approval on the economy is 43% and falling. Now that’s a little bit of a problem.
“So in other words, voters are not fond of the trade war, and it’s showing up in the fact that President Trump’s approval rating on the economy is worse than in his first term.”
He said Trump’s trajectory is similar to Biden’s, “and obviously you don’t want your opinion polling to look like Joe Biden, so this is a problem.”
“Now if you’re thinking, ‘Ah, it’s not that bad,’ well just remember, what does a 45% approval rating get you in a midterm election? … A 45% approval rating gets you a loss of 30 seats in the House of Representatives. So for those who are thinking a 45% approval rating isn’t that bad, just look at history.”
Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Trump-led partisan redistricting battle isn’t over in Kansas
