Utah judge to rule Monday on congressional maps for 2026 elections
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A district judge in Utah is expected to make a blockbuster decision Monday on which of three congressional maps the red state will use in the 2026 midterm elections.
Utah District Judge Dianna Gibson’s decision on which map she chooses could determine whether Democrats have a chance to flip one of the state’s four Republican-controlled U.S. House seats next year.
Utah has become the latest state to find itself in the middle of a high-stakes redistricting showdown between President Donald Trump and Republicans and Democrats to shape the midterm battleground in the fight for the House majority.
The confrontation over redistricting in Utah, where Trump won by nearly 22 points in last year’s presidential election, was triggered by a lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters of Utah and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government, which led Gibson to throw out the state’s current congressional map. The plaintiffs argued that the current map favors Republicans.
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Judge Dianna M. Gibson will decide Monday which of three congressional maps the state of Utah will use in the 2026 midterm elections. (Utah State Courts; Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Gibson’s move required the GOP-controlled state legislature to draw a new map, which lawmakers approved last month.
The map drawn by the legislature could give Democrats a chance to flip U.S. House seats in two of the state’s four districts.
Gibson, who will choose between the legislature’s map and two other maps prepared by the plaintiffs, said he will decide by Nov. 10, the day Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said any new congressional maps must be available for use in next year’s election.
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The decision in Utah came six days after California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that would temporarily derail the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw congressional maps to the Democrat-dominated legislature.
California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at an election night press conference at the California Democratic Party office in Sacramento, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)
This is expected to result in the creation of five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California; This would oppose the passage of a new map earlier this year that sought to create up to five right-leaning House seats in the reliably red state of Texas.
“California has taken action. Now we’re taking this fight across the country — helping Democrats in other states counter Trump’s rigging of the election,” California Governor Gavin Newsom told Fox News Digital last week, noting Trump and Republicans’ push for rare redistricting in the middle of the decade.
It’s part of a broader effort by Trump’s political team and the GOP to fill the party’s House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterm elections, when the party in power has traditionally faced political adversity and lost seats. Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio drew new maps as part of the president’s efforts.
President Donald Trump gestures to a reporter in the White House Oval Office, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
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During his first term in the White House, Trump aims to prevent what happened when Democrats regained the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.
Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are moving toward or seriously considering redistricting, as are red states Indiana, Kansas and Florida.
