When President Trump set out to force a gerrymander in Texas that would help Republicans keep control of the closely divided House, he argued it was a simple matter of fairness.
“We are entitled to five more seats,” the president said this month.
He got what he wanted from Texas, where the governor on Friday signed a redistricting plan. But the consequences may not be so simple.
With California Democrats immediately retaliating with their own re-engineering that could potentially swing up to five seats in the opposite direction, a redistricting arms race is quickly spreading across the country. That has become a major headache for incumbent members of Congress in both parties, who are concerned about changes to districts they have spent years — some of them decades — figuring out how to win.
On paper, the changes that have been approved or are under discussion could potentially give Republicans a leg up of six to seven seats in what is expected to be an uphill fight to keep control of the House. But redistricting can deliver unpredictable results, and it is uncertain whether this one will ultimately pan out the way either party hopes.
What is clear is that it has created confusion in the already volatile battle for congressional power, with no clear outcome guaranteed for Republicans or Democrats.
“They’re clearly counting on Democrats not forcefully responding,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said in an interview. “We are going to unleash righteous hellfire on them until the cheating scheme ends.”
Some Republicans believe it never should have started.
“The simplest solution here is just to say, ‘Enough is enough, and let’s not do that in any state,’” said Representative Kevin Kiley of California, who is one of five Republican members of Congress in the state at risk of losing their seats if voters approve Democrats’ redistricting plan this fall.
“It’s a pretty tortured logic to say we ought to do something worse because they’re doing something bad,” Mr. Kiley said of California Democrats’ plan, which aims to counter Texas Republicans’ partisan redistricting effort. “That being said, I don’t like what’s going on in Texas. I don’t think that should be happening anywhere.”…