Democrats Admit GOP Already Winning 2030 Redistricting War, New Memo Shows

A Democratic memo released Wednesday acknowledges Republicans’ head start in gerrymandered House seats and warns that “the 2030 redistricting fight has already begun.”

The memo — from Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) President Heather Williams and obtained by Politico — lays out the context of the coming battle for House control and a step-by-step plan to capitalize on the years leading up to the 2030 Census and redistricting.

Williams argued Democrats should take a page from Republicans, who, instead of focusing solely on federal races, have already poured more than $30 million into state legislatures — the level of government that “play[s] in shaping policy, deciding state voting laws, and drawing the maps that could define majorities in the states and in the House of Representatives for a decade.”

“To have a shot at winning and maintaining a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives moving forward, Democrats must reassess our failed federal-first strategy and get serious about winning state legislatures ahead of redistricting – not just in the final months of 2030, but starting now,” Williams said. (RELATED: History Poised To Repeat Itself As TX Dems Mull Using Same Tactic That Failed 22 Years Ago)

Here’s the bottom line: Amid the lack of leadership in Washington, state Democrats across the country are filling the gap and standing up to fight for Americans and against the GOP’s dangerous agenda. pic.twitter.com/BevmTwqRSP

— Heather Williams (@Heather4Dems) July 22, 2025

Williams also pointed to President Donald Trump pressuring allies in Texas to redraw districts to “protect the GOP’s meager House majority” ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, which she said are “generally more favorable for Democrats.”

She argued Democrats are still “digging themselves out of the hole we found ourselves in” after Republicans’ state-level strategy in 2010 gave them the “ability to unilaterally draw over 340 congressional districts.”

“It was no coincidence that as Donald Trump was elected President in 2016, Republicans held both houses of Congress, were packing the Supreme Court, and held unprecedented control of 70 state legislative chambers – almost enough to call for a Constitutional Convention,” Williams said. “Eight years later, we find ourselves in a similar nightmare.”

Williams said the landscape is shifting as “Democratic power in the states is back on the rise,” crediting the DLCC with beginning to “break the GOP’s stranglehold on our statehouses” and leading a “disciplined, long-term strategy to put Democrats back in a stronger position for the next redistricting cycle.”

Her year-by-year plan calls for growing margins in Senate chambers with four-year terms — such as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin — in 2026; protecting the Virginia Senate’s one-seat majority in 2027; contesting seats in the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin state senates in 2028; expanding the majority in the Virginia House of Delegates in 2029; and shoring up and winning new ones in battleground states in 2030.

“Our counterparts at the RSLC are already setting a record-breaking fundraising pace this year and Republicans are moving quickly to shut Democrats out of the redistricting fight altogether,” Williams said. “In order to meet this moment and secure our future, Democrats must focus and allocate increased resources to this ballot level.”

“Democrats must reassess the failed federal-first strategy and rebuild the party from the ground up in order to achieve lasting success,” she said.