The U.S. House of Representatives has 435 voting seats divided among 50 states based on population. In 2025 and 2026, many Republican-controlled state legislatures redrew district boundaries to improve party chances. California also redrew its districts to benefit Democrats. Now, millions of voters will cast ballots in vastly different districts today.
There are 435 total voting seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unlike in the U.S. Senate, where the number of senators is fixed at two per state, House seats are divided up among the 50 states through a process called apportionment. The number of House seats each state gets depends on the state's population, as determined by the U.S. Census every 10 years.
It's up to each state to decide how to divide up its allotment of House seats through a process called redistricting. Usually, either the state Legislature or an independent commission is responsible for drawing district boundaries (including state legislative districts). This is usually only done after every census, although legal challenges have resulted in lines being redrawn between regularly scheduled censuses.
In 2025 and 2026, several Republican-controlled state legislatures redrew their congressional district boundaries at President Donald Trump's urging to improve the party's chances of keeping control of the House in the midterm elections. In response, California redrew its districts to benefit Democrats. The result is that millions of voters across the country will cast ballots for the U.S. House in vastly different districts than they did two years ago. In Missouri, a legal challenge to a congressional map drawn by Republicans in 2025 will result in some voters casting ballots in a different district in the general election than they did in the primary.
Critics of overly-politicized redistricting often refer to the process as gerrymandering, named after a former Massachusetts governor from the 1800s.