A ballot measure that looks to enact a more Republican-friendly House map in Missouri is projected to fail, delivering a major win for Democrats, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ). Voters rejected the ballot measure, known as Proposition A, which would have allowed lawmakers to pass a new set of congressional lines ahead of the...
Page B52From§Eachthe morning edition — 4 November 2026
THE AUTOPSY
Republicans redraw Texas and Missouri maps to survive 2026, voters and districts vote no.
As it ran on the front
Here lies a strategy, born in the Texas and Missouri legislatures sometime in 2025, dead at the count on Tuesday.
Missouri's trouble started in court, not on Election Day. The legislature drew a congressional map in 2022, then drew a second one in 2025 reaching for the same result, and on September 25 the U.S. Supreme Court's own conservative majority let a lower ruling against that second map stand — the third time the courts had struck the map down. Lawmakers then asked voters directly: Proposition A would have authorized the legislature to pass yet another set of congressional lines. Voters rejected it Tuesday — the fourth time the map project had been turned back, three times by courts and now once by the people asked to bless it themselves.…
…(cont) Texas took the other road to the same grave. Lawmakers redrew districts over the summer specifically to protect Republican seats ahead of the midterms, a redraw that by late October had forced incumbents in both parties to retool their campaigns district by district. On October 16 the president was already complaining that fellow Republicans were "hurting Texas," a line aimed at the Senate race but a fair description of what the House maps were about to do to him.
On Tuesday the districts answered. Johnny Garcia won the 35th, a seat drawn specifically to flip against him. Leticia Gutierrez won the 9th, redrawn last year to favor the oil-and-gas executive she beat by fourteen points instead. The map built to protect those two seats is the reason both of them are gone.
A map drawn to win an election has, this week, lost twice over: one version thrown out by courts three times and then by voters a fourth, the other redrawn specifically to save seats that the same redrawing handed to the other party. Call it penny-ante stuff, the kind of plan that works right up until the people it was drawn around show up and vote.
Preceded in death by: the 2022 Missouri map, left standing while its replacement failed three times in court and once at the ballot.
In lieu of flowers, the next legislature that redraws a map to save itself should count the room before it moves the furniture.
“They moved the lines so the outcome couldn't go against them, and the outcome went against them anyway, in the same districts they picked by hand. That's not redistricting, that's a rigged coin landing on its edge. Forty-six seats were already on the flip list before Tuesday — two of them were sitting right inside the maps built specifically to stop that.”
“Look, redistricting happens every ten years, both parties do it when they hold the pen, and Missouri's measure went through the normal process of asking voters directly — that's democracy, not a rig. The Texas map was about fair representation for growing communities, it just happens that the growing communities voted the other way. I mean — did I just call a map that lost in court three times "normal process"? Let me revisit that.”
Earlier in this story
- Court rejects noncitizen-voter ballot purge four times, approves it on Election Day. By Mitch · the evening edition, 3 November 2026
- DOJ's four Alaska ballot probes yield zero charges, earn Marc Elias a target letter anyway. By Mort · the evening edition, 3 November 2026
- Justice Department answers five court losses by charging 63 voters, seeking sanctions on its own analysts. By Mitch · the evening edition, 3 November 2026
- DOJ cuts noncitizen-voter claim by 170,000, loses in court three times, asks for sanctions on the analysts. By Mitch · the evening edition, 2 November 2026
- Justice Department says it isn't assuming a crime occurred, appeals the lawsuit built on one. By Chip · the morning edition, 2 November 2026
- Tim Scott calls an unproven plot a 'criminal offense' but won't say he'll accept the vote it targets By Lou · the afternoon edition, 1 November 2026
The receipts
Leticia Gutierrez (D) is projected to defeat Alex Mealer (R) in Texas’s 9th District, according to Decision Desk HQ. Gutierrez is leading Mealer by 14 points with 78 percent reporting, per DDHQ. Gutierrez will succeed Rep.
Johnny Garcia defeated Republican Carlos De La Cruz in Texas' redrawn 35th Congressional District, defying a Trump-backed redistricting map.
Among the sweeping victories by Democrats on Tuesday were wins in several congressional districts that Republicans had redrawn explicitly to boost their party ahead of the midterms.
· Democrats add 6 more House races to 'Red to Blue' seat flipping list from the morgue, 5 Oct 2026
· Here are the candidates facing new maps after redistricting fight from the morgue, 26 Oct 2026
· Trump attacks fellow Republicans for ‘hurting Texas’ during senate election race – US politics live from the morgue, 16 Oct 2026
· In Win for Missouri Voters, Supreme Court Smacks Down GOP's Rigged Map a Third Time from the morgue, 25 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.