‘We remain undeterred’: Hakeem Jeffries says gerrymandering won’t save House Republicans

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday that he’s confident Democrats will still win back the House of Representatives, despite Republicans now being poised to come out ahead in President Donald Trump’s redistricting war.

“The failed GOP majority will not be able to gerrymander themselves back into power,” Jeffries wrote in a new letter to House Democrats.

“The extremists will not meaningfully benefit from their scandalous gerrymandering scheme,” he added. “Quite the opposite. Democratic enthusiasm and resolve have grown more intense.”

Jeffries sent the memo days after the Virginia Supreme Court sided with Republicans in throwing out the results of the state’s special election, in which voters approved a new congressional map proposed by Democrats.

Under the proposed map, Democrats could have come close to matching the potential gains Republicans have made through their partisan gerrymanders in Texas, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Ohio.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent gutting of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act has also ignited a slew of GOP redistricting efforts aimed at erasing majority-minority electoral districts across the South.

Republicans in Tennessee carved up the state’s only Black-majority congressional district through a new map last week. And the GOP in Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina has also taken steps toward redistricting.

Despite the Republicans’ aggressive gerrymanders, Jeffries said he believes Democrats will control the House after the midterms because of the “highly unfavorable political environment confronting” Republicans.

With Trump’s approval rating dipping near record lows and prices on consumer goods increasing, Republicans currently face major political headwinds before the midterms. Democrats have also overperformed in several elections since Trump took office last year.

After taking the House majority, Jeffries vowed a “massive Democratic redistricting counteroffensive” for the 2028 elections.

In an interview with Democracy Docket last week, the House minority leader listed New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Illinois and Maryland as states where Democrats could potentially redraw maps in their favor. 

“We will bury the GOP gerrymandering scheme,” Jeffries said in his letter.

He added that the House Democrats will hold a meeting Tuesday to discuss what the party “is doing to advance the largest voter protection effort in modern American history.”