House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday accused President Donald Trump of attempting to “steal” and “rig” the 2026 midterms through gerrymandering, but he avoided answering whether Democrats in New York plan to redraw their own congressional map.

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Jeffries said, “House Democrats are going to respond from coast to coast and at all points in between, as has been done in California, as has been done forcefully, immediately and appropriately to ensure that Donald Trump cannot steal the midterm elections.” When pressed by host Dana Bash on whether Democrats would move to rejigger New York’s map, Jeffries dodged, instead criticizing Republican redistricting in Texas and praising Democratic countermeasures in California. “There’s a plan to respond as appropriately in New York and in other parts of the country as the circumstances dictate,” he said.

The remarks came after Texas Republicans, pushed by Trump, approved a new congressional map that could flip as many as five House seats for the GOP in 2026. Democrats immediately condemned the move as voter suppression, while California Gov. Gavin Newsom advanced his own map designed to counterbalance Texas by potentially handing Democrats five seats of their own. Similar fights are playing out in other states, with Republicans in Florida, Missouri, and Indiana floating redrawn maps and Democrats in Illinois, Maryland, and New York weighing the same.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul has been far more outspoken than Jeffries, openly calling for Democrats to fight fire with fire. “I’m tired of fighting this fight with my hand tied behind my back,” she said earlier this month. “Politics is a political process. The playing field has changed dramatically, and shame on us if we ignore that fact. That era is over — Donald Trump eliminated it forever.”

New York Democrats introduced a constitutional amendment in July that would permit lawmakers to revise the state’s congressional map before 2028, though it formally bars partisan gerrymandering.

With Republicans holding just a three-seat majority in the House, the fight over redistricting could decide control of Congress. Trump and his allies are using state maps to lock in gains, while Democrats face growing pressure to adopt the same tactics despite their public denunciations of gerrymandering.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)