Poll: Most voters oppose mid-decade redistricting

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

As many states rushed to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms, half of American voters say district lines should only be redrawn once a decade after the U.S. Census, a new national poll finds.

According to The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, 50% of registered voters say congressional lines should only be redrawn once every 10 years after the U.S. Census, except when required by a court.

Another 33% say states should be allowed to redraw before the next Census if they believe the current maps are unfair or outdated. Seventeen percent were not sure.

The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, a nonpartisan public opinion polling firm, from June 1-4, 2026, and surveyed registered voters nationally via opt-in online panel and text-to-web cell phone messages. The sample included 2,585 respondents, including 915 Republicans, 1,013 Democrats, and 297 True Independents. It is among the most comprehensive tracking polls in the U.S.

Of Republicans polled, 42% said lines should only be redrawn after the Census, though 40% said states should be allowed to redraw earlier.

Democrats are more firmly opposed to mid-decade redistricting, with 57% favoring the once-a-decade standard and 28% supporting earlier redraws.

Among true independents, 46% prefer waiting for the Census, 23% support earlier redraws, and 31% were not sure.

The poll comes as states across the country have rushed to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms. California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have all voluntarily redrawn their congressional lines this decade, according to Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who tracks redistricting nationally. Virginia’s mid-decade redraw was recently invalidated by state courts. As of mid-May, live litigation challenges to congressional or state legislative lines were pending in 15 states, according to Levitt’s redistricting tracker.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said the poll findings reflect real political consequences for states pursuing mid-decade redistricting.

“I doubt there are any real consequences for states that have already gerrymandered,” Kondik told The Center Square. “We will likely see Democratic-run states going to their voters in 2027 to ask them to unwind or overturn their states’ preexisting redistricting commissions and rules, like California and Virginia did. Winning these battles may not be easy in some places, and this sentiment – voter opposition to mid-decade redistricting – is a reason why.”

Partisan gerrymandering is legal under federal law following the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause, although it remains illegal if based on race.

Politicians historically reserved redistricting for once-a-decade updates following the U.S. Census. That norm began shifting in the summer of 2025, when President Donald Trump called for Texas to redraw its congressional map. Texas Republicans passed new maps in August, and states across the country followed. More than a quarter of all congressional seats have since been redrawn mid-decade, according to a May analysis by Benjamin Schneer, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

The redistricting wave has triggered a number of legal challenges. A court initially blocked Texas from using its Republican-drawn maps, but both the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the maps are constitutional. The U.S. Department of Justice sued California over its Democrat-drawn maps.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, a 2026 ruling that limited the Voting Rights Act’s protections against racially discriminatory maps, has added further uncertainty. States are using the ruling to justify additional mid-decade redistricting, Schneer noted.

Republicans have defended mid-decade redistricting as necessary and lawful. After the Florida Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the state’s redrawn congressional maps this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the ruling “assures that the recently enacted map will be in place for the 2026 election,” as previously reported by The Center Square. Attorney General James Uthmeier called it a “complete and total victory.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Jason Torchinsky, a partner at Holtzman Vogel, a political and election law firm, who has worked on redistricting cases, cautioned against reading too much into the poll findings.

“Redistricting is a complex process with many factors and variables, and public opinion about redistricting shifts constantly,” he told The Center Square.

Benjamin Schneer, assistant professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said voter opposition alone is unlikely to stop the practice.

“Just because respondents oppose mid-decade redistricting in surveys does not mean the parties won’t continue to do it,” he told The Center Square. “Most voters are not thinking about it or processing all the details of how it can matter for elections. So, overall, those pushing through mid-decade gerrymanders do not think they will be punished by voters for doing so.”

He said California illustrates how quickly voter sentiment can shift when redistricting becomes part of a larger partisan battle.

“Voters had previously passed a proposition to have an independent commission and then, as part of this larger partisan battle, turned around and suspended it,” Schneer said. “That’s an example that shows how much the messaging and context matters.”

Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, who has written extensively on elections and redistricting law, said the poll findings reflect a longstanding voter preference that has survived the redistricting battles.

“For decades both Republican and Democratic voters as well as independents have told pollsters they prefer a system where lines are drawn in a neutral rather than partisan way,” Olson told The Center Square. “That underlying sentiment remains despite the past year’s descent into the mud.”

Olson said the costs of last-minute redistricting fall on voters, election administrators and candidates alike.

“The later they settle it, the more aggrieved parties remain, from bewildered voters themselves, to election administrators asked to revamp ballots in weeks, to candidates who may have invested small fortunes in time and money campaigning in a district that no longer exists,” he said. “These are high costs to inflict on a state just to enable a last-minute power grab by one party.”

Olson said Congress has the authority to act.

“Congress can and should use its enumerated powers to call a halt, with an exception for court-ordered redraws,” he said.

The poll’s margin of error is +/-1.93%. The margin of error for subsamples is larger than the overall survey margin of error.