Mid-Decade Redistricting Poses More Risk Than Reward, Ferguson Warns

By Bruce DePuyt, Maryland Matters

November 7, 2025

Redrawing Maryland’s congressional districts mid-decade could imperil, rather than aid, Democrats’ chances of retaking the U.S. House next year, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) warned this week.

In addition, he cautioned, the mechanics of the state’s elections calendar leave no time for such a move.

Ferguson’s comments, made during an interview with Maryland Matters, come as Democratic states are under growing pressure to redraw their congressional maps in response to similar moves this year by Republican states, years ahead of when states normally redistrict. Both sides are looking to gain a partisan advantage ahead of the 2026 congressional elections.

The fight began when Texas, at the urging of President Donald Trump (R), redrew its congressional maps in such a way that Republicans could pick up as many as five House seats in 2026. Some other Republican states have since followed suit.

Pressure on Maryland intensified this week when California voters approved a redistricting referendum intended to add Democrats to that state’s congressional delegation, countering the GOP gains in Texas.

Some Maryland Democrats have been talking about redistricting since this summer, but Gov. Wes Moore (D) made it official this week when he announced the creation of a commission to study redistricting seven years ahead of when the process would traditionally take place.

A rising star in the Democratic Party, Moore’s move comes as party activists pressure their leaders to fight the aggressive Republican posture head-on. Protesters rallied outside the State House on Thursday, demanding that the state redraw its eight House districts — seven of which are currently held by Democrats — to give them a shot at capturing all eight seats.

Moore defends redistricting as effort to ensure fairness; Republicans prepare to go to court

The group Indivisible Maryland is planning to protest outside Ferguson’s office on Friday. Activists are eager to see Maryland ditch its current map in favor of one in which Democrats run the table.

While he acknowledged that an 8-0 map is theoretically possible, Ferguson told Maryland Matters that “you have to determine whether or not that map can also withstand the legal and constitutional challenges that are inevitable in any map. That is where the responsible analysis has to land, around what do we think the final outcome would be.”

Ferguson pointed to a 2022 ruling by Senior Judge Lynn Battaglia, who struck down a map drawn by General Assembly Democrats on the grounds that it constituted a partisan gerrymander. That ruling, while not precedent-setting, nonetheless represents the most recent judicial opinion on congressional line-drawing. Lawmakers hastily approved a new map in the wake of Battaglia’s decision that led to the current 7-1 split in favor of Democrats.

“Almost every legal mind that I have spoken to through this [process], given the legal context, almost none of them believe that there is a map that could withstand legal challenge, that wouldn’t jeopardize our current map.” Ferguson added.

Rather than holding nearly all of the state’s U.S. House seats, Democrats could see their margin shrink to 6-2 or 5-3, he cautioned.

“If the [state] Supreme Court did adopt [Battaglia’s] ‘extreme partisan gerrymandering’ standard as a violation of the Declaration of Rights, the only way around that is to increase the representation on a partisan standard, and you would end up with one or two additional Republican seats,” Ferguson said.

The Senate leader laid out a second objection to mid-decade redistricting — the ripple effect it would have on primaries next year.

“At this point we’re already too late,” he said. “There is no way that the primary election schedule could maintain if [a new map] were to move forward.”

Ferguson said the state’s chief elections administrator “has expressed extreme concern about what happens with any timeline shift. Local jurisdictions have already finalized their maps for the election, so you would have to restart an entire process.”

Lastly, Ferguson noted that, unlike the resolution needed to redraw state legislative districts, congressional redistricting in Maryland is done by law, and laws can be petitioned to the ballot. A successful petition effort would delay implementation of the new map until after the general election.

“In a moment where we are all saying that every seat matters, we have a certainty around 7-1,” he said. “That certainty goes immediately out the window…. It subjects us to an enormous legal risk at a time when we can’t afford that.”

Ferguson acknowledged the grassroots energy behind the push to redistict, but — noting that each state has its own constitutional framework — he said “it feels like a trap to move forward in this in Maryland.”

Ferguson said he thinks that when residents learn that passage of a new map could backfire on Democrats, “almost every time … the reaction that I get is, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that.'”

The five-member redistricting commission created by Moore will be chaired by Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), a Moore ally, and will include two other members appointed by the governor — former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and Cumberland Mayor Ray Morriss — as well as one member each for the Senate and the House.

House Speaker Adrienne Jones (D-Baltimore County) this week named Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) as the House’s representative. Ferguson said that, at this point, he is likely to serve as the Senate’s representative, but that he wanted to check first with members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus before making that final.