Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder are rejecting Republican accusations of hypocrisy over Democrats’ own history of partisan mapmaking, arguing that what’s happening in Texas under President Donald Trump’s direction is fundamentally different.
Speaking to NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, Pritzker said Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Trump are attempting to “cheat mid-decade” by changing maps ahead of the 2026 midterms in order to secure a GOP advantage.
“They know that they’re going to lose in 2026, the Congress, and so they’re trying to steal seats,” Pritzker said, praising Texas Democrats who fled the state to block a quorum in the legislature.
Under Trump’s plan, Republicans are aiming for a rare mid-decade redistricting that could deliver as many as five additional GOP-held congressional seats in Texas. In early August, dozens of Texas House Democrats fled to Illinois and other blue states to stall the process. The FBI is now assisting Texas officials in trying to locate them, but Pritzker maintains that Texas quorum rules “have no validity in Illinois.”
Republicans counter that Democrats have already gerrymandered their own states beyond recognition, citing Illinois as a prime example. Trump won nearly 44% of the Illinois vote in 2024—slightly more than Kamala Harris won in Texas—but just three of Illinois’ 17 House seats are held by Republicans. Princeton University’s Redistricting Report Card graded Illinois’s map an “F” for partisan fairness.
Abbott called the Democratic outrage “a joke,” telling NBC that “they have no capability” to gerrymander further, having already squeezed out nearly all GOP representation.
Pritzker defended Illinois’s map as the product of the normal decennial redistricting cycle, complete with public hearings and compliance with the Voting Rights Act. “That’s how it’s done in this country,” he said. “What’s even rarer is to do it at the behest of the president of the United States, who’s clearly attempting to and says that he deserves to have five more seats.”
Holder, who now leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, framed Democrats’ coming map adjustments as “responsive” and “temporary” rather than partisan overreach. He emphasized that, unlike President Trump, former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden never pressured governors to draw maps for their own political gain.
He also drew a sharp rhetorical parallel to Trump’s January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “That call to Texas is kind of reminiscent of the call that President Trump made to the secretary of state in Georgia,” Holder said. “He said, ‘Find me 11,780 votes.’ He calls Texas now and says, ‘Well, find me five seats so that we can save the House in 2026.’”
