SOUND THE ALARM: Republicans Target Sharice Davids in Next Round of Redistricting Efforts
In case you missed it, Kansas is the next target of Donald Trump and Republicans’ attempt to rig the congressional map and gerrymander districts against Democrats. Kansas Republicans have recently circulated a petition to call a special session to take up redistricting in order to target the state’s only Democratic member of Congress, EMILYs List-endorsed Rep. Sharice Davids. State Senate President Ty Masterson, who is running for governor, made it clear that he supports redistricting and wants to call a special session as early as November in a feeble attempt to earn a Trump endorsement.
In 2022, Kansas Republicans redistricted the state’s map in an attempt to weaken Rep. Sharice Davids’ hold, but she won each election by double digits. Now Republicans are aiming to split up the most populous county in the state, despite promising they wouldn’t. Rep. Davids highlighted how splitting up Johnson County “is such a clear political power grab.”
Read the full article here, and highlights below.
Kansas Republicans start redistricting process aimed at unseating Rep. Sharice Davids, KCUR
By Zane Irwin, 9/30/25
Kansas Republican House Speaker Dan Hawkins has set the wheels in motion to call a special legislative session for mid-decade redistricting, a Republican lawmaker said on Tuesday.
At an annual retreat on Saturday, state Rep. Mark Schreiber said party leaders distributed petitions to lawmakers to call a special session.
[…]
Command of the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives is at stake. Republican President Donald Trump has urged state lawmakers to secure a House GOP majority for the second half of his term.
Kansas’ last redistricting fight is still visible in the rearview mirror. Republican lawmakers overcame the governor’s veto and legal challenges to revise the map in 2022. The redraw was designed to weaken Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids’ hold on Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District.
Davids still won each of the following elections comfortably. But proponents of a Republican clean sweep in Kansas’ congressional delegation have at least one high-stakes option left: splitting up Johnson County into two or more congressional districts.
Davids told KCUR on Thursday that splitting up the state’s most populous and economically productive county would sever community relationships and lead to worse county services.
“This is such a clear political power grab,” she said.
[…]
In an email to the Kansas News Service, Republican state Senate President Ty Masterson said he would support redistricting “as a part of the bigger battle for the heart and soul of the country.”
Masterson is one of several GOP candidates running for Kansas governor in 2026 who publicly back redistricting. An endorsement by President Trump would boost any one of their campaigns.
[…]
Multiple lawmakers told the Kansas News Service they expect redistricting to come up when Kansas Republicans visit the White House in October. Masterson has said he wants to call the special session in early November.
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EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, works to elect Democratic pro-choice women up and down the ballot and across the country with a goal of fighting for our rights and our communities. Over 40 years, EMILYs List has raised nearly $950 million to help Democratic women win competitive elections by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running one of the most impactful independent expenditure operations for Democrats, and turning out women voters to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country’s first woman as vice president, 192 women to the House, 29 to the Senate, 20 governors, and over 1,600 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. Visit www.emilyslist.org for more information.
