Who Will Hold the Pen on Congressional Maps After November

October 26, 2026 · By FutureBallot

Every governor and state legislator elected this fall will be up again before maps based on the 2030 census are drawn. But in fourteen of the thirty-four states where the legislature adopts the congressional map, at least one of the offices that must approve those maps is competitive this November.

That matters because, in a growing number of states, maps are no longer drawn once a decade and left alone. Ten states have changed their congressional maps since the summer of 2025. Where the legislature adopts the map and its members or governor are elected this fall, those winners are the ones who would pass, or in most of those states veto, the next attempt. The races that could change who holds that power are listed below.

Start with the timing: the Census Bureau must deliver the population counts used for redistricting within a year of the census date, which means by April 1, 2031 (13 U.S.C. § 141(c)). Governors serve four-year terms in every state except New Hampshire and Vermont, which have two-year terms (National Governors Association), and no state legislator serves a term longer than four years (NCSL). So every governor and state legislator elected this November is on the ballot again by 2030, before that data arrives.

The 2026 winners will be in office for part of the time the maps may be redrawn. Since the summer of 2025, ten states have changed their congressional maps in the middle of the decade, including Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah (NCSL tracker, updated September 11, 2026). In states where the legislature adopts the map, any further redraw before the 2028 election would normally pass through the legislatures in office after this November, and in most of them through the governor as well, unless a court draws the map instead.

Who adopts the map

Forty-four states have more than one House seat. Using NCSL's state-by-state table of how maps become law (NCSL, updated September 2, 2026), we sort them three ways:

• The legislature, drawing and passing the map itself: twenty-nine states with 269 House seats. In all but two, the governor can veto the map. North Carolina's governor has no veto over the process, and Connecticut's map needs a two-thirds vote of each chamber, with no governor's approval. Ohio's legislature needs three-fifths of each chamber, including at least half of each of the two largest parties' members.
• The legislature, from a plan drawn by someone else: five states (Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, New York and Utah) with thirty-nine seats, where an advisory commission or nonpartisan staff draws and the legislature enacts, subject to veto. Maine's legislature can pass a plan of its own only with two-thirds of each chamber, and New York's thresholds vary with the commission's vote and with whether one party leads both chambers.
• A commission: ten states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington) with 121 seats. We count Virginia here: its commission draws the plan, which then needs the legislature's approval, with no governor's veto. California's commission draws again after 2030. In November 2025 California's voters approved a constitutional amendment letting the map lawmakers passed that August take effect until then (NCSL tracker).

The six remaining states have a single House seat.

Where November is close

In the thirty-four states where a legislature adopts the map, FutureBallot forecasts the 2026 races for each chamber and governorship on the ballot (Louisiana and Mississippi have neither this year). In fourteen of those states, at least one of those offices is competitive, meaning its likeliest outcome's chance, as the site shows it, is below 85% (Iowa's governor favorite, at 84.6% in the forecast data, shows as 85% and is not counted). Those fourteen states elect 154 members of the House.

Wisconsin is the only state where all three offices that approve a map are competitive. In six of them, one party holds the legislature and the governorship now, its legislative majorities are not competitive, and the governor's race is: Republicans in Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, and Democrats in Oregon. The governor's veto is at stake in those states. Three of the states, Florida, Ohio and Texas, are among the ten states that have changed their maps since the summer of 2025. Ohio's legislature also needs bipartisan support to pass a ten-year map, on top of the governor's veto. If the parties cannot agree, a backup commission that also needs votes from both parties takes over. That process was used to adopt Ohio's 2025 map. Only if both fail can the legislature pass a map without the bipartisan requirement, and a map passed that way with less than three-fifths of the votes lasts only four years instead of ten (NCSL tracker).

Chart: every state where the legislature adopts the map and a map-adopting office is on the 2026 ballot (Louisiana and Mississippi have none). Each cell shows the Democrats' chance; a gold cell is competitive because its likeliest outcome, which may be the Republican one, is below 85%. Nebraska's single nonpartisan chamber is shown in the Senate column. Dashed cells are not on the ballot this year (for example, the Kansas and South Carolina senates and North Carolina's governor) or, in Connecticut, a governor on the ballot without a veto (North Carolina's governor has none either).

In two commission states, Arizona and Michigan, a legislative chamber is also competitive. Those offices do not adopt the congressional map under current law, and changing that would take an amendment to the state constitution, as California's 2025 vote did.

The races to watch

These are the races where November could change who holds the pen, in either direction:

• Ohio and Georgia governor. Republicans hold both the legislature and the governorship today. A Democratic win (73% in Ohio, 57% in Georgia) would put a Democratic veto over any map the legislature passes.
• Wisconsin, all three. The Assembly (Democratic majority 31%), the Senate (Democratic majority 61%) and the governorship (Democrat 75%) are all competitive, so either party could come out with the whole pen or with none of it.
• Kansas and Nevada governor. Each state has a governor of the party that does not hold the legislature. A Republican win in Kansas (65%) or a Democratic win in Nevada (38%) would hand one party both.
• The Minnesota, Maine and New Hampshire legislatures. Both Minnesota chambers (Democratic majority 72% and 80%) and both New Hampshire chambers (House: Republican majority 50%, Democratic 49%; Senate: Republican majority 81%) decide whether one party can hold every step. In Maine, the House (Democratic majority 70%) decides which party controls a chamber the map must pass; neither party is forecast near the two-thirds a plan of the legislature's own would need. (Pennsylvania's House is competitive too, at a Democratic majority of 74%, but its Senate is not, at a Republican majority of 89%, and neither is its governor's race, at Democrat above 99%, so the state almost certainly stays divided whichever way the House goes; Democrats' chance of the Senate is 4%.)
• Texas, Florida and Oklahoma governor. Democrats are the underdogs (25%, 20% and 16%), but a win in any of them would put the veto in Democratic hands in a state where Republicans now control every step; Texas and Florida have both redrawn since the summer of 2025.
• Nebraska governor. Nebraska's single-chamber legislature is officially nonpartisan; a Democratic win (23%) would put the governor's veto over its maps in Democratic hands.
• Oregon governor. The one state on the list where Democrats hold everything; a Republican win (19%) would put the veto there in Republican hands.

How we did this

• Who adopts the map is NCSL's How Redistricting Maps Become Law table, with the constitutional and statutory citations it gives for most states. The three groups are our summary of NCSL's "primary redistricting authority" and "final approval" columns.
• Mid-decade redraws are NCSL's tracker. Current party control is NCSL's State Partisan Composition table (October 6, 2026).
• Forecasts are FutureBallot's published governor and state-legislative forecasts, as published on October 26 (governors from the 20:10 UTC run in that day's release, state legislatures from its 14:06 UTC run). House seats per state are from FutureBallot's House forecast. Competitive: a chamber whose likeliest outcome (either party's majority, or neither) is below 85%; a governor's race whose favorite's chance, as the site displays it, is below 85% (rated Toss-up or Lean on the site).
• Every chance the site displays that this analysis uses, including each one quoted here, was checked against the live pages: eighty-five checks. The table gives each Democrat's chance, and the text names the side each chance is for. The governor pages show the favorite's name and chance, which the script's own check did not convert, so its twenty-five governor checks were redone comparing the Democrat's chance with that chance or its complement; all eighty-five match (site_checks_converted.json). The script is compute.py in the repository's analysis/who-draws-the-maps/ folder; it writes figures.json and the chart, published here as wk3_who-draws-the-maps.svg.

What this doesn't tell you

• The state-legislative model is an initial one, and its ranges have run wide. In tests on past elections, given the actual national result, 92% of 2024 results fell inside its 80% ranges. If it overstates uncertainty again, some chambers counted as competitive here are safer for their favored party than the chances suggest, and 2026 is its first test on an election it has not seen (State legislatures).
• The chance of unified control is not here. The forecast publishes each office's chance separately. Whether one party wins the legislature and the governorship together depends on how the races move together, and multiplying the separate chances would understate that. This article does not estimate it.
• Power to redraw is not intent to redraw. Some states limit when maps can be redrawn or require standards that courts enforce. Several redraws in the past year are still in court, and Missouri's 2025 map is on hold, with the 2022 map in effect by court order, pending a referendum on the November ballot (NCSL tracker).
• Commission rules are not traced. How each commission's next members are chosen, and who takes part, is not covered here.
• Veto overrides are not modeled. A legislature with a large enough majority can override a governor's veto; the thresholds are not part of this analysis.

Figures used (all from figures.json): categories, categories_house_seats, legislature_no_governor_veto, legislature_supermajority_or_bipartisan, commission_states, redrew_since_2025, n_legislature_states_with_a_competitive_pen_holder, house_seats_in_those_states, legislature_states_with_competitive_pen_holder[*], unified_control_only_governor_competitive, every_pen_holder_competitive, commission_states_with_competitive_legislature_or_governor, states, n_multi_district_states, definitions, release, terms, sources, site_checks.

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