Month: December 2025

In Colorado, full-time workers need to earn an hourly wage of at least $36.79 to afford $2,000 in monthly rent, which is below the federal fair market rate for a Denver-area two-bedroom unit.

More than 87% of low-income Coloradans spend more than one-third of their pretax income on housing — a common benchmark for housing affordability. High costs of housing, child care and transportation in Colorado are key drivers of a statewide cost of living that is 12% above the national average.

For many Coloradans, a few hundred extra dollars a month would go a long way. Yet today, the U.S. safety net appears more tenuous than ever and is unlikely to meet all their needs.

Nationally, over the 43-day government shutdown that began on Oct. 1, 2025, 1.4 million federal workers went without paychecks. More than 150,000 jobs were cut in the U.S. private sector in October alone.

As layoffs increase, fewer people are being hired into new positions. At the same time, the federal government shutdown put families receiving federal food assistance on an emotional roller coaster as aid was promised and then pulled away.

This recent federal funding uncertainty has resurfaced the idea of state or local programs that give people money without any strings attached.

Rise of guaranteed income programs

First proposed nationally during the Nixon administration in the 1970s, guaranteed income programs have grown more popular in the U.S.

The concept got a big boost when entrepreneur Andrew Yang proposed a $1,000 monthly stipend during his bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Yang’s proposal called for giving all Americans money to help them deal with economic problems brought on by job losses tied to automation and new technologies.

In Colorado, both Boulder and Denver have piloted guaranteed income programs. In both cases the programs were studied using rigorous randomized-control trial research designs.

We are an academic research team comprised of a social scientist with a background in economic analysis, a social work scholar who studies policy approaches to reducing health and wealth disparities, and an urban planning scholar with expertise in state and local policy.

We were contracted to provide an independent evaluation and cost assessment of administering a statewide cash assistance program for Coloradans. Our estimates include projections for population changes, such as the aging workforce, and three tiers of support: from low, $25 per month, to medium, $100 per month, to high, $500 per month.

Rolling out a state government program that gives everyone money would be expensive, so we also estimated what it would cost to introduce a program just for the lowest-income Coloradans.

What are guaranteed income programs?

Guaranteed income programs are policies that support a population by giving people money on a regular basis — regardless of their income. They’re called universal basic income programs.

More common in practice are cash dividends. Dividends offer cash assistance to a qualifying group or segment of the population, such as people below a certain income or with a qualifying disability. An example of this is Michigan’s Rx Kids Program, which provides cash assistance for pregnant people, new parents and babies.

Guaranteed income programs can be administered at the neighborhood, city or state level. Programs in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Richmond, California; and Baltimore have all shown efficacy in targeting the needs of local communities.

For example, people who were enrolled in the Rise Up Cambridge program became more likely to be employed, get enough to eat and have housing – while making more money — than those who didn’t get cash assistance.

Most cash assistance programs have succeeded. Research by GiveDirectly and the Stanford Basic Income Project likewise find that beneficiaries of cash assistance programs are more likely to get involved in their local communities.

These programs can support people who have lost their jobs or are experiencing health crises. In Colorado, a statewide guaranteed income program could help low-income Coloradans facing high housing and child care costs.

Similarly, the program could help Colorado’s growing population of older people with fixed incomes.

It could also address fears that the rise of artificial intelligence will cause job losses and result in lower wages for many workers. Columbia Business School researchers have predicted a 5% decline in how much of the country’s total economic output goes to workers’ wages due to artificial intelligence.

Program, not panacea

While guaranteed income programs can help the people who get money from them, they are complicated, expensive and hard to administer.

Administering a guaranteed income program requires massive capacity to deploy and manage. The state would have to facilitate enrollment, keep mailing addresses or bank information updated and supervise transfers for more than 5 million Coloradans every single month. Some of this data may already exist at state agencies, but no one agency has all of this information at its disposal.

For instance, only 80% of adults, roughly 3.3 million people, in Colorado filed a tax return in 2023; only 175,000 workers filed a Family and Medical Leave Insurance claim in 2024; and just about 1 million adults are enrolled in Health First Colorado, the state’s Medicaid program. Even merging data across these agencies — an effort that is underway but is just getting started — would miss some households across the state.

In a world of finite budgets, a statewide universal program would have to be smaller per person, limiting its benefits. Giving all Colorado residents $100 per month would cost more than $7 billion each year. That’s more than half of Colorado’s annual general fund. However, it would cost half as much — $3.3. billion — to provide $500 per month to the 554,000 Coloradans who are below the federal poverty line, which is $32,150 for a family of five.

Finding this money within the state budget could require cutting spending elsewhere — potentially from other state-funded programs that benefit low-income families.

Trade-offs for policymakers

If federal food assistance, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is disrupted again, either by more funding freezes or new changes in eligibility rules, a statewide supportive assistance program could help offset the impact.

In 2024, the average American getting SNAP benefits received $6.11 per day, or less than $200 a month. One in 10 Coloradans, 584,500 people, receive SNAP benefits.

However, a guaranteed income program might risk pushing some households’ income above the eligibility cutoff for programs like SNAP — creating unintended consequences that harm household welfare. It’s unclear whether assistance from a basic income program would count as reportable income.

Where AI-driven job loss is concerned, guaranteed income programs could smooth transitions for laid-off workers needing to upskill or move industries. However, guaranteed income programs are not likely to be sufficient in scope or generous enough to cushion workers from a potential restructuring of the labor market, which may have already begun.

Assessing public support

Given the high costs of creating a statewide guaranteed income program for Colorado, getting substantial public buy-in would be necessary.

Recent election results, in which voters approved a new tax to fund free school meals for all students, suggest that Coloradans can support programs that help the most vulnerable families.

A recent privately funded poll in Colorado, which was informed by our evaluation’s estimates, found that 56% of voters would support a monthly $500 payment for all new parents, people experiencing homelessness, and low-income households. The poll found that Coloradans were less likely to support a program providing a smaller stipend to all Coloradans, regardless of their income.

Taken together, these polling results suggest that many Coloradans would support some form of need-based income assistance. However, the price of operating any statewide guaranteed income program could give them sticker shock.

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

Jennifer C. Greenfield was hired by Thinking Forward, LLC and the Denver Basic Income Project as a consultant to provide cost estimates and analysis of a potential cash dividend program in Colorado, as described in this article.

Kaitlyn M. Sims receives funding from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, the Arnold Ventures Foundation, and the Institute for Humane Studies. She was contracted by Thinking Forward, LLC, and the Denver Basic Income Project to provide a cost-benefit assessment of a statewide cash dividend for the state of Colorado.

Stefan Chavez-Norgaard was contracted by Thinking Forward, LLC, to provide a cost-benefit analysis and broad assessment of a statewide cash dividend program for the State of Colorado. He has also connected with organizations mentioned in this article, including the Denver Basic Income Project (DBIP) and the Fund 4 Guaranteed Income, supporter of the Compton Pledge.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The culture wars have arrived at the U.S. Mint.

Commemorative coins aimed at celebrating America’s 250th anniversary in 2026 were unveiled by the mint on Dec. 10, 2025, and they reflect the country’s currently divided politics and views of history.

In an unexpected move, most of the original designs for the “America 250” coins that were approved by two official committees in 2024 were abandoned and replaced. Most notably, the Black Abolition, Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights quarters were replaced with quarters that instead commemorate the Mayflower Compact, Revolutionary War and the Gettysburg Address.

As a cultural geographer and coin collector, I believe the release of these new dimes, quarters and half-dollars offers a reminder that coins, despite their small size, share important messages about what it means to be an American.

This isn’t the first time politics has invaded the design of U.S. coins. The history contained in their designs is often negotiated and politicized, which is manifested into coins as public memory.

From Congress to your pocket

The production of these America 250 coins, part of the celebration formally referred to as the “American Semiquintennial,” was authorized by the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in January 2021.

This reflects the long-standing formal process for designing and producing U.S. coins, both regular circulating ones and commemorative ones.

First, Congress calls for the production of new coins. Then, design ideas and draft art are solicited from medallic artists at the U.S. Mint, who create the raised, three-dimensional designs that are sculpted into models.

Two groups – the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, which exists to advise the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury on the designs of all U.S. coins and medals, and the federal Commission of Fine Arts, which provides advice to the federal government on matters of design and aesthetics, including memorials, buildings and coins – work together over time, including through public meetings, to review proposed designs and recommend revisions and selections of specific designs.

The recommendations of the advisory committee and the commission have in the past proved valuable to shaping the final depictions portrayed in coin engravings, but the final authority and decisions come from the Secretary of the Treasury.

In the case of the America 250 coins, the designs were discussed across multiple meetings in 2024, with the final report from the Commission of Fine Arts published on Oct. 24, 2024.

The final recommendations were for a dime that bears a “Liberty Over Tyranny” design; five quarters that would have the “Declaration of Independence,” “U.S. Constitution,” “Abolitionism,” “Suffrage” and “Civil Rights” as their respective designs; and a half-dollar that would bear a “Participatory Democracy” design.

Why the big switch?

The original dime and half-dollar images remained unchanged in the officially accepted designs unveiled on Dec. 10, 2025. However, all quarter designs were changed, eliminating the proposed images representing the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Abolitionism, Suffrage and Civil Rights, with the exception of the reverse side of the Declaration of Independence quarter.

No official explanation for these changes were provided during the U.S. Mint’s design unveiling event. But it is not hard to see how the nation’s current political climate, in which President Donald Trump has complained that the Smithsonian focuses too much on “how bad slavery was” and not enough on the “brightness” of the country’s history, may have played a role.

This is significant for two primary reasons. One, the process for choosing the design was supposed to reflect public input, via the public meetings with the two advisory committees regarding these changes. But these fundamental changes were ultimately decided by the Secretary of the Treasury out of the public eye, likely in concert with other members of the Trump administration.

Second, these changes of the America 250 quarters reinforce a more traditional and exclusionary view of nation’s founding and continued progress. The new designs sideline Americans’ historical struggle against oppression and social injustice and are demonstrative of the Trump administration’s collective efforts to bar government statements and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The selective editing of American memory portrayed on the America 250 coins is not only a breach in established process, but it’s also a missed opportunity to provide new and diverse representation in an easy, yet meaningful, way.

Public memory in your pocket

Ever since the U.S. Mint opened in Philadelphia in 1792, coins and currency with depictions of American figures, symbolic representations and iconic inscriptions have circulated throughout the nation and the world.

For example, the Fifty States Quarters program, which ran from 1999 to 2008, was very popular among Americans who appreciated seeing different designs on quarters that were emblematic of their own state’s identity. For example, the Vermont version of the quarter included an image of Camel’s Hump Mountain and maple trees with sap buckets hung on them.

Scholars have argued that coins and currency are examples of everyday or banal nationalism, which refers to the often unnoticed expressions of national identity that persist throughout material culture and society.

Coins occupy sparing yet evident moments throughout our lives. You can find them in routine places, with little attention given to their presence, such as the bottom of your junk drawer, in the cup holder in your car or abandoned on the sidewalk.

To cultural geographers like me, coins serve as vessels of passive and active public memory. They subtly signal values and reinforce figures and events as important to American culture and history by being portrayed on government-issued coins.

This understanding further highlights the significance of the recent design changes to the America 250 coins. The removal of imagery of women, people of color and historic events important to marginalized people are not subtle choices.

Whether someone is an active coin collector or just looking to buy a candy bar at a convenience store, all people participate in the reproduction of American public memory. And they do this regardless of which narratives of public memory are chosen to be shared by the federal government.

What comes next?

Recent controversies regarding the end of production of the U.S. penny and the proposal for a new one-dollar coin commemorating President Donald Trump illustrate the American public’s continued interest and attention to coins and currency despite an increasingly digital age. The redesign of these America 250 coins is yet another story in this ongoing saga.

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Read more:
Who wins and who loses as the US retires the penny

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Historically, designs of coins or currency that are unpopular with the general public are ripe for being defaced, such as the scratching out of public figures or the complete destruction of the piece.

Although sometimes illegal, such an act sends a powerful political message of subversion against the government. This tends to be more common in other nations, beyond minor graffiti drawn onto paper currency in the U.S.

If the U.S. Mint maintains the product schedule of previous years, the America 250 coins should begin to circulate in February 2026. It may take time for the coins to arrive at banks, and even longer for them to show up as change from grocery stores, convenience shops and beyond.

Whether you believe in the appropriateness of the new designs or not, the coins and their backstory can serve as a prompt for discussion with friends and family, or even educating children, about what it means to be an American. The power – and the coins – will soon be in your hands.

Seth T. Kannarr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Dec. 11, 2025, that aims to supersede state-level artificial intelligence laws that the administration views as a hindrance to innovation in AI.

State laws regulating AI are increasing in number, particularly in response to the rise of generative AI systems such as ChatGPT that produce text and images. Thirty-eight states enacted laws in 2025 regulating AI in one way or another. They range from prohibiting stalking via AI-powered robots to barring AI systems that can manipulate people’s behavior.

The executive order declares that it is the policy of the United States to produce a “minimally burdensome” national framework for AI. The order calls on the U.S. attorney general to create an AI litigation task force to challenge state AI laws that are inconsistent with the policy. It also orders the secretary of commerce to identify “onerous” state AI laws that conflict with the policy and to withhold funding under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program to states with those laws. The executive order exempts state AI laws related to child safety.

Executive orders are directives to federal agencies on how to implement existing laws. The AI executive order directs federal departments and agencies to take actions that the administration claims fall under their legal authorities.

Big tech companies have lobbied for the federal government to override state AI regulations. The companies have argued that the burden of following multiple state regulations hinders innovation.

Proponents of the state laws tend to frame them as attempts to balance public safety with economic benefit. Prominent examples are laws in California, Colorado, Texas and Utah. Here are some of the major state laws regulating AI that could be targeted under the executive order:

Algorithmic discrimination

Colorado’s Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence is the first comprehensive state law in the U.S. that aims to regulate AI systems used in employment, housing, credit, education and health care decisions. However, enforcement of the law has been delayed while the state legislature considers its ramifications.

The focus of the Colorado AI act is predictive artificial intelligence systems, which make decisions, not newer generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, which create content.

The Colorado law aims to protect people from algorithmic discrimination. The law requires organizations using these “high-risk systems” to make impact assessments of the technology, notify consumers whether predictive AI will be used in consequential decisions about them, and make public the types of systems they use and how they plan to manage the risks of algorithmic discrimination.

A similar Illinois law scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, amends the Illinois Human Rights Act to make it a civil rights violation for employers to use AI tools that result in discrimination.

On the ‘frontier’

California’s Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act specifies guardrails on the development of the most powerful AI models. These models, called foundation or frontier models, are any AI model that is trained on extremely large and varied datasets and that can be adapted to a wide range of tasks without additional training. They include the models underpinning OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini AI chatbots.

The California law applies only to the world’s largest AI models – ones that cost at least US$100 million and require at least 10²⁶ – or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – floating point operations of computing power to train. Floating point operations are arithmetic that allows computers to calculate large numbers.

Machine learning models can produce unreliable, unpredictable and unexplainable outcomes. This poses challenges to regulating the technology.

Their internal workings are invisible to users and sometimes even their creators, leading them to be called black boxes. The Foundation Model Transparency Index shows that these large models can be quite opaque.

The risks from such large AI models include malicious use, malfunctions and systemic risks. These models could potentially pose catastrophic risks to society. For example, someone could use an AI model to create a weapon that results in mass casualties, or instruct one to orchestrate a cyberattack causing billions of dollars in damages.

The California law requires developers of frontier AI models to describe how they incorporate national and international standards and industry-consensus best practices. It also requires them to provide a summary of any assessment of catastrophic risk. The law also directs the state’s Office of Emergency Services to set up a mechanism for anyone to report a critical safety incident and to confidentially submit summaries of any assessments of the potential for catastrophic risk.

Disclosures and liability

Texas enacted the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act, which imposes restrictions on the development and deployment of AI systems for purposes such as behavioral manipulation. The safe harbor provisions – protections against liability – in the Texas AI act are meant to provide incentives for businesses to document compliance with responsible AI governance frameworks such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.

What is novel about the Texas law is that it stipulates the creation of a “sandbox” – an isolated environment where software can be safely tested – for developers to test the behavior of an AI system.

The Utah Artificial Intelligence Policy Act imposes disclosure requirements on organizations using generative AI tools with their customers. Such laws ensure that a company using generative AI tools bears the ultimate responsibility for resulting consumer liabilities and harms and cannot shift the blame to the AI. This law is the first in the nation to stipulate consumer protections and require companies to prominently disclose when a consumer is interacting with generative AI system.

Other moves

States are also taking other legal and political steps to protect their citizens from the potential harms of AI.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he opposes federal efforts to override state AI regulations. He has also proposed a Florida AI bill of rights to address “obvious dangers” of the technology.

Meanwhile, the attorneys general of 38 states and the attorneys general of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands called on AI companies, including Anthropic, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity AI and xAI, to fix sycophantic and delusional outputs from generative AI systems. These are outputs that can lead users to become overly trusting of the AI systems or even delusional.

It’s not clear what effect the executive order will have, and observers have said it is illegal because only Congress can supersede state laws. The order’s final provision directs federal officials to propose legislation to do so.

Anjana Susarla does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Republicans’ failure to get on the same page on expiring Obamacare subsidies is creating significant rifts between GOP primary contenders and causing heartburn for some of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents heading into November’s midterms.

With just weeks left before Covid-era subsidies lapse, causing steep health insurance rate spikes for millions of people, Republicans are all over the spectrum about what to do — with many of the party’s top candidates ducking when asked about the thorny issue.

In Michigan, the subsidies have emerged as an early policy difference between President Donald Trump-backed Senate candidate Mike Rogers and his new challenger, former state GOP co-chair Bernadette Smith. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) proposal to replace the subsidies with federally funded health savings accounts is facing pushback from his primary opponents. In Georgia, a state with an especially high reliance on the Affordable Care Act, all three Republicans vying to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff refused to commit to any specific health care proposal when asked previously by POLITICO, but told the AJC on Wednesday before POLITICO published its story that they oppose a subsidy extension.

Out of the 24 candidates POLITICO surveyed across key GOP Senate primaries and general election battlegrounds, 10 did not respond to repeated requests for comment on their health care policy preferences, while others gave vague answers.

But as some Republicans dodge, other lawmakers in tough races are practically begging their leadership to fix the issue, which Democrats are already making a key focus of the 2026 midterm elections.

“I know my people back home care tremendously about this,” swing district Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who is leading an effort to go against his own party leaders and force a vote on the expiring credits, said in an interview. “I would assume that’s the case in every district in America.”

There are already warning signs of political pitfalls for Republicans.

Most Americans want Congress to extend the subsidies, polls from health policy think tank KFF and Morning Consult show. And they’re already feeling the strain: Fifty-two percent of respondents to The POLITICO Poll in November reported that their health insurance premiums have risen over the past two to three years — and they’re equally as worried about being able to afford an unexpected health care bill. Nearly half of respondents who said health care is difficult to afford blamed the Trump administration for those struggles.

Health care is a flashpoint in the crowded primary Cassidy is facing back in Louisiana that was fueled in large part by his 2021 vote to impeach Trump. The former physician also chairs the Senate Health Committee and co-authored one of the GOP proposals to try to address the surging rates.

“I want people to have coverage,” Cassidy said after the failed vote on his proposal. “I spent my medical career in a hospital for the underinsured and the poor and the uninsured. My life’s work is: How do you get care to those who otherwise cannot afford it? I understand where people are. The Democratic plan does not.”

His bill failed to advance Thursday afternoon — while giving his primary opponents new fodder for attacks.

St. Tammany Parish Councilmember Kathy Seiden said before the vote that the senator’s proposed health savings accounts are “out of touch” and called for a “time-limited extension” of the subsidies, while Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta described Cassidy’s bill as a “step in the right direction” but said he wants the funding to be “supercharged.”

Republicans more worried about the general election than primaries sound much different on this issue, however.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who are both facing potentially tough races, were among the four Republicans who crossed party lines to support Democrats’ three-year subsidy extension Thursday in the Senate. It failed, alongside Cassidy’s plan.

“My state’s hurting on this,” Sullivan said after both bills tanked.

Republicans have struggled ever since Obamacare’s 2010 passage to craft a functional, politically palatable alternative, even as health insurance rates have surged under the program. Now, Covid-era subsidies are set to expire, and they’re struggling once again to respond.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates 4 million fewer people would have health insurance by 2034 if the subsidies lapse. And premium payments would increase from an average of $888 this year to $1,904 next year if the subsidies expire, according to KFF.

Republican candidates vary widely in their suggestions for a policy fix.

In Michigan, where Republicans are looking to flip retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’ seat, Rogers said “we can’t just put another bandaid” on a “broken health care system” and called for a “new system that works.” Smith advocated for a two-year subsidy extension while also working toward a new health care model.

In New Hampshire, where Republicans are chasing another retiring Democrat’s seat, former Sen. John E. Sununu called to modernize “outdated” regulations and give states more power over their Medicaid programs while ensuring lower-income people are “protected against price spikes.” His rival, former Sen. Scott Brown, said in a statement that “any meaningful solution is going to have to address the underlying cost drivers … and not just temporarily subsidize an unaffordable product.”

In Georgia, where Republicans have their best shot to unseat a Democratic incumbent, two of the three leading GOP candidates — Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter — could soon vote on a specific proposal if a health plan hits the House floor. Derek Dooley, the former football coach backed by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, said in a statement, “We should be focused on transparency, incentivizing doctors to deliver high-quality care, real market competition, and lowering healthcare costs for hardworking Americans—while making sure we put patients first.”

Democrats are yoking GOP candidates to the lapsing subsidies. Senate Democratic campaigns lambasted their GOP opponents for their votes Thursday, and Protect Our Care, a liberal health care advocacy group, signaled a deluge of attack ads to come.

“I’m worried about my colleagues,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican who holds a safe red seat in blue New Jersey, said Wednesday at the Capitol. “Do I think this issue is worth a couple of points in an election? Yeah, I do.”

Erin Doherty contributed to this report.

​Politics

Indiana Republicans’ redistricting rejection marks a rare ceasefire in the gerrymandering wars — and could lead to other state leaders backing off their own plans.

The result gives cover for some Democratic-leaning states to stand down, even as the party’s base is frenzied over the issue. Lawmakers in Illinois and Maryland have for months had internal debates about whether to move forward with redrawing their maps. Indiana’s outcome relieved some of the mounting pressure they anticipated facing had Republicans in Indiana further gerrymandered their maps.

Illinois Democrats have long said they would only gerrymander if the Indiana GOP bowed to Trump’s demands and redid their own map. In the wake of Hoosier Republicans’ move Thursday, their Democratic neighbors don’t seem eager to change their minds.

Meanwhile in Maryland, one Democratic leader is rebuffing entreaties from top Democrats to eliminate the state’s lone remaining GOP seat.

Maryland Democratic Senate President Bill Ferguson has exchanged phone calls with Indiana Senate Republican leader Rodric Bray, four people familiar with the two leaders, granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, told POLITICO. Each resisted pressure from top officials in their party to move on redistricting. Bray’s success could now lessen the pressure on Ferguson. Bray’s spokesperson, Molly Swigart, said no deal was ever made between Bray and Ferguson on redistricting in their respective states.

Officials in Virginia, where Democrats gained 13 seats in their House of Delegates in November’s statewide elections, are poised to make drastic changes to their congressional maps that could net the party upwards of four seats. But Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger sounded reluctant to the idea of making wholesale changes to congressional lines at a POLITICO event earlier this week.

There are headwinds elsewhere for Trump and his allies. In Kansas and Kentucky Republicans have so far failed to move forward with their redistricting pushes that are complicated by opposition from Democratic governors. Ohio Republicans struck a compromise with Democrats for a less aggressive gerrymander than what some national leaders wanted. And a judge picked a map in Utah that drew a safe Democratic seat; and Republicans are facing a potential setback for Missouri.

That doesn’t mean the redistricting wars are over. Lawmakers in a number of other states are still weighing their own maps, with GOP-led Florida and Democratic-controlled Virginia remaining the biggest question marks on the board. Republicans are still eyeing Kentucky and Nebraska as well.

“We’ve got a lot more states that we can do work on,” one person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly on a sensitive matter, told POLITICO on Friday, while admitting that “Indiana was definitely frustrating.”

And if the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling further gutting the Voting Rights Act in the coming months, a number of states are expected to rush to redraw their lines before their states’ filing deadlines, in a move that could give the GOP a huge boost and potentially put the House out of reach for Democrats.

“The truth is, I think we’re still, we’re in the middle of this redistricting war,” said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “We’re all waiting to hear back from the Supreme Court as to what they’re going to do and how they’re going to move forward.”

Here’s what to expect in the coming weeks from states including Maryland, Florida, Illinois and a challenge to the already-passed maps passed in Missouri.

Maryland

Perhaps lawmakers breathing the biggest sigh of relief from Indiana bucking Trump’s redistricting push are those in Maryland.

Ferguson has for months been facing pressure from Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and national Democrats to wade into the redistricting fight. That lobbying campaign to net Maryland Democrats an additional seat would have been kicked into hyperdrive if Indiana had drawn new maps.

Reports of Ferguson possibly losing his grip on leading the Senate Democrats evaporated this week after he was unanimously renominated as Senate leader. Then on Thursday, just hours before the Indiana Senate cast the vote dooming the redistricting effort, Ferguson put out a statement with Democratic House Delegates Speaker Pro Tem Dana Stein declaring that lawmakers in the special session Moore called for next week will definitively not take up any new maps.

While that likely closes the door on the redistricting push for this year, Moore still has an opportunity to reignite a pressure campaign aimed at Ferguson to hold a vote on the issue in January, when the legislature returns for regular session. The governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission is meeting Friday for its final public hearing to solicit comments from Maryland residents before its members make a recommendation to the governor and the General Assembly on whether to redraw maps.

Illinois

For months, Illinois Democrats have suggested they were unlikely to try to squeeze another seat out of their already-gerrymandered state unless Indiana Republicans redrew their seats.

And while state Democratic leaders didn’t completely rule out redistricting in the wake of the Indiana GOP’s vote, they don’t sound particularly eager for a new map.

“Our neighbors in Indiana have stood up to Trump’s threats and political pressure, instead choosing to do what’s right for their constituents and our democracy,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement after the result, without saying what Illinois might do.

A person in Pritzker’s office, granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, said the governor was less than equivocal in his statement because no one knows what Trump’s next move might be.

State House and Senate Democratic leaders struck similar tones, praising their Hoosier neighbors while pledging to stay vigilant against similar efforts in other states.

Virginia

Democrats’ best remaining chance for a multi-seat gerrymander is Old Dominion. But while statehouse leaders seem eager to push forward with a complicated plan for a voter referendum to approve a new gerrymander — much like California’s move — the state’s incoming Democratic governor doesn’t seem quite as eager to lend a hand.

The Democratic-dominated Virginia legislature is expected to easily pass a procedural measure before putting the issue of redistricting before voters to approve a constitutional Virginia amendment to redraw the state’s maps ahead of the midterms — a move that legislative leaders have teased could lead to a 10-1 map.

“I feel comfortable that we have an opportunity to do a number of maps here in Virginia to allow for us to level the playing field,” Virginia House Speaker Don Scott said at a POLITICO event this week.

But at the same event, Spanberger hedged when asked if she supported redrawing maps to achieve the feat.

“The calendar is tight, and for me, I want to win,” Spanberger said, pointing to Virginia’s first and second congressional districts that are currently held by Republicans. “I want to flip seats in the House of Representatives, and I know that we can because I just won those districts.”

But when asked directly if redistricting is the way to go, Spanberger said that Virginia should “leave open the option” of new maps but that ultimately voters will decide if the legislature should move forward.

Florida

Florida Republicans could deliver their party three to five more seats if they press ahead with mid-decade redistricting. But two factors complicate that effort.

First, GOP leaders aren’t on the same page. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis has been touting the need to draw new maps since last summer, has suggested waiting until the spring of next year in case the U.S. Supreme Court weakens the Voting Rights Act and bars the consideration of race when drawing lines, a position backed by the state’s GOP Senate president, Ben Albritton.

But state GOP House Speaker Daniel Perez said this week it is “irresponsible” to wait and that the House is prepared to send a map to the Senate during its regular session that starts next month.

Second, GOP leaders may be constrained by Florida’s voter-approved constitutional ban on redistricting for partisan gain. Democrats have already asserted that drawing up any new map is “illegal’ and would violate these standards signaling that litigation is likely if state legislators pass a new map. But Florida’s conservative-dominated state Supreme Court already ruled in 2022 that legislators can sidestep minority protections when it allowed a previous GOP-drawn map that was muscled into law by DeSantis, weakening its impact.

Perez insisted that he has not been under pressure from Trump or the White House to move ahead on redistricting. When asked Friday if there was added pressure on the House to act due to the outcome in Indiana he said: “No sir.”

Missouri

Missouri Republicans already passed a map to flip Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s (D-Mo.) district red, but Democrats are hoping to undo the GOP-passed map in Missouri via ballot measure. Earlier this week, they submitted more than double the 107,000 signatures required to force a statewide vote for the secretary of state.

If the signatures are validated, the map may not cannot go into effect in time for the midterms, and if voters approve the ballot measure, the map gets tossed. Republicans still have a bit of time, since GOP Secretary of State Denny Hoskins doesn’t have to approve the signatures until July. Plus, it’s unclear when the Republican-controlled Legislature will actually put those signatures up for a vote.

The timing is causing a bit of chaos. Since candidates need to file by the end of March, prospective members of Congress may have to file in districts that aren’t set for the midterms.

Adam Wren, Andrew Howard, Shia Kapos, Alex Gangitano and Gary Fineout contributed to this report.

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