Demonstrations were held in more than 200 U.S. locations on Saturday as activists opposed Republican-driven efforts to redraw congressional districts, a campaign championed by President Donald Trump and initiated in Texas. The events, branded a “National Day of Action,” ranged from Chicago’s Millennium Park to Oakland’s Lake Merritt and drew crowds that organizers said numbered in the hundreds at many sites. Texas remains the epicenter of the fight. Republican lawmakers, backed by Trump and Governor Greg Abbott, have proposed a map that analysts say could hand the GOP up to five additional U.S. House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. To prevent a quorum on the measure, more than 50 Democratic members of the Texas House left the state on 4 August and spent 12 days in Illinois, a move that stalled but did not kill the legislation. Before preparing to return to Austin, several of those legislators joined the Chicago rally, telling supporters their walkout underscored both the stakes and limits of minority-party power in a partisan redistricting process. Similar protests in Phoenix, South Florida and other cities echoed calls for federal action to curb gerrymandering and protect voting rights. Democrats in states they control are mounting a response of their own. California lawmakers on Friday released a counter-map that could flip as many as five seats to Democrats, though the plan would have to clear a statewide referendum in November. Governors Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Kathy Hochul of New York have publicly backed using partisan maps to offset expected Republican gains. The parallel strategies highlight an intensifying arms race over control of the U.S. House, with each party abandoning previous commitments to independent map-drawing. Whether Saturday’s protests—and the Democrats’ retaliatory mapping—can ultimately blunt the Texas plan remains uncertain, as Republican majorities in Austin prepare to reconvene once enough members are present to restore a quorum.