With Republican leaders in Ohio seeking to draw congressional districts to give the party more seats in the U.S. House, the possibility exists that Mahoning and Trumbull counties could be reunited in a single district.

Republicans currently hold 10 of the state’s congressional seats with the other five in the hands of Democrats.

When Republicans drew the lines in 2022, the intention was to give Democrats two safe seats and have three tossup seats that slightly favored Democrats that could be won by GOP candidates. Democrats won those three tossup seats in 2022 and 2024.

U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Cincinnati, has won his 1st District seat in southwest Ohio and, while Republicans will chip away at the district, it will be safer for Democrats than the other two tossups.

In the 2024 election, U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Akron, beat Republican Kevin Coughlin in the 13th District that includes Akron and Canton by 8,542 votes. It was even closer in a Toledo-based 9th District with U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, beating Republican Derek Merrin by 2,382 votes.

Republicans are planning to draw a new map that adds more Republican communities into those two particular districts in order to flip them in 2026. With a friendly Ohio Supreme Court willing to support anything given to them by Republicans, a 12-3 map is quite likely.

That’s where the Mahoning Valley could play a factor.

Bordering Sykes’ district is the 6th District, represented by Michael Rulli, a Salem Republican, with Mahoning as its most-populous county; and the 14th District, represented by Dave Joyce, a Bainbridge Republican, with Trumbull as its second most-populous county.

The 6th and 14th are very safe Republican districts.

Mahoning and Trumbull used to be Democratic strongholds dating back to the New Deal and just 15 years ago, Republicans were thrilled to get 40% of the vote from the counties.

But with the historic success of Republican Donald Trump in the two counties — he won Trumbull in the last three presidential elections and the last two in Mahoning — as well as Republican candidates winning on the county level, particularly in Trumbull, the Mahoning Valley isn’t a scary place anymore for the party.

That’s why putting Mahoning and Trumbull into one congressional district is an option for Republicans when drawing new lines.

The simplest way to make Sykes’ district lean Republican is to take parts of either the existing 6th or 14th or both and move them to the 13th while taking out some of its Democratic parts.

If Trumbull and Mahoning were in one district, it would almost certainly include Columbiana, Rulli’s home county, based on geography and wanting to keep it safely Republican. That would mean Rulli would represent all of the Valley and Joyce, who has represented part or all of Trumbull for his seven terms in the U.S. House, would no longer represent any of it.

The existing 6th and / or 14th would be less Republican if counties were moved to the 13th.

Adding Trumbull, now that it is solidly Republican and would be the second most-populous county in the 6th, to the district in order to move out GOP areas would ease Republican concerns about the competitiveness of having it together with Mahoning, which has trended red since 2022, but is more of a battleground county.

A Democrat with good name recognition in the Valley could lead to an interesting race. Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti, who has long considered running for Congress, is the only one who comes to mind.

But it would still be an uphill climb for any Democrat to win the 6th District as Republicans aren’t going to weaken it enough to make it vulnerable for Rulli.

With Republicans holding a narrow seven-vote majority in the U.S. House — with four vacant seats — Trump has pushed for GOP-controlled states to redraw districts to favor the political party.

Ohio is a different animal in that under state law, the congressional lines have to be drawn for the 2026 election.

The existing lines were good for only the 2022 and the 2024 elections because no Democrats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission voted in support of the map. Had the support been there — and in hindsight, Democrats should have been happy with the map — the districts would have been in place for 10 years instead of four.

At Trump’s prompting, Republicans in Texas unveiled on Wednesday a new congressional map, something rare for the middle of the decade in that state, that would give the GOP an advantage in three to five additional congressional districts.

California Democrats are seriously looking to add a few more districts that benefit them in a state that is already drawn 43-9 in their favor.

Vice President JD Vance wrote Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter: “The gerrymander in California is outrageous,” and based on the number of Republican districts, 17% of the state’s current delegation is Republican when the party “regularly wins 40% of the vote in that state. Republicans in Texas are right to fight back.” Vance followed that with: “Every GOP-controlled state should be following the Texas example.”

He later deleted the last sentence on the first post and changed it to: “How can this possibly be allowed?” He also deleted the follow-up.

Will Vance chime in about his home state of Ohio if Republicans change the congressional lines enough to ensure the party wins 12 of the 15 districts? That would be 20% of Ohio’s delegation in a state where Democrats regularly win at least 40% of the vote.

Even now, Democrats make up only 33% of Ohio’s delegation.

David Skolnick covers politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.