By Steve Gorman and Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Democratic lawmakers in Virginia cleared a first big hurdle on Friday in their bid to redraw congressional maps in their favor next year — a move that counters Republican-led redistricting efforts in other U.S. states at President Donald Trump's urging.

Separately, Ohio's redistricting commission approved a new map that boosts Republican chances of flipping two Democratic seats in 2026 but stops short of a more aggressive effort that could have targeted three Democratic incumbents.

The White House has pressured Republican-led states to reshape their House districts in an effort to maintain the party's razor-thin majority in next year's midterm elections. Democrats must flip only three Republican-held seats to wrest back control of the House.

The Democratic-controlled Virginia Senate on Friday approved a proposed constitutional amendment — passed earlier by the House of Delegates — that would let lawmakers redraw congressional districts next year if voters sign off. The 21-16 vote fell along party lines.

Virginia Democrats hold six of the state's 11 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and hope to gain at least two more by reconfiguring their districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Friday's action was the first step toward bypassing the state’s independent redistricting commission — created by voters in 2020 — and taking control of the map-drawing process.

The amendment must pass again in the next legislative session and then be approved by voters. Democrats plan to hold the second vote early next year after Tuesday’s statewide election and to put the measure on a special election ballot.

AN UNPRECEDENTED REDISTRICTING WAR

This year's widening coast-to-coast redistricting scramble is unprecedented in modern U.S. politics.

Virginia Republicans, including Governor Glenn Youngkin, whose constitutionally limited four-year term ends in January, accused Democrats of attempting a power grab.

"This amendment is being proposed not to protect our citizens or to make our government better," Republican state Senator J.D. "Danny" Diggs said on the chamber floor on Friday. "This amendment is about increasing the political power of the Democrat Party."

Republicans also criticized the Democrats for pursuing their redistricting agenda after early voting was already under way for Virginia's gubernatorial race, in which Youngkin's Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, trails Democratic former U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger in opinion polls.

Democrats say they are fighting fire with fire after Trump unleashed a rare mid-decade redistricting push starting in Texas, where the legislature enacted new maps designed to flip five seats to the Republican column.

"The system is being rigged by a wannabe dictator out of Washington," Democratic state Senator Aaron Rouse said on Friday during debate over the bill.

At Trump's behest, Missouri and North Carolina followed Texas with their own redistricting measures aimed at picking up one additional Republican seat each. Indiana's Republican governor has called a special session next week to consider redistricting, and Republicans in Florida and Kansas have also said they are weighing redrawing their maps.

In the deeply Democratic-led state of California, the party launched a redistricting counter-offensive seeking to flip five Republican-held seats, a plan that requires voter approval in a special election on Tuesday. As in Virginia, California's lawmakers and voters must alter their state's constitution to clear the way for a new partisan map.

The process of redistricting - the periodic redrawing of the boundaries that define each state's congressional and legislative districts - has traditionally been conducted just once a decade to account for demographic changes following the decennial U.S. Census.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have used redistricting to draw congressional maps to favor their own party, a practice known as partisan gerrymandering.

OHIO REACHES BIPARTISAN COMPROMISE

In Ohio, state law required a new map this year because the previous map - under which Republicans won 10 of the state's 15 U.S. House seats last year - was passed with no Democratic support.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes five Republicans and two Democrats, unanimously approved a new map on Friday that makes two Democratic incumbents more vulnerable to Republican challenges next year, while shifting another competitive Democratic-held district further to the left.

While favorable to Republicans, the map represents a compromise struck between Republicans and Democrats reflecting the uncertainty each party could have faced if the commission had failed to reach an agreement.

In that scenario, the task of redistricting would have reverted to the Republican-controlled legislature, giving lawmakers a chance to pursue a far more aggressive map. But any bill passed by the legislature would have potentially been subject to a Democratic-backed voter referendum that could have kept the old map in place.

Under Friday's map, Republicans have 10 "safe" seats in 2026 while Democrats have two, according to Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, which handicaps congressional races. The remaining three seats are rated "Leans Republican," "Leans Democratic" and "Toss-up" - all considered competitive.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Howard Goller)