The primary draft of the decrease chamber’s new redistricting map targets Democratic members of Congress within the Austin, Dallas and Houston metro areas and in South Texas.
Texas GOP lawmakers launched their first draft of the state’s new congressional map Wednesday, proposing revamped district traces that try and flip 5 Democratic seats in subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections.
The brand new map targets Democratic U.S. Home members within the Austin, Dallas and Houston metro areas and in South Texas. The draft, unveiled by state Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, will possible change earlier than the ultimate map is accredited by each chambers and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Democrats have stated they may attempt to thwart the method by fleeing the state.
This uncommon mid-decade redistricting comes after a strain marketing campaign waged by President Donald Trump’s political crew within the hopes of padding Republicans’ slim majority within the U.S. Home.
At present, Republicans maintain 25 of Texas’ 38 Home seats. Trump carried 27 of these districts in 2024, together with these received by Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen.
Beneath the proposed new traces, 30 districts would have gone to Trump final 12 months, every by at the least 10 share factors.
The map was instantly panned as racist and unlawful by Democrats, who’ve been elevating the alarm in regards to the prospect of voters of colour being diluted. The proposed map splits voters of colour in Tarrant County amongst a number of neighboring Republican districts and modifications the form of the thirty fifth District in Central Texas, which was initially created because of a courtroom order to guard the voting rights of individuals of colour.
Rep. Greg Casar, who represents the thirty fifth District that runs from his hometown of Austin to San Antonio, slammed the map as an insult to Texas voters.
“If Trump is allowed to rip the Voting Rights Act to shreds here in Central Texas, his ploy will spread like wildfire across the country,” Casar stated in an announcement. “Everyone who cares about our democracy must mobilize against this illegal map.”
The modifications would create two extra districts during which white residents make up a majority of eligible voters, or residents who’re sufficiently old to vote, climbing the variety of such districts from 22 below the present map to 24. It might additionally add one further district the place Hispanic residents, the state’s largest demographic group, type the bulk, bringing the whole to eight below the brand new plan. And it could create two majority Black districts, the place beforehand there have been none.
The normal racial politics of redistricting have been scrambled considerably by Republicans’ growing reliance on Hispanic voters, amongst whom they made historic positive aspects in 2024. 4 of the 5 districts that Republicans have drawn with the intention of flipping can be majority Hispanic — although the Hispanic populations within the new seats in Houston and Central Texas are virtually precisely 50%.
The districts represented by Cuellar and Gonzalez — each of that are overwhelmingly Hispanic and anchored in South Texas — would change into barely extra favorable to Republicans. Trump obtained 53% and 52% in these districts, respectively, in 2024; below the brand new proposed traces, he would have gotten virtually 55% in each districts.
The map’s newly proposed GOP seat in Central Texas additionally triggers the prospect of Austin Democratic Reps. Casar and Lloyd Doggett dealing with one another in a major for the world’s lone remaining blue district. To keep away from that situation, one of many two must step apart or run an uphill race for a brand new Central Texas district, based mostly in San Antonio, that Trump would have received by 10 factors.
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In an announcement, Doggett, 78, sidestepped the query of what this implies for his political future, saying “the only ‘What if’ that matters is ‘What if this crooked scheme is approved to give Trump a rubber stamp to do whatever he pleases.’”
Within the Houston space, the proposed map would remake 4 Democratic districts. The largest upheaval can be within the ninth Congressional District, a seat represented by Rep. Al Inexperienced that at present covers the southern a part of Harris County and its direct southern neighbors. It might shift to the japanese components of Houston, the place no present member of Congress lives. As a substitute of being a seat that former Vice President Kamala Harris received by 44% below the present boundary, Trump would have received it by 15%.
Texas’ Republican-dominated Legislature final drew these maps in 2021, with an eye fixed towards defending incumbents by making their seats as secure as doable. Trump received each Republican-held Texas district in 2024 by double-digit margins, as did each GOP incumbent who obtained a Democratic opponent. Edinburg Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s 14-point victory was the closest of any successful Republican.
To choose up new seats, Republicans have proposed to pack extra Democratic voters into districts within the state’s blue city facilities, giving Democrats even larger margins in districts they already management, resembling these represented by Crockett, Rep. Joaquin Castro in San Antonio and Rep. Sylvia Garcia in Houston. They usually’re seeking to disperse Republican voters from safely purple districts into a number of districts at present represented by Democrats, resembling those held by Johnson and Casar.
No Republican incumbents’ districts had been made considerably extra aggressive.
The map-drawers managed to maneuver extra Republican voters into Democratic districts round Dallas and Houston with out imperiling the close by seats of GOP Reps. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving and Troy Nehls, R-Fort Bend. Each confronted aggressive races in 2020 earlier than their districts had been redrawn in 2021 to change into solidly Republican, and neither was made to sacrifice these positive aspects within the state Home’s preliminary map.
Among the many new majority-Black districts is the 18th Congressional District, centered in Houston, which has been represented by a decades-long run of famend Black Democratic members, together with Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland, Sheila Jackson Lee and, most lately, Sylvester Turner, whose dying in March left the seat vacant. The map proposes to pack much more Democratic voters into the solidly blue seat: Harris received the district with 69% in 2024 and would have carried it with 76% below the brand new boundaries.
Crockett’s Dallas seat would additionally change into majority Black.
The 18th District was amongst Texas’ 4 majority-minority congressional seats flagged by the U.S. Division of Justice as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, a cost Texas Republicans have interchangeably denied in courtroom and cited as the idea for pursuing mid-decade redistricting.
Any new map will inevitably be challenged in courtroom. Courts have discovered that at the least one in every of Texas’ maps violated the Voting Rights Act each decade because it went into impact within the mid-60s. The present map remains to be being challenged in federal courtroom in El Paso, with no verdict but reached.
