AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a new congressional map that creates five additional GOP-leaning districts, bolstering their chances of maintaining control as they brace for a challenging midterm election.
The redrawn map comes during a special legislative session called by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, as President Donald Trump urges Texas Republicans to reshape districts in the party’s favor.
Republicans hope the new Texas map will strengthen their chances of holding the U.S. House in 2026, and Trump officials have signaled their efforts may expand beyond the state, with similar pushes now underway in Missouri. But it’s also spurred a push by Democrats in California and New York to consider redrawing their districts as well to counter the GOP efforts.
“Everything depends on performance,” said Republican state Rep. Cody Vasut, chair of the Texas House’s redistricting committee, on the new maps. “My understanding is that there is a path forward for a Republican to win five more of those seats.”
Republicans in Texas currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 seats, and the new map ups the total they could win to 30. All of those new 30 seats were won by Trump in November by at least 10 percentage points, leading to conservative optimism they can hold them even in what’s likely to be a tough midterm environment for the party.
Some Democratic lawmakers have talked of walking out of the special session to block action on redistricting. Legislators in Texas — and in other states, including Minnesota this year — have used the tactic in hopes of thwarting the other party, with mixed results.
In 2003, House Democrats fled to Oklahoma and senators later fled to New Mexico but failed to thwart a GOP redistricting plan. But in 1979, a dozen liberal Democratic senators who became known as the “Killer Bees” bunked down in a staffer’s garage and evaded Texas Rangers for four days, killing a plan to change the date of the state’s GOP presidential primary to favor former Gov. John Connally.
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, who’d be drawn into a liberal district for Austin and San Antonio with fellow Democratic incumbent Lloyd Doggett, called the proposed changes “illegal voter suppression,” pointing to the merging of his district with another Democratic-held seat.
“Everyone who cares about our democracy must mobilize against this illegal map,” Casar said in a statement.
The new seats come from making two Rio Grande Valley seats that have been narrowly won by Democrats recently slightly more Republican, collapsing the seats held by Casar and Doggett and turning two Democratic-held seats in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area into GOP-majority ones.
Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of the 7th Congressional District in Houston said in a statement that the map violates the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution, and is meant to dilute the voices in minority communities.
Hearings for the new map begin this Friday.
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