Under Texas’ current congressional boundaries, Republicans hold 25 of the state's 38 congressional seats. State lawmakers have said the new map will help them gain up to five more during the 2026 midterm elections.
Texas Democrats have called the mid-decade redistricting effort unconstitutional and "racially discriminatory," while Republicans asserted that the map "complies with the law" and was designed to help more Republicans get elected to the U.S. House.
Texas senators approved the plan to redraw the state’s congressional lines less than a week earlier, sending it to Abbott’s desk around 1 a.m. Aug. 23. Abbott signed the legislation in his office Aug. 29, without the public ceremony that is typically held for consequential laws.
State lawmakers kicked off the redistricting effort this summer, after President Donald Trump asked Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional maps to help Republicans maintain a narrow majority in the U.S. House. On Aug. 21, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his Democratic-led state will hold a Nov. 4 special election on a new congressional map designed to “push back” against Texas’ redistricting effort. No other states had passed redistricting plans as of press time.
Texas’ new map redraws 37 of the state’s 38 congressional districts. Rep. Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican who filed the redistricting plan, said the “primary changes” were focused on five districts:
- TX-09, served by U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Houston
- TX-28, served by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo
- TX-32, served by U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch
- TX-34, served by U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen
- TX-35, served by U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin
“The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: to improve Republican political performance,” Hunter told state House lawmakers Aug. 20. “Each of these newly-drawn districts now trend Republican. While there's no guarantee of electoral success, Republicans will now have an opportunity to potentially win these... five new districts we have.”
Democrats have said the new congressional map will “dilute” minorities’ voting power by dividing historically Black and Hispanic communities into multiple congressional districts.
“Texans and Americans all across the country are watching,” Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, said on the House floor Aug. 20. “They know this map before us is a calculated maneuver to diminish the voices of the very communities that power Texas. ... Communities of color make up 95% of our growth in the last decade.”
Republicans have maintained that the map was drafted to benefit GOP congressional candidates and that race was not considered when the new lines were drawn.
What’s next
Texas’ new congressional map is set to take effect in early December, although it will be discussed in court two months earlier. After state senators approved the map Aug. 23, the League of United Latin American Citizens and a group of Texas residents filed a lawsuit asking that the map be blocked from becoming law.
The groups argued that the legislature “engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering” when drafting the map, which they said places voters “within and without particular districts on the predominant basis of their race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
A panel of three federal judges scheduled a hearing for Oct. 1-10 in El Paso. The same panel is separately considering legal challenges to Texas’ current congressional maps, which were approved in 2021.
“We have high confidence that the courts will actually find these maps to be illegal,” Texas House Democratic Caucus leader Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, told reporters Aug. 18. “The question is more about the timing of it and whether or not there's enough time left. There's a reason the Republicans did this in the special session and not the regular session, because that would have provided them more time [in court].”
Wu cited the Purcell principle, a doctrine indicating that courts should not change election laws too close to an election, to avoid causing confusion for voters and election officials. To appear on the March primary ballot, Texas candidates must file by Dec. 8, according to the secretary of state’s office.
In a statement after Abbott signed the new map Aug. 29, Texas Democratic Party chair Kendall Scudder said the governor had “surrendered Texas to Washington, D.C.”
“When Donald Trump made one call, [Republicans] bent over backwards to prioritize his politics over Texans,” Scudder said in an Aug. 29 statement. “We aren’t done fighting against these racially discriminatory maps, and fully expect the letter of the law to prevail over these sycophantic Republican politicians who think the rules don’t apply to them.”
This story is developing and may be updated.
