After two weeks spent outside state lines—marked by a surge of national media attention and, then, a struggle to keep their fight in the limelight—Texas House Democrats ended their quorum break as abruptly as a second special session began. Within a few days, the Republicans’ scheme to engineer a rare mid-decade redistricting of the state’s congressional maps had been rammed through the Texas House and Senate.
What began as a demand from on high (i.e. the Trump administration) and sparked a national partisan gerrymandering arms race, has become the new political reality now that Governor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 4 into law on Friday.
Democrats knew there was nothing they really could do to stop passage of the new maps upon their return, and they thus claimed their walkout to be victorious because it had successfully spurred Texas’ rival mega-blue state, California, to advance a new map of its own that would nuke its already-marginal number of Republican seats.
In essence, Republicans’ new congressional maps revert to the strategy that reigned in the 2010s. Texas’ blue urban cores in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth were sliced and diced into a handful of uber-blue seats while the rest were annexed into Republican strongholds in the rural hinterlands. The power of liberal voters and predominantly Black and Latino communities was diluted while conservative, largely white voters’ power was maximized. The new maps also have the GOP making a risky bet that significant gains that Trump enjoyed among Latino voters in 2024, especially along the U.S.-Mexico border, were more than a flash in the pan.
These changes have overhauled the electoral playing field in Texas for the 2026 midterms and could deliver the GOP as many as five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and provide enough political cushion for the party to maintain control of the chamber and shield Donald Trump’s administration from electoral accountability and Democratic-led oversight.
In doing so, the new maps have also thrown some chaos and opportunity into both parties. Ambitious Republican pols now have a handful of additional seats to compete for, and Democratic pols have fewer seats to fight over. With redistricting inevitably comes bitter and contested intra-party disputes between various incumbents and would-be elected officials.
We’ve already seen some abbreviated political drama play out between the two Texas congressmen from the capital city—longtime liberal institution Lloyd Doggett and up-and-coming progressive Greg Casar.
Doggett’s 30-year career in the U.S. House is a testament to his survival of multiple attempts by Republicans to draw him out of power by expanding his district all the way down to the Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio. In 2021, the GOP finally ceded Austin by creating a new uber-blue seat, the 37th Congressional District, which Doggett ran for and won in 2022. Then-City Councilman Casar ran for and won Doggett’s old seat, the 35th, which stretched from East Austin down to San Antonio. Then, Republicans decided to carve up Travis County once again. In doing so, they excised the 35th from Austin and reassembled it as a Trump-y district that features part of Bexar County and three neighboring deep-red counties.
Foreseeing a likely primary showdown, Doggett went on the offensive earlier this month with a preemptive call for Casar to commit to running for reelection in the 35th, insisting that Casar as the (nominal) incumbent in a Hispanic-majority district would be the strongest candidate. Doggett’s self-serving argument did not go well for the 78-year-old—even among his allies, who said it was time for him to step aside for a new generation. On the eve of the passage of redistricting last week, Doggett announced that he would not be seeking reelection under the new map, clearing the way for Casar in the 37th.
Such redistricting spats do not generally end so smoothly. And more could be on the horizon.
Houston’s longtime Democratic Congressman Al Green, an outspoken Trump opponent, was drawn out of the predominantly Black 9th Congressional District that he’s represented since 2005, and the 9th itself was turned into a strong Trump-aligned seat in suburban and exurban Houston. Much of the old 9th was moved into the reconstituted 18th Congressional District, another historically Black seat that’s been held by the likes of Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland, and Sheila Jackson Lee. Ex-Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner was elected to fill the seat after Jackson Lee passed away last year, but he only served three months before passing away himself in March.
Governor Greg Abbott intentionally left that seat vacant,refusing to call a special election until this November in order to deprive Democrats of a member in Washington and, in hindsight, to gain some leverage in the redrawing of Texas’ congressional map.
Now, Green has announced that he’s considering running to represent the 18th for a full term in 2026 but will not run in the special election this fall because that would require him stepping down from his current seat. Green, who is 77, would immediately be the clear frontrunner for the seat, though his running could mean preventing the next generation of Houston pols, like Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee or former City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards (both of whom are running in the special), from taking the step up.
There could be some other potential headaches in Dallas, where Jasmine Crockett was drawn out of the 30th Congressional District—a historically Black seat that was previously long-held by Eddie Bernice Johnson. There is no requirement that members of Congress reside in the districts they represent (though it makes for easy fodder for attacks from political rivals), but the changes have caused Crockett to publicly consider her future options—including a potential statewide run.
Meanwhile, the 33rd Congressional District, which has historically been based primarily in Fort Worth is getting blown up and has been entirely excised from Tarrant County. It’s now a Dallas-only district. That leaves Fort Worth Congressman Marc Veasey, who’s represented the 33rd since 2013, in a potentially tricky situation. While he’s far from an unknown entity in the Big D, Veasey could be vulnerable to a primary challenge from someone with a political base in Dallas. That could include first-term Congresswoman Julie Johnson, who just recently won the 32nd Congressional District in the Dallas metro in 2024 (a seat that Colin Allred first flipped back in 2018), or some other ambitious Dallas state legislator. Republicans also blew up the 32nd and made it back into a solid red seat by turning it into a chicken finger-like district that extends from Dallas deep into East Texas.
Meanwhile, the newly created suite of freshly reddened congressional districts sparked a frantic game of political musical chairs with Republicans rushing to declare their candidacy for the various seats.
That includes right-wing state Representative Briscoe Cain, who launched his campaign for the new 9th outside Houston last Thursday—less than 24 hours after the maps passed the Texas House. Others vying for that seat include ex-Harris County judge candidate Alexandra del Moral Mealer, and per the rumor mill, disgraced ex-tea party Congressman Steve Stockman, who was convicted of felony money laundering back in 2018. Former (ever so briefly) Congresswoman Mayra Flores has also abandoned her announced bid to run against Laredo Democrat Henry Cuellar and is instead going back for another shot at a reddened 34th Congressional District in the Rio Grande Valley (currently held by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez). So too is the brother of state Senator Adam Hinojosa, who flipped a geographically similar state Senate seat in 2024. State Representative John Lujan, who won a San Antonio swing seat in 2024, has also declared for the new 35th in what will also surely be a crowded GOP primary.
With the maps passed, the music has stopped. And the rush for an open seat begins.
The post New Texas Maps Start Game of Political Musical Chairs appeared first on The Texas Observer.
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