Austin, TexasAs they prepare for a difficult midterm election, Texas Republicans on Wednesday revealed a new congressional map that adds five more GOP-leaning districts, increasing their prospects of holding onto power.
President Donald Trump is urging Texas Republicans to reconfigure districts in the party’s advantage, and the new plan coincides with a special legislative session scheduled by Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
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With similar initiatives currently in progress in Missouri, Trump officials have hinted that their efforts may extend beyond Texas, where Republicans hope the new Texas map would improve their chances of holding the U.S. House in 2026.
The new map increases the number of seats that Republicans might win in Texas to 30, up from the existing 25 of the state’s 38 seats. Trump won all 30 of those seats in November by a margin of at least 10 percentage points, giving conservatives hope that they can hold onto them despite what is expected to be a challenging midterm environment for the GOP.
Two seats that were previously held by Democrats Lloyd Doggett and Greg Casar in the Austin and San Antonio area were collapsed into a single liberal district, two Democratic-held seats in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area were converted into GOP-majority seats, and two Rio Grande Valley seats that were recently narrowly won by Democrats were made slightly more Republican.
Pointing to the combination of his district with another Democratic-held seat, Representative Greg Casar, one of the Democrats who may have a harder time winning reelection under the new plan, referred to the proposed alterations as illegal voting suppression.
In a statement, Casar emphasized that everyone who values our democracy must band together to oppose this unlawful plan.
