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Next week, Texas Republicans will embark on a cynical attempt to exploit the tragic flooding in the state for political gamesmanship. Donald Trump and House Republicans know that they will lose the House next November and in a last ditch effort of desperation are seeking to further gerrymander the Texas Congressional map and disenfranchise millions of Texans.
With voters increasingly disapproving of House Republicans’ Big, Ugly Bill and its giveaways for the ultra-wealthy at working families’ expense, they know they have no shot of winning the midterms on the merits – the only way they can win is if they rig the game.
This week, the Cook Political Report shined a light on just how risky this last-gasp effort is. With Texas’ maps already heavily gerrymandered, safe Texans Republicans will have to run races they aren’t ready for.
Read how Trump and House Republicans’ scheme may backfire…
Cook Political Report: Behind Republicans’ Risky Bid to Draw Themselves Five More Seats in Texas
July 15, 2025
- Though Texas’ congressional map already favors the GOP — the party controls two-thirds of the state’s 38 House seats — they’re hoping to win as many as five more seats currently held by Democrats.
- But demolishing blue seats in Houston and Dallas could put several of their own members at risk…A more aggressively gerrymandered map could leave some incumbent Republicans vulnerable if their ruby-red districts are watered down.
- This morning, President Trump told reporters that Republicans could pick up five Texas seats through a “very simple redrawing,” dismissing widespread concern among the Texas delegation that the new plan could backfire.
- The politics of mid-cycle redistricting are littered with pitfalls. One of the fastest growing states in the country, Texas has a rapidly-changing population with a partisan trajectory that’s proven difficult to project. During Trump’s first term, Democrats made significant inroads in the booming suburbs around the state’s four major metropolitan areas.
- Though it’s possible to collapse four deep blue Houston seats into three, or force Dallas and Houston Democrats into more competitive districts, that would impact a number of Republicans who represent carefully-drawn suburban seats that, while currently safe, could become more vulnerable.
- Texas Republican sources who spoke with The Cook Political Report were skeptical that the state could draw a map giving them five more seats without endangering some Republican incumbents. “I don’t think that the delegation would ever sign off on that because that would impact 10 districts at least,” one Texas Republican source said.
Cook Political Report: Just How Many More Seats Could Republicans Squeeze Out of a Texas Redraw?
July 17, 2025
- Beyond that, a more ambitious plan — say, an attempt to flip five — is possible but also increases the chances that previously safe GOP incumbents find themselves having to campaign harder in what’s likely to be a tough cycle for Republicans.
- Today, 25 of 38 seats are held by GOP incumbents, many of whom likely aren’t yearning for dramatic overhauls of their districts that could make their reelections more complicated than the cakewalks to which they are accustomed.
- Far more likely, Republicans would attempt to collapse several majority-minority seats in Dallas and Houston together to create new GOP-leaning seats elsewhere.
- For decades, Democrats and minority advocacy groups have routinely sued Texas Republicans for failing to draw more Hispanic-majority and other minority-access districts even though nonwhite residents have driven the vast majority of the state’s population growth. If Republicans were to weaken, dilute or dismantle existing Hispanic-majority districts, Democrats and their allies would file fresh lawsuits alleging blatant Voting Rights Act violations.
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