As Trump looks to net five GOP seats through Texas redistricting, Democrats grasp for response

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Texas Democrats in Congress sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s plan to redraw their state’s political map in the middle of the decade, labeling it a threat to democracy — and warning their GOP counterparts that an aggressive gerrymander could come back to haunt them.

The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature is poised to consider a new set of congressional maps during a special session that kicks off next week. With their party locked out of power in Austin, Democrats from the state’s congressional delegation said they expect the new districts to continue Texas' history of violating the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the votes of racial minorities.

“The scheme of the Republicans has consistently been to make sure that they mute our voices so that they can go ahead and have an oversized say in this,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, said at a news conference with House Democratic leadership and most Texas Democrats. “So I fully anticipate that's exactly where they're going with this map.”

Earlier Tuesday, Trump told Texas congressional Republicans that his political team is pursuing a map that would yield five new Republican seats, according to three people briefed on the call, which was first reported by Punchbowl News.

At the White House, Trump later told reporters that Republicans could get three to five more seats out of a new Texas map — and that other states could follow.

“Texas would be the biggest one,” he said. “Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats.”

Trump’s political operatives have been floating the prospect of drawing new congressional district lines that would shift GOP voters from safely red districts into neighboring blue ones, in a bid to flip the seats and help Republicans hold their narrow House majority. Gov. Greg Abbott ended weeks of uncertainty by putting redistricting on the agenda for the upcoming special session, which begins Monday.

Democrats have very few tools at their disposal to stop or even mitigate the redistricting. Both chambers of the Legislature are under Republican control and overseen by leaders who are unlikely to stand in Trump’s way.

This leaves Democrats fearful they could lose their jobs without a clearly defined offensive playbook. Their limited options to hit back include convincing blue states to redistrict in favor of Democrats to offset GOP gains in Texas, a move they hope would dissuade Republicans from going ahead with the plan.

They could also encourage state Democratic lawmakers to flee the state to deprive the Legislature of a quorum needed to approve the maps — the same maneuver Texas Democrats used in an unsuccessful attempt to thwart a 2021 GOP voting bill.

Amid those long odds, some Democrats alluded to another option: hoping Republicans spread their voters too thin and give Democrats a chance to win under a favorable national climate.

“Texas Republicans are likely going to continue to act like political punks and bend the knee to Donald Trump's extreme agenda,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, said at Tuesday’s news conference. “In doing so, they will jeopardize their own electoral careers.”

Threat of a dummymander

Midterm elections historically favor the party out of power. Combining this trend and narrower Republican margins, Democrats see potential to flip some seats and widen their share of the Texas congressional delegation. Republicans currently control 25 of the state’s 38 districts.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s campaign arm for House races, will use their deep coffers to target Texas Republicans who appear vulnerable under a new map, DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said.

Jeffries echoed the sentiment, adding that Democrats would do “everything that we can do in Texas and beyond to respond.”

The Democratic leader speculated that Texas Republicans could end up creating a “dummymander” — a gerrymander that goes so far as to benefit the other party — because the current Texas map is already drawn to ensure current GOP members’ seats are safe.

No maps have been publicly released. Trump’s goal of netting five GOP seats would give Republicans control of nearly 80% of Texas’ congressional districts in a state where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris captured 42% last year.

Trump’s team believes Republican voters could be more efficiently distributed throughout the state, given that every House Republican in Texas won in 2024 by double-digit margins or did not have a Democratic opponent. The closest GOP win was Edinburg Rep. Monica De La Cruz's 14-point victory.

Texas Republicans grew their vote share last year compared to recent cycles, creating what Trump’s team sees as opportunities for new pickups. Sen. John Cornyn voiced support for the idea on Tuesday, pointing to Hispanic voters — who shifted to the right considerably last election — as a population that could deliver Republicans more seats.

And Republicans have successfully used mid-decade redistricting to make gains as recently as the 2024 cycle. In North Carolina, after the Republican-controlled Legislature redrew the map, Democrats lost three House seats.

But majorities fluctuate from election to election, and drawing maps based on old census data and electoral trends from one cycle can be risky.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, flagged the census as an area of “query.”

“We have a whole lot of people [that have] come into the state since then,” he said. “We’re going to do this all based on 2020 census data?”

Democrats homed in on their performance in the last Trump midterm — 2018 — as evidence that they can fight a new map solely on the strength of their performance at the ballot box. The party flipped two Texas congressional seats and 12 seats in the state House that year, while Democrat Beto O’Rourke came within 3 points of defeating GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.

A map attempting to pick up five seats, as Trump has suggested, would likely force some Republicans in safe seats to run in more competitive races.

“We’re waiting to see how greedy they’re trying to be,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch. “You know the old adage: a pig gets fat and a hog gets butchered. I think the Texas Republicans are pushing the limits on this one.”

Going on the offensive?

Apart from recruiting candidates for newly competitive districts, some Democrats are also pushing for their party to get off the bench and fight.

House Democrats, Democratic leadership and representatives for blue state governors have been meeting to discuss a plan to redistrict their states to favor Democrats if the Texas plan goes through, The Texas Tribune previously reported.

People in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s orbit signaled his willingness to go through with the plan during these discussions, and the California governor has been hinting at possible retaliation in recent days.

Two Democrats involved in the talks told the Tribune they are confident Democratic-controlled states will come to their aid, but none have done so.

Democratic state lawmakers could also flee the state during the special session — as they did to temporarily thwart GOP redistricting in 2003 — to prevent Republicans from reaching a quorum.

Rep. Marc Veasey told the Tribune that he would not just support a quorum break, “I would do everything I can to help aid them in being able to pull it off.” The Fort Worth Democrat said it’s time for his party to go on the offensive.

“If they're going to fight dirty and they're going to redraw these lines, then I would be supportive of Democratic state legislators doing whatever is necessary,” he said, adding that he was not concerned about his political prospects if his district is redrawn.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton cautioned against any such move on Tuesday, vowing to use law enforcement to compel “the attendance of anyone who abandons their office and their constituents for cheap political theater.”

“That’s a state issue”

Democrats have also focused on a Department of Justice letter issued to Abbott and Paxton ordering the state to address the existence of coalition districts — where multiple racial minority groups combine to form a voting majority — in light of new court precedent. Abbott cited the letter as the impetus for including redistricting in his special session agenda.

Democrats and some legal experts see the letter as a fig leaf for the true political intent of the redistricting effort — but that has not stopped them from drawing attention to it. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said the notion that Texas Republicans had drawn a map that disadvantaged white voters was ludicrous.

“[That’s] not a big problem that we've ever had down there in my lifetime,” he said.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, who represents one of the districts the DOJ said constituted an illegal racial gerrymander, even sent out a fundraising blast to supporters the day the special session was ordered with a copy of the letter, calling it an “attempt to silence the voices of communities of color who have powered progress in Texas for decades.”

Republicans, meanwhile, have been reluctant to discuss the redistricting effort, with many concerned about jeopardizing their seats and bringing heightened legal scrutiny. Texas maps have been routinely challenged in court, with at least one flagged for violating the Voting Rights Act in every decade since the law’s 1965 passage.

The current map — drawn in 2021 — has been in litigation for four years, with a federal trial in El Paso concluding in May and a verdict yet to be reached. Whatever map emerges from the special session figures to be no different, giving Republicans further motivation to stay mum.

When asked about the redistricting effort, Rep. Keith Self of McKinney said, “That's a state issue.” Rep. Pete Sessions demurred, saying it “is up to the governor and up to the lieutenant governor and the speaker.”

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