Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday signed into regulation a brand new congressional voting map designed to assist Republicans achieve extra seats within the 2026 midterm elections, delivering a win for President Donald Trump and his want to carry on to a slim GOP majority within the U.S. Home.
The Texas map drafted in uncommon mid-decade redistricting prompted fierce protests from Democrats and sparked a gerrymandering tug-of-war for voters in states throughout the nation.
“Texas is now extra purple in the USA Congress,” Abbott mentioned in a video he posted on X of him signing the laws.
Earlier than Texas lawmakers handed their new map, California handed a invoice asking voters to approve new Democratic-leaning districts to counter any Republican positive factors in Texas.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has emerged as a number one adversary of Trump on redistricting and different points, tauntingly labeled Abbott on X because the president’s “#1 lapdog” following the signing.
The incumbent president’s social gathering normally loses congressional seats within the midterm election. On a nationwide stage, the partisan make-up of present districts places Democrats inside three seats of a majority.
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Voting rights teams filed a lawsuit this week forward of Abbott’s signing the invoice, saying the brand new map weakens the electoral affect of Black voters.
Texas Democrats have additionally vowed to problem the brand new map in courtroom. They delayed a vote by two weeks by leaving Texas on Aug. 3 in protest and to rally help nationally. Upon their return, they had been assigned round the clock police monitoring to make sure they confirmed up for debate.
However the massive Republican majority within the Texas Legislature made its final passage all however inevitable.
The pinnacle of Texas’ Democratic Occasion criticized Abbott, saying he and Republicans “successfully surrendered Texas to Washington” with the brand new map.
“They like to boast about how ‘Texas Powerful’ they’re, however when Donald Trump made one name, they bent over backwards to prioritize his politics over Texans,” state Democratic Occasion Chairman Kendall Scudder mentioned in an announcement. “Truthfully, it’s pathetic.”
The Texas map redraw has already reshaped the 2026 race, with Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, asserting that he wouldn’t search reelection to his Austin-based seat if the brand new map takes impact.
Below the proposed map, Doggett’s district would overlap with that of one other Democratic incumbent, Rep. Greg Casar.
Trump has pushed different Republican-controlled states to redraw their maps. Indiana’s Republican legislative leaders privately met with the president within the Oval Workplace this week to debate redistricting.
The president can be pushing Missouri Republicans to redraw their Home maps, whereas Democrats in Ohio are bracing for Republicans to attempt to increase their congressional majority when the Legislature takes up redistricting later this 12 months.
Trump’s push to redraw Home districts to his social gathering’s benefit has drawn a response from different blue states in addition to California.
Democrats in New York have launched laws that might enable mid-decade redistricting, however the earliest new maps can be in place in that state can be forward of the 2028 election.
As a result of the Supreme Courtroom has blessed purely partisan gerrymandering, the one manner opponents can cease the brand new Texas map can be by arguing in courtroom that it violates the Voting Rights Act requirement to maintain minority communities collectively to allow them to choose representatives of their alternative.
Republican leaders have denied the map is racially discriminatory and contend the brand new map creates extra new majority-minority seats than the earlier one. They’ve additionally been express of their want to attract a brand new map for a objective of electing extra Republicans.
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