State GOP pushes Texas congressional map via Home to spice up midterm probabilities

The Texas State Home on Wednesday handed a brand new congressional map, blasting via a Democratic roadblock in a bid to bolster the GOP’s probabilities of holding onto the U.S. Home subsequent 12 months.

The map handed via the Republican-controlled Home on a 88 to 52 vote, organising a brand new search for the upcoming 2026 midterm elections with the addition of 5 Republican-leaning congressional districts within the Lone Star State.

Nonetheless, the map should make its approach via the Texas State Senate earlier than it lands on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. 

TEXAS DEMS END WEEKSLONG QUORUM STANDOFF IN REDISTRICTING FIGHT

Abbott pushed for the creation of a brand new map to stick to President Donald Trump’s want to not see a repeat of the 2018 election cycle, the place Democrats handily regained the bulk within the Home and acted as a foil to the president’s legislative needs towards the top of his first time period.

Whereas Republicans management a supermajority in deep-red Texas and already handed the map via the state Senate, Democrats nonetheless wanted to create a quorum within the Home to be able to truly transfer the method alongside.

ABBOTT, TEXAS REPUBLICANS LAUNCH NEW TRUMP-BACKED REDISTRICTING PUSH AS FLEEING DEMOCRATS PLAN TO END WALKOUT

President Donald Trump listens to a query from a reporter Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)

Dozens of Texas Democrats fled the state to stall the method, making a nationwide media frenzy and producing help from Democratic donors, together with teams linked to George Soros and Beto O’Rourke, to assist pay for his or her fines, journey and lodging.

It generated pushes to have them arrested by Abbott and Texas Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton, in addition to a request from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tx., to have the FBI monitor them down and the DOJ to launch an investigation into the political motion committees funding their escape.

Democratic leaders introduced on Monday that they’d return for the second particular session following California’s plan to redraw its maps to melt the blow from the Lone Star State, ending the blockade and permitting Republicans to cost forward. 

Texas Home Democrats accused the GOP of crafting a map that was unlawful and racially discriminatory, and so they tried and failed on the Home ground so as to add amendments to the invoice that might have halted the method. Regardless of Democrats’ greatest efforts, Texas Home Republicans shot down a dozen amendments to the invoice. 

“Members, it breaks my coronary heart to see how this unlawful and rigged, mid-decade redistricting scheme is dividing our state and our nation,” Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat, stated. “That is Texas, it isn’t Washington D.C. The impulses of out of doors politicians and their billionaire backers should not dictate what we do on this chamber, on this Home.”

O’ROURKE, SOROS-LINKED GROUPS FACE CALL FOR DOJ PROBE OVER ALLEGED FUNDING OF TEXAS DEM WALKOUT

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom (Reuters)

Rep. Todd Hunter, a Republican who wrote the invoice for the brand new map, countered that 4 of the 5 new districts have been “majority-minority Hispanic,” and famous that every of the brand new districts now trended Republican. Nonetheless, he made no qualms as to why Republicans have been pursuing adjustments to the congressional maps. 

“The underlying objective of this plan is easy, [to] enhance Republican political efficiency,” he stated. 

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However the Democrats’ blockade ended on Monday, when Abbott referred to as for a second particular session, after their calls for for California to additionally start a redistricting cycle have been met in an effort to nullify the map Texas Republicans have been creating.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats unveiled their new map final week, which, if handed, would create 5 new Democratic-leaning congressional districts that might counteract the Texas legislature’s new map.