Between June and August 2025, lawmakers in the U.S. state of Texas considered a process of mid-decade redistricting to give members of the Republican Party in the state an advantage by gerrymandering the state's congressional districts ahead of the 2026 United States House of Representatives elections. In the 2024 elections, Republicans won 25 of the state's House seats and Democrats won the remaining 13, but with the redrawn map, it could potentially give Republicans up to 30 seats.
On August 20, 2025, the Texas State House passed congressional maps that would target five Democratic-held seats, all of them being coalition districts containing a high proportion of minority populations. The vote was 88–52, a party-line vote. The new map aims to flip the state's 9th, 28th, 32nd, 34th, and 35th districts to Republican control. On August 23, 2025, the Texas State Senate passed the map by a vote of 18–8. It then headed to Governor Greg Abbott, who officially signed the new congressional map into law on August 29, 2025.
The new map was challenged at federal district court, where a temporary injunction was placed blocking the map from use in November 2026. Abbott appealed directly to the United States Supreme Court, which on a 6–3 decision stayed the injunction in December 2025, and formally reversed the lower court's decision and cleared the map to be used for the 2026 elections in April 2026.
Background
In June 2025, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had urged Republican leadership in the state of Texas to redraw the state's congressional district boundaries in order to benefit Republicans in the 2026 elections. The plan elicited concern from some Texas Republicans, who argued that it could hurt incumbent Republicans. Representative Michael McCaul held a twenty-minute meeting in the United States Capitol to discuss the plan. According to the Times, the proposal began amid concern from Trump and his allies that a Republican loss in the 2026 elections could damage Trump's legislative agenda and lead to investigations. According to The Texas Tribune, Trump's plan was met by skepticism from Governor Greg Abbott; his concerns were alleviated after a call with Trump.
On August 4, 2025, House Speaker Dustin Burrows appointed a new committee for redistricting efforts. The committee is chaired by Representative Cody Vasut, with initial members to include 12 Republicans and nine Democrats.
Texas Legislature special session Hearings and Democratic preparations
On July 9, 2025, Abbott called for a special session of the Texas Legislature to discuss redistricting. The impetus for the session was a letter from the United States Department of Justice giving the Texas Legislature the legal authority to redistrict its legislative boundaries, citing discrimination in four majority-minority congressional districts; the letter led to Abbott acknowledging that some districts were drawn "along strict racial lines", a reversal in the state's prior stance. The Texas Legislature's Republican majority gave Democrats limited options to contest the effort. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin held a call on July 14 to discuss a response to the redistricting proposal, including the possibility of walking out of the session. The following day, Trump held his own call with Texas Republicans, urging them to give the state five additional Republican seats.
The special session began on July 21. At a press conference, state Democrats vowed to prolong the redistricting effort as much as possible through several means, including the filibuster, delaying hearings, and walking out. At the first of at least seven House redistricting committee hearings three days later, criticism mounted from some constituents and Democrats, who focused on the lack of publicly available maps. At a hearing at the University of Houston, Committee Chairman Cody Vasut stated that additional hearings would be scheduled after maps were filed. Concurrently, Texas Democrats began fundraising in preparation to leave the state; a rules change approved two years prior, after Democrats had broken quorum to attempt to stop an election law from getting passed, imposes a fine per day and the possibility of arrest on lawmakers who break quorum, though lawmakers cannot use campaign funds to pay for the fines. U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett stated that she was willing to fund the walkout. Fundraising involved establishing a million fund, the Lone Star Fund, and a million advertisement campaign. Several Texas House Democrats traveled to California, Illinois, and New Mexico to meet with Governors Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, and Michelle Lujan Grisham, respectively.
Walkout and Abbott's threats
Texas Republicans defended the map in a meeting on August 1 amid protests in the Texas State Capitol. The following day, the Texas House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting advanced the redrawn congressional map. On August 3, most House Democrats left the state, denying Republicans a quorum to vote on the map. Democrats said the walkout was intended to delay the redistricting effort and draw national attention to the proposal. A majority left that afternoon to head to Chicago, while some traveled to New York to meet with Governor Kathy Hochul and others convened at the National Conference of State Legislatures with some Senate Democrats. In response, Abbott ordered Democrats to return to the Capitol by August 4, threatening to remove them from office through a process outlined in a non-binding legal opinion by Attorney General Ken Paxton and warning of bribery charges for fundraising to pay for a per day fine. Abbott stated that he would move to extradite "any potential out-of-state felons", while Pritzker said he would protect the lawmakers in his state. Although Abbott cannot legally seek extradition for lawmakers who break quorum, Paxton may file quo warranto petitions to remove them from office, anytime intensive process that could trigger multiple special elections. Alternatively, he could file bribery charges against the lawmakers.
On August 4, 2025, the Texas House voted 85–6 to issue arrest warrants for the Democratic House members who left Texas. All of the no votes on the warrants were Democrats.
Senator John Cornyn stated that the FBI had agreed to help "find" the Democratic lawmakers.
On August 18, after the special session had expired, and following California's gerrymandering proposal to counter Republican gains in Texas, most of the Texas Democrats returned to the state. Abbott had already called for another special session, which started that day. The Democrats who returned were told that they could not leave the state without written permission from the Republican house speaker, and each was given a permission form to sign, agreeing to be escorted by a Texas public safety officer at all times. Representative Nicole Collier refused to sign the form and was then prevented from leaving the House floor that evening, at which point she filed a habeas corpus petition in court, challenging the legality of locking her inside. Abbott and Paxton also petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to remove the Democrats who fled from office.
Partisan breakdown of the new congressional map District Incumbent 2024 U.S. presidential result Notionaloutcome 2022 map New map Nathaniel Moran (R) +51.19% +49.46% Rep. hold Dan Crenshaw (R) +23.77% +22.83% Rep. hold Keith Self (R) +19.98% +23.34% Rep. hold Pat Fallon (R) +32.48% +24.63% Rep. hold Lance Gooden (R) +27.01% +21.55% Rep. hold Jake Ellzey (R) +28.45% +22.87% Rep. hold Lizzie Fletcher (D) –20.73% –23.42% Dem. hold Morgan Luttrell (R) +33.87% +27.63% Rep. hold Al Green (D) –44.05% +19.88% Rep. gain Michael McCaul (R) +24.76% +22.56% Rep. hold August Pfluger (R) +45.38% +34.30% Rep. hold Craig Goldman (R) +22.58% +23.87% Rep. hold Ronny Jackson (R) +47.73% +46.16% Rep. hold Randy Weber (R) +34.02% +24.27% Rep. hold Monica De La Cruz (R) +17.84% +17.86% Rep. hold Veronica Escobar (D) –15.97% –16.38% Dem. hold Pete Sessions (R) +29.20% +21.59% Rep. hold Christian Menefee (D) –39.77% –54.90% Dem. hold Jodey Arrington (R) +51.66% +51.66% Rep. hold Joaquin Castro (D) −21.21% −28.44% Dem. hold Chip Roy (R) +23.58% +21.81% Rep. hold Troy Nehls (R) +19.48% +22.14% Rep. hold Vacant +15.50% +14.79% Rep. hold Beth Van Duyne (R) +15.47% +16.08% Rep. hold Roger Williams (R) +36.30% +24.06% Rep. hold Brandon Gill (R) +23.41% +23.79% Rep. hold Michael Cloud (R) +29.63% +21.17% Rep. hold Henry Cuellar (D) +7.27% +10.37% Rep. gain Sylvia Garcia (D) –20.39% –30.42% Dem. hold Jasmine Crockett (D) –46.80% –47.03% Dem. hold John Carter (R) +23.18% +21.80% Rep. hold Julie Johnson (D) –23.61% +17.71% Rep. gain Mark Veasey (D) –33.68% –32.59% Dem. hold Vicente Gonzalez (D) +4.42% +10.13% Rep. gain Greg Casar (D) –33.49% +10.44% Rep. gain Brian Babin (R) +36.77% +24.93% Rep. hold Lloyd Doggett (D) –49.00% –56.23% Dem. hold Wesley Hunt (R) +20.68% +20.91% Rep. hold
Legal challenge
On November 18, 2025, a federal court in El Paso, Texas ruled that the redistricting constituted a racial gerrymander, a ruling which would have barred the map from being used for the 2026 midterms. The ruling also disrupted campaign planning for candidates across Texas ahead of the 2026 elections. However, on November 21, the U.S. Supreme Court approved a request filed by Texas to temporarily block the lower court ruling.
On December 4, the Supreme Court stayed the District Court ruling in a 6–3 decision that allows Texas to use the map in 2026, concluding that the District Court had "failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature" in finding that the map was racially gerrymandered, and had "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign" because it issued its ruling after the candidate filing period had begun. The dissenting opinion, written by Elena Kagan and joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the majority was not following the appropriate standard of review for questions of fact, stating, "We are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision." The Supreme Court formalized the reversal and allowing the new map to be used in 2026 in a summary order on April 27, 2026, with Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissenting.
Impact Political effects The proposed redistricting map intends to give Republicans five additional seats in the 2026 United States House of Representatives elections. The map splits voters of color in Tarrant County and alters Texas's 35th congressional district, established in a court order by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. It establishes two majority-white districts, two majority-African American districts, and one majority-Hispanic district. The map condenses several Democratic incumbents against each other, setting up the possibility of primary conflicts, but does not ensure a Republican victory. The map estimates that Hispanic voters in three districts will support Republicans without Donald Trump on the ballot. In two multiracial districts, the proposed map does not alleviate concerns raised by the United States Department of Justice in its letter. The map was drawn primarily by the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, Adam Kincaid, who subsequently defended it in court. Attorney Chris Gober, who eventually won the Republican primary in the newly drawn 10th district, reportedly played a role in helping Kincaid draw the map.
Retaliatory redistricting measures