Texas House approves redistricting maps, just as Trump wanted

Protesters gather outside of the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, Aug. 19, 2025. Republicans in the Texas House were poised on Wednesday to approve an aggressively partisan redistricting plan, overcoming Democratic protests and delivering to President Donald Trump the congressional map he called for. (J. David Goodman/The New York Times)

By J. David Goodman

The Texas House passed an aggressively partisan congressional map on Wednesday after weeks of legislative combat, giving President Donald Trump the gerrymander he requested — and possibly five new Republican seats in the U.S. House next year.

After more than eight hours of at-times tense and emotional debate, the final vote, 88-52, fell along party lines. It capped bitterly partisan political wrangling, with a Democratic walkout and Republican retaliation, and set off a redistricting fever that has spread from Austin to Sacramento, California, to Albany, New York.

The state Senate is expected to vote on the map as soon as Thursday evening, then send it by the end of the week to Gov. Greg Abbott for his promised signature.

The redrawing of Texas’ map was only the first battle in what is likely to be a bruising and protracted coast-to-coast clash over redistricting between states led by Republicans and those led by Democrats over the coming months. The California Legislature is expected to vote Thursday on a newly drawn congressional map designed to flip as many as five Republican-held seats to the Democrats, a counterweight to Wednesday’s vote in Texas. California’s changes would then have to be approved by voters in a referendum in November.

If the fight broadens significantly, the outcome of the redistricting war could help determine control in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority, even before a single vote is cast in what were expected to be very close midterms elections in 2026.

Already, Trump and his allies have been looking past Texas to other Republican states, including Indiana, Missouri and Florida. Beyond California, Democratic state leaders are looking at Illinois and Maryland ahead of the 2026 midterms, and New York ahead of the 2028 presidential election, vowing to embark on their own mid-decade redistricting efforts.

For Democrats, however, the fight is proving harder. The California effort will require working around the state rules that give an independent commission responsibility for redistricting. That is why the map that is up for passage in the state Legislature there Thursday would also have to be approved by voters.

Republicans have vowed to fight California Democrats’ plan at the ballot and in court. They lost a round on Wednesday when the state Supreme Court rejected a request from Republican state lawmakers to block the Legislature from moving ahead with Thursday’s votes.

The path to passage in Texas has been far simpler, despite sustained Democratic opposition.

Wednesday’s vote on the map had been delayed by more than two weeks by dozens of Democratic state representatives, who left the state to halt its passage by denying the House enough members to meet.

But as soon as they returned Monday, Republicans lawmakers moved swiftly to ensure its passage, rapidly approving an updated version out of two committees and assigning each Democrat a state police chaperone to ensure that representative could not leave again.

“The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance,” state Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, said Wednesday in a speech introducing the map legislation, known as House Bill 4.

“According to the U.S. Supreme Court, we can use political performance” in drawing congressional districts, he said. “And that is what we’ve done.”

One Republican member from the Fort Worth area, David Lowe, wore an oversized round pin reading “Big Beautiful Map” — a reference to Trump’s description of the Texas redistricting.

As debate began, chants and cheers could be heard through the closed doors from dozens protesting in the Capitol rotunda against the redistricting.

“House Bill 4 is an illegal and racially discriminatory congressional map that this body has no business passing,” said state Rep. Chris Turner, a Dallas-area Democrat. “This illegal and rigged mid-decade redistricting scheme is dividing our state and our country.”

Republicans have revised the map that has been under consideration since it was introduced last month. It would still aim to flip the five seats that Trump has publicly called for, but it was reworked slightly to place additional Republican voters in the districts where Republicans already hold House seats.

“Please pass this map ASAP,” Trump urged on social media Monday. “Thank you, Texas!”

With passage in the state House, the map goes to the state Senate, where Republican leaders have an even stronger hand. Once Abbott signs it, Democrats have said they will challenge its legality.

“Texas will have to go to the courts,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, who led the walkout. He implored Democrat-led states to now take action. “California, New York, Illinois, Michigan and many other states — look at what’s happening here,” he said.

The actions by Texas and California this week will likely narrow the battlefield for control of the U.S. House next year, a critical fight that will shape the remainder of Trump’s term. Even so, with the House so narrowly divided, the expanding fight over redistricting alone is not likely to determine control of the chamber.

Some of the districts being redrawn in the two states could remain competitive in a nonpresidential election.

Even without the states most likely to redistrict — Texas, California and Ohio — 27 House seats that were decided in 2024 by fewer than 5 percentage points will remain in states unlikely to redraw their maps. Of those, 14 are held by Republicans, 13 by Democrats.

Still, Texas is the biggest prize available for Republicans, Trump has said.

And tensions have been rising in the state Capitol this week.

The day’s most heated moments came over the question of race and how the new map impacts districts currently occupied by Black members of Congress in the Houston and Dallas areas. In Houston, the map moves the 9th Congressional district, held by U.S. Rep. Al Green, an outspoken Trump critic, to an area where Republican voters predominate.

Hunter and Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, a Democratic state representative from San Antonio, argued over whether the Black members of the House were consulted over the map. “We weren’t asked any questions,” said Gervin-Hawkins, who is Black.

Hunter, who is white, disagreed. The two members interrupted each other several times. “Members, please try not to talk over one another,” Burrows interjected at one point.

“You own the walkout,” Hunter said to Gervin-Hawkins, talking loudly across a chamber that had grown otherwise quiet. “Don’t come into this body and say we didn’t include you. You left us for 18 days.”