Details on the new map

We have a lot of news for you on the new shape of the political universe in Texas.

As early as today, Texas Republicans will release their proposed new congressional map for the Lone Star State.

This proposal could change some as it winds its way through the Texas House and Senate. But here’s what we expect it to look like, according to multiple sources with detailed knowledge of the process.

Under this scenario, there would be five new seats that President Donald Trump would have carried by 10 or more points. This could give the GOP an advantage of 30 Republicans to eight Democrats in the Texas congressional delegation in the next Congress (it’s currently 25 Rs, 12 Dems and one vacancy).

It’s huge news in Austin and on Capitol Hill. It may help the GOP keep control of the House in 2026 — or trigger redistricting fights in other state capitals as Democrats retaliate.

As we’ve reported, three of these districts will be in or around Austin, Dallas and Houston. The other two will be in the Rio Grande Valley.

The targets. Here are the Democrats who are most directly in the danger zone.

1) Rep. Henry Cuellar in the Rio Grande Valley (currently the 28th District, although this may change). Thanks to South Texas’ rapid political realignment, Cuellar already represents a seat that Trump won by seven points. It may not get a whole lot worse than that but the longtime Democratic incumbent is also facing federal charges of bribery and money laundering.

2) Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in the Rio Grande Valley (34th District). Just like Cuellar’s district, this seat swung hard to the right in 2024 at the presidential level. Gonzalez survived a tough race in November but his seat is certainly getting redder.

3) Rep. Julie Johnson in the Dallas Metro area (32nd District). Republicans packed this district full of Democrats ahead of the 2022 cycle. Now, they want it back.

4) Reps. Greg Casar (35th District) and Lloyd Doggett (37th District). Casar’s district snakes up Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin. Doggett’s is Austin-based. Republicans are eyeing a new red seat in the region and that leaves just one district for Casar and Doggett.

This could be a fascinating primary. Casar, 36, and the youngest ever chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, versus Doggett, the 78-year-old dean of the Texas delegation. Doggett was the first House Democrat to call on President Joe Biden to exit the presidential race in 2024 following his disastrous debate with Trump.

5) Rep. Marc Veasey in the Dallas Metroplex (33rd District). Veasey’s district spans from Fort Worth to Dallas. It’s possible the new map will cut out the Fort Worth part of his district. That doesn’t mean Veasey won’t have a Dallas-based seat to run in, but he’s from Fort Worth. If Veasey retires, Johnson could run in that seat.

There will be a new GOP seat in the greater Houston metropolitan area. But remember: There is a vacant blue seat in Houston because Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner died on March 5 and the special election to replace him isn’t until November.

That means it’s very possible that the area’s three current Democratic incumbents — Reps. Lizzie Fletcher, Al Green and Sylvia Garcia — will all have seats to run in, so we left them off our list of the most endangered.

The broader map. Democrats have declared that Republicans are at grave risk of spreading their voters too thin and creating districts that could flip blue in a bad year for Republicans. This kind of redraw is known as a “dummymander.”

Republicans feel their map avoids that outcome. They expect that every seat that Trump carried with at least 60% of the vote under the current Texas map will remain at that margin or better under the new map.

Trump won all the GOP-held seats or expected pickups by 10 points or more in 2024. GOP Reps. Beth Van Duyne and Troy Nehls will likely see the partisan voter indexes of their districts increase, while those of Reps. Tony Gonzales and Monica De La Cruz will stay roughly the same.

We’ve got a few details on how Republicans expect the five new red districts to look:

– One new seat will have a PVI of R+7. Trump won it by nearly 16 points.

– One new seat will have a PVI of R+3. Trump won it by 10 points.

– One new seat will have a PVI of R+8. Trump won it by nearly 18 points.

– Two new seats will have a PVI of R+4. Trump won them both by 10 points.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) would have carried all five of these seats, while Gov. Greg Abbott would have won four of them.

One last thing: Republicans expect there will be more majority Hispanic districts in the new map proposal than there are in the current one. They’re making a big bet that the rightward shift of Latino voters seen in November is here to stay. Republicans also hope they are complicating the prospects of Democratic lawsuits.

ICYMI — We scooped in the PM edition that the White House is lobbying against a Senate bill to ban stock trading for members of Congress, the president and vice president. The Trump administration doesn’t agree with the ban on the president and VP.