WASHINGTON — As Texas Republicans forge ahead with redrawing the state’s congressional maps in a special legislative session, it has become clear they are taking a calculated risk. They are gambling that some of the Texas voters who flipped from Democrat to Republican in recent elections will continue voting for the GOP. But is that a safe bet?
President Donald Trump is back in the White House, in part, because some Hispanic voters in Texas and across the country who used to vote for Democrats supported him last November. The president has touted his flipping of Texas counties along the Mexico border that have historically voted for Democrats. Many Texas Republicans are pointing to those gains as one of the reasons why the Legislature should pursue a controversial redrawing of the state’s congressional districts now, instead of after the next census.
On social media, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, “Hispanic voters in Texas have rapidly shifted in favor of the GOP, in large part thanks@realdonaldtrump, so a mid-decade redistricting will mean significant gains for Texas Republicans.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who just won reelection last year, seems to agree.
“President Trump won Texas decisively,” Cruz told Spectrum News. “He carried a majority of Hispanic voters in Texas. I carried a majority of Hispanic voters in Texas. I think there are real opportunities for electoral gains in Texas.”
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, whose district covers more than 800 miles of the southern border, said it makes sense to redraw the maps because of the voter shifts.
“When you look at how the demographics are shifting, when you look at last year’s vote, the Hispanic vote, in particular, going more Republican, I think it is a fair argument to bring it back up,” Gonzales said. “If there is a redistricting, I think it will certainly be warranted of it, and I think this could be a positive thing for the Republican party going forward.”
Texas already sends more Republicans to Congress than any other state — 25 currently versus 13 Democrats. State Republicans are expected to eye some of the border districts that Trump won last November to create the five additional Republican-leaning districts he has set as their goal in the redistricting.
But U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, said the Republican redistricting plan will backfire. He said his community is full of independent thinkers, and many may be feeling regretful after voting for the president.
“When they talk about Latinos on the border having gone red, I don’t believe that they’ve gone red. I think that they were upset about how the border was handled. I was one of the most critical Democrats on the Biden administration on what was happening on the border, and I think people were upset, and that’s why I’m still here,” Gonzalez told Spectrum News.
President Trump did build on the gains he had made with Hispanic voters in Texas over the past few elections. One analyst said Trump’s messaging about inflation and the border won Hispanic voters over, but that it is still difficult to say where the trend lines will go from here.
“There is a double-edged sword for Republicans. In other words, there was some uptick in support for firmer and stricter immigration control, and I think that that’s what led to a number of Latinos switching their vote in this last cycle,” said Richard Pineda, director of the Lewis Center at the University of Incarnate World.
“The other side of that is if they see negative treatment continuing at the hands of the government’s immigration policing efforts,” Pineda continued, “I think there’s a possible backlash for a lot of these Latino voters.”
He said he believes that risk will play out in the midterm elections, as voters weigh President Trump’s agenda and accomplishments overall.
“I think that’s really where this becomes somewhat delicate, because I think as you see this onslaught of attacks against higher education, attacks against support for entitlements, those kinds of things, inevitably, those are going to roll over to the Latino community,” Pineda said. “There’s a fine line that the Republican Party has to sort of run to keep this moving forward.”
The redistricting committees will begin holding hearings across Texas, which began Thursday at the Texas Capitol.
Then, Republican state lawmakers are expected to propose a new map, and we will see just how far they are willing to bet on President Trump’s gains in Texas.
