Governor Greg Abbott is predicted to shortly signal it into regulation, although Democrats have vowed to problem it in court docket.
The Texas Senate has given ultimate approval to a brand new Republican-leaning congressional voting map, sending it to Governor Greg Abbott for his signature.
The state senate voted alongside social gathering strains to go the map 18-11 shortly after midnight on Saturday, following greater than eight hours of heated debate.
President Donald Trump has pushed for the map to assist the GOP keep its slim majority in Congress within the 2026 midterm elections. It has 5 new districts that may favour Republicans.
Abbott, a Republican, is predicted to shortly signal it into regulation, although Democrats have promised to problem it in court docket.
The hassle by Trump and Texas’s Republican-majority legislature prompted state Democrats to carry a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts throughout the nation.
The weeks-long showdown has roiled the Texas Legislature. A lot of the drama unfolded within the Home, the place the map in the end handed on Wednesday.
The showdown has additionally infected a broader, state-by-state redistricting battle, with governors from each events pledging to redraw congressional maps.
California Democrats permitted laws on Thursday calling for a particular election in November for residents to vote on a redrawn congressional map designed to assist Democrats win 5 extra Home seats subsequent yr. Governor Gavin Newsom shortly signed it.
California’s map wants voter approval as a result of, not like in Texas, a nonpartisan fee usually attracts the map to keep away from the kind of political battle that’s enjoying out.
On Friday, Abbott known as California’s redistricting “a joke” and asserted that Texas’s new map is constitutional however California’s could be overturned.
Trump needs extra states to revise maps
On a nationwide degree, the partisan make-up of current districts places Democrats inside three seats of a majority. The incumbent president’s social gathering often loses seats within the midterms.
The Texas redraw is already reshaping the 2026 race, with Democratic Consultant Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, saying on Thursday that he won’t search re-election to his Austin-based seat if the brand new map takes impact.
Underneath the proposed map, Doggett’s district would overlap with that of one other Democratic incumbent, Republican Greg Casar.
Trump has pushed different Republican-controlled states, together with Indiana and Missouri, to additionally revise their maps so as to add extra winnable GOP seats.
Ohio Republicans had been additionally already scheduled to revise their maps to make them extra partisan.
Redistricting usually happens as soon as a decade, instantly after a census. Whereas some states have their very own limitations, there isn’t a nationwide obstacle to a state attempting to redraw districts in the midst of the last decade.
The US Supreme Court docket has mentioned the Structure doesn’t outlaw partisan gerrymandering, solely utilizing race to redraw district strains.
