By Joseph Ax (Reuters) -Texas Republicans on Monday launched a high-risk, high-reward redrawing of the state's 38 congressional districts, a move championed by President Donald Trump to protect the party's narrow U.S. House majority in next year's midterm elections. Trump has told reporters he expects the effort to yield as many as five additional House Republicans. Republicans hold a narrow 220-212 majority in the House, with three Democratic-held seats vacant after members' deaths. But redistricting experts said the plan could backfire if Republicans try to squeeze too many seats out of what is already considered a significantly skewed map. "Redrawing the Texas map is a dangerous proposition for House Republicans and their incumbents," Suzan DelBene, a Democratic congresswoman from Washington State and chair of the party's congressional campaign arm, told reporters. "It's basic math. For them to try to break up Democratic-held districts, they will have to weaken Republican districts, who already are facing political headwinds." Under the current lines, Republicans control 25 seats, nearly two-thirds of the districts in a state that went for Trump last year by a 56% to 42% margin. States are required to redistrict every 10 years based on the U.S. Census but the Texas map was passed just four years ago by the Republican-dominated legislature. While mid-cycle redistricting occasionally takes place, it is usually prompted by a change in power at the legislature. "This is totally unprecedented for a party to redraw its own map," said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. "I can't think of another situation where the party got what it wanted, did very well and then decided to redraw its own map." Texas Democrats expressed disapproval on the state Senate floor on Monday and criticized Republicans for pursuing redistricting during a special legislative session that will also address funding for flood prevention in the wake of the deadly July 4 flash flooding that killed more than 130. But they have little recourse in a legislature dominated by Republicans. "I think this is a tremendous waste of time," Senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat, said. Asked about Democratic criticisms, a spokesman for Governor Greg Abbott previously said the governor was "dedicated to delivering results on issues important to Texans" during the session, including flood relief and tax cuts. PACKING AND CRACKING Gerrymandering, the process of manipulating district boundaries to benefit one party, typically includes both "packing" and "cracking." Packing involves cramming as many opposition voters into a district as possible, making it easier to win the surrounding districts; cracking divides opposition voters into multiple districts, diluting their electoral power. When lawmakers push too far, however, they run the risk of creating a so-called "dummymander," in which the margins are thin enough that the other party ends up winning districts in a voting shift. Trump's Republicans already face vulnerabilities ahead of the 2026 elections. Only 41% of Americans approve of the job he is doing, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, and the president's party historically underperforms during midterm elections. Democrats privately concede that Republicans could fairly easily draw a new map to oust two vulnerable Democrats, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, whose heavily Latino south Texas districts swung toward Trump in 2024. But gaining five seats is a tougher task. "This has dummymander written all over it," said New York University's Li. "When you gerrymander, you're making a bet that you know what the future of the state will look like. In some states, that's a safe bet; in Texas, it's very much not." Texas is one of the fastest growing states in the nation, adding more than 1,500 people a day from 2023 to 2024, according to the state demographer. Texas lawmakers need only look back a few years to see how a seemingly safe gerrymander can shift. In 2018, during Trump's first term, Democrats flipped two seats and came close to winning a handful of other previously solid Republican seats, as suburban voters swung away from Trump. Following the 2020 census, Texas Republicans responded by drawing a map designed to protect their incumbents. Only three of the state's 38 districts are seen as competitive under the current lines. In calling for the special session, Abbott cited a letter from Trump's Justice Department that alleged four majority-minority districts – all held by Democrats – were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. Democrats and civil rights groups have warned that breaking up majority-minority districts will dilute the voting power for people of color. The existing map is already the subject of several lawsuits claiming that it intentionally discriminated against minority voters. Some Democrats have also suggested fighting fire with fire by redistricting in states they control. California Governor Gavin Newsom has floated the idea of sidestepping the state's redistricting commission to draw a new, more Democrat-friendly map. (Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Paul Thomasch and Lincoln Feast.)
