Category Archives: TEXAS

An Early Redistricting Cycle

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, June 26, 2025

Redistricting

Putting together the redistricting puzzle

It appears we will see at least three states soon begin a mid-decade redistricting effort for various reasons.

It has been long assumed that the Wisconsin state Supreme Court justices would re-draw the congressional boundaries before the 2026 election. After the Democrats secured their high court majority before the 2024 election, the members reconfigured the state Assembly and Senate as a way to “rectify the Republican majority’s partisan gerrymander.” Surprisingly, the court did not follow suit to simultaneously change the congressional district map. It is probable they will take such action soon.

It is believed that a majority of the court justices, as at least two publicly stated when campaigning for their position, see the current 6R-2D congressional map as constituting a partisan gerrymander. It is expected that the justices will assign a special master to draw districts that would bring the partisan ratio to 4-4, which could mean Reps. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) and Derrick Van Orden (R-Prairie du Chien/La Crosse) might lose their seats while threatening the very tight US House Republican majority.

The state of Ohio is also preparing for a re-draw, but not because of a partisan gerrymandering. Under Ohio election law, plans must pass both houses of the legislature with three-fifths of the voting members. Because the 2021 congressional plan was adopted with only majority support, the map would only be in effect for two succeeding elections, 2022 and 2024. Therefore, in order to comply with state law, the Ohio redistricting commission, comprised of elected officials, and the legislature must again embark upon the redistricting process.

Republicans hold a 10-5 advantage in the congressional delegation with two of the Democratic seats, District 9 (Rep. Marcy Kaptur; 48.3 – 47.6 percent 2024 election result) and District 13 (Rep. Emilia Sykes; 51.1 – 48.9 percent), being very tight from a partisan perspective. The weakest Republican showing in the last election came from Rep. Max Miller (R-Rocky River; 51.1 – 36.1 percent). Excluding Rep. Miller’s 51 percent tally, the remaining nine Republicans averaged 65.2 percent of the vote.

With Republicans generally in charge of the redistricting process expect moves to make the Kaptur and Sykes’ districts more Republican.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has called a special legislative session to begin July 21. Because Texas only has a short 140-day legislative session every other year, it has been commonplace after the last few sessions to bring the members back into an extra session to complete unfinished business.

Under Texas law, the Governor has sole authority to call a special session, but the legislative period can only consume 30 days. It is possible for the Governor to call additional sessions if more time is needed. Also importantly, it is only the Governor who sets the agenda for the legislative session. It is widely believed that Gov. Abbott will add congressional redistricting to this particular legislative special session.

Each of the three states has a unique reason for conducting a mid-decade redistricting session. In Texas’ case, it is because excessive growth has made several districts severely overpopulated.

Using the US Census Bureau’s mid-decade population estimates, Texas has grown in population by a 7.2 percent rate since the 2020 census was concluded. During this same time period, the national growth rate is 2.6 percent. The Texas number translates into over 1.2 million more people living in the state since the last Census. Should this trend continue, the Texas population will swell by over 4 million more people by 2030 when compared to 2020.

Therefore, the growth numbers account for the early estimated national reapportionment calculations that suggest Texas could gain an additional four congressional seats for the next decade. Hence, the Governor and legislative leaders will again redistrict to more equitably distribute the state’s major raw number growth figure throughout its current 38 congressional districts.

The Texas congressional delegation stands at 25R-13D; therefore, it would not be surprising to see the GOP dominated legislature attempt to expand the Republican position within the current congressional delegation through the redistricting session.

New York City Mayoral Results;
Major Texas Action

By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, June 25, 2025

New York City

Campaign posters for Zohran Mamdani pasted on a wall in New York City. / Photo by EdenPictures

After leading in polling for most of the race until falling behind just days before the election, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded yesterday’s Democratic mayoral primary to state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani even though the Ranked Choice Voting rounds have not yet begun.

Still, with more than a 90,000-vote lead with well over 90 percent of the precincts reporting, and a joint campaign from opponents to dissuade voters from ranking Cuomo in the later rounds, it is clear that the Assemblyman, who ran as a Democratic Socialist, will win the party nomination.

Cuomo did not, however, rule out advancing into the general election potentially as an Independent or the nominee of a minor party. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is already in the general election running as an Independent. With New York City Democrats holding a 65-24 percent registration advantage over Independents and minor party registrants – Republicans are only at 11 percent – it is clear that Mamdani will be very difficult to overtake in the November election.

Assemblyman Mamdani pledged to make bus fares free, community college tuition-free, provide child care for children five years of age and under, freeze rents on municipal housing, and have the city operate grocery stores to drive down prices, among other things. His platform appealed to the far left and to young people who would directly benefit from his proposals; most, however, don’t believe implementing all of these proposals will be fiscally or practically possible.

Assemblyman Mamdani’s biggest negative for the general election, in a city with more than 1 million Jewish residents, is his refusal to condemn the extreme anti-Israel demands of protestors and pro-Palestine activists; he went so far as to “appear to defend the slogan globalize the intifada.”

It remains to be seen how active the opposition general election campaigns will be, or if a coalition candidate will emerge, but last night was a clear victory for Mamdani who is certainly the early favorite to win the general election.

Texas

In the past few days, the state of Texas has come roaring to the political news forefront. Perhaps the most significant story is Gov. Greg Abbott (R) calling a state legislative special session that will likely lead to a re-drawing of the Texas congressional map. While the Governor has not yet added redistricting to the special session agenda, reports suggest he will do so imminently.

Because the state has grown by more that 2.1 million people since the 2020 census was released, translating into a 7.3 percent growth rate, the mid-decade estimates suggest that the state’s current 38 districts are already significantly imbalanced from an equivalent population perspective. To put the Texas growth figure into context, the national rate of population increase during the same period is 2.6 percent.

Democrats now have a Lone Star State US Senate candidate. Retired astronaut Terry Virts announced his candidacy this week with attacks directed more toward GOP challenger and Attorney General Ken Paxton rather than incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R). For his part, Sen. Cornyn who has been trailing Paxton in every early Republican primary poll, for the first time indicated he might step aside if he could be assured that another Republican contender could deny Paxton the nomination.

In addition to Virts, former Congressmen Colin Allred, the 2024 Democratic Senate nominee, Beto O’Rourke, the party’s 2018 Senate and 2022 gubernatorial nominee, and state Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas) are also confirming having interest in entering the Senate race.

In the South Texas 28th Congressional District that veteran Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) represents, a budding Republican primary is also developing.

Webb County Judge (Executive) Tano Tijerina (R) announced that he is forming a congressional exploratory committee to assess his chances of winning both the Republican primary and a general election against veteran Rep. Cuellar.

Webb County, which houses the city of Laredo, is the largest population entity in the 28th CD just slightly ahead of the Bexar County (San Antonio) portion. Already in the Republican primary is former Congresswoman Mayra Flores who is moving into this district from the 34th CD (Brownsville) where she was elected in a special election but defeated in two subsequent campaigns after more Democratic boundaries were enacted in the 2021 redistricting plan.

Clearly, the 28th will feature both a competitive Republican primary on March 3 and a hotly contested general election. In November, Rep. Cuellar, despite being under federal indictment, defeated retired Navy officer Jay Furman (R) 53-47 percent, while President Trump was carrying the CD over Kamala Harris with a 53-46 percent margin. It remains to be seen how this district will be adjusted in the coming redistricting effort.

To the west of the Cuellar district, wealthy conservative Texas rancher Susan Storey Rubio announced late last week that she will challenge three-term Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) in the sprawling 23rd Congressional District that stretches from San Antonio all the way to El Paso. Considering Rubio’s ability to self-fund and already casting Rep. Gonzales as a “spineless moderate” suggests that this may be a March primary challenge that could draw significant political attention.

Redistricting Update – Part II

By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023

House

A look at how things might play out in key states in the redistricting tug of wars

Five States Affected: Democrats Have Upper Hand — Today we conclude our two-part series on the current status of Round II redistricting. We now examine the affected states from North Carolina through Wisconsin.

• North Carolina: In what looks to be a strong new redistricting run for the Democrats in most of the other states, the North Carolina situation will mitigate some of the national Republican losses. North Carolina redistricting had been a virtual omnipresent issue throughout the previous decade, since we saw a new congressional map created in almost every election cycle.

The problem was largely politics. The state legislature alone controls redistricting (the North Carolina governor has no veto power over redistricting legislation), and the majority consistently held a different view of how districts should be drawn than did the Democratic state Supreme Court.

In the 2022 election, Republicans gained two seats on the seven-member judicial panel, thus turning a 4-3 deficit into a 5-2 majority. Now, seeing the legislature and judiciary largely on the same page as it relates to redistricting, it is very likely that the map legislators will draw in the next week or so will obtain the needed judicial approval. If so, such will be the final congressional redistricting map until the 2030 census.

It also appears that the legislature will return to the basic model that the Democratic Supreme Court failed to approve. Therefore, we can expect the current 7R-7D delegation map to probably end with 10 districts favoring Republicans and four trending Democratic.

Thus, Reps. Kathy Manning (D-Greensboro), Wiley Nickel (D-Cary), and Jeff Jackson (D-Charlotte) each could find themselves without a winnable district. Gaining three Republican seats in North Carolina would go a long way toward keeping the GOP in position to hold their slim US House majority.

• South Carolina: Soon after the first of this year, a federal three-judge panel declared the state’s Charleston anchored 1st Congressional District (Rep. Nancy Mace-R) to be an illegal racial gerrymander. This means the map drawers will likely add to the 1st African Americans from Rep. Jim Clyburn’s (D-Columbia) adjacent 6th District. This would make Rep. Mace more vulnerable to a Democratic candidate.

Nothing, however, has happened since the ruling, and it is unclear when the legislature will address the issue. Some movement is expected before the next election, but chances are strong that the legal challenges are not over.

Therefore, the Republicans may be able to delay long enough to push the final judicial decision, after the inevitable appeals are filed against whatever new map version is developed, until after the 2024 general election.

• Tennessee: A lawsuit claiming the new central Tennessee 5th Congressional District (Rep. Andy Ogles-R) is a partisan gerrymander is filed, but no judicial action has yet occurred. Even if the lower court rules in the plaintiffs’ favor, an appeal to the state Supreme Court will likely require more time than remains in the 2024 election cycle. Therefore, any change in the Tennessee map most likely will not happen until the 2026 election cycle.

• Texas: As in Tennessee, a lawsuit challenging the Texas map as a partisan gerrymander has been filed without seeing any judicial action. In this situation, regardless of how a lower court may rule, the Texas state Supreme Court would almost assuredly become involved. Therefore, it is probable that we will not see any substantive action changing the Texas congressional map in the 2024 election cycle.

• Wisconsin: The 6R-2D congressional map became a key point in the campaign to elect a new state Supreme Court Justice. Democrat Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on the high court, and her presence now gives her party a majority. She campaigned on what she sees as a Republican gerrymandered congressional map. The GOP filed a motion saying that she should be recused from hearing the 2023 redistricting because her stated campaign positions against the map demonstrates a preconceived bias. Predictably, the Supreme Court rejected the motion.

If the Democrats can get a map to the state Supreme Court, the result will almost assuredly be adverse for Republicans. The two most affected members will be those representing districts in the southern part of the state, Reps. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) and Derrick Van Orden (R-Prairie du Chien/La Crosse).

One Democrat who may not be in favor of drawing a new map, however, is Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Currently, she is not being seriously challenged for re-election, but if a new map forces either Steil or Van Orden out of their districts, at least one would likely jump into the Senate race.

Chances are fair to good that the Democrats can force a new map to be drawn. The state has a late primary – August 13, 2024 – so time remains for a new redistricting plan to be enacted. If so, then count on seeing either Rep. Steil or Van Orden, or both, being displaced. This will likely mean one of the two enters the Senate race to challenge Baldwin. Though the GOP would sustain a US House loss, redistricting could ironically put the Wisconsin US Senate seat into play.

A Changing South Texas

By Jim Ellis — Monday, March 20, 2023

States

Demographics: A Shifting South Texas Electorate — Typically, not much used to happen politically in the Texas’ Rio Grande Valley congressional districts that touch the US-Mexico border, but such is not the case anymore.

Republican freshman Rep. Monica de la Cruz (R-McAllen) converted what became an open 15th District, which stretches from the San Antonio area all the way to the border.

We began seeing the political waves shifting in the 2020 presidential election when then-President Trump ran well ahead of a typical Republican national nominee in a region that was historically solid Democratic. In the five congressional districts that touch the Texas-Mexico border, President Biden was able to break 52 percent in only one of the seats, and that one is in the El Paso-anchored 16th District.

The trend carried over into the 2022 election where almost all of the state’s political action was centered in the border districts, and it’s not just because the cross points are being challenged and overrun with foreigners illegally coming into the United States. Largely due to the Biden Administration’s energy policies and the Democrats’ “Green New Deal” that is causing the area to lose energy-related jobs, Republicans are making political gains. In what were once highly safe Democratic CDs, we now see heightened political competition.

The region is changing to such a degree that now even one of the area’s Republican congressmen, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) — in the district that stretches from San Antonio all the way to El Paso and contains more of the border territory than any district in the country — is facing a new primary challenge from his political right. This seat has been competitive for years in the general election, but now is settling itself as the South Texas region’s most reliable Republican seat.

Republican freshman Rep. Monica de la Cruz (R-McAllen — above), who converted what became an open 15th District that stretches from the San Antonio area all the way to the border in and around the McAllen area, looks to be in solid position for re-election next year.

Redistricting is a factor in the results, and if the GOP map drawers had known what would happen in a special election in the Brownsville-anchored 34th District early in 2022, they would likely have crafted different boundaries.

Mayra Flores

As a result, Republican Mayra Flores, who made national news in 2022 when she scored an upset special election win in the 34th, ultimately fell 51-43 percent to fellow Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-McAllen) in the general election. Rep. Gonzalez, seeing the trends in his 15th CD, decided to run for re-election in the more Democratic 34th after then-Rep. Filemon Vela resigned the seat to accept a position in the private sector.

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Rep. Vela to Resign; Another Special?

Texas Congressional Redistricting Map (click here or on map to see larger, interactive version)

By Jim Ellis

March 28, 2022 — If the upcoming Alaska special election isn’t complex enough, with the top-four jungle primary feature complete with Ranked Choice Voting that will be used to replace the late at-large Rep. Don Young (R-Ft. Yukon), the developing situation in Texas may be even more confusing.

A year ago March, five-term South Texas Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Brownsville) announced that he would not seek re-election in 2022, becoming one of the first sitting incumbents to enter into lame duck status. Late last week Vela made public his intention to resign in the “next few weeks” in order to accept a position with the Akin Gump law firm.

Texas election law states that a vacancy in office must be filled at the next regular election, or earlier if the governor rules that an emergency exists. In a similar situation before the regular 2018 election, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called an emergency special election to immediately replace resigned GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold. Current Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Victoria) won his initial election as a result.

In the current political climate, with the country facing record inflation, sky-high energy prices, a border crisis, oil and gas production limitations as a matter of policy, and a hostile invasion in eastern Europe not seen since the days of Adolph Hitler in the pre-World War II period, the governor could easily claim that enough issues need addressing by a full Texas delegation. Therefore, he could justify calling an immediate special election.

If so, the situation becomes interesting. The winner of Rep. Vela’s 34th District open Democratic primary on March 1 was sitting 15th District Congressman Vicente Gonzalez (D-McAllen). He is seeking re-election in the 34th with Rep. Vela’s endorsement instead of in his original district that is trending more Republican. Therefore, if a special election is held prior to the regular election, Rep. Gonzalez would have to resign his 15th CD seat upon winning the subsequent election, thus creating another short-term vacancy.

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Rep. Taylor Withdraws From Race

Former Texas Collin County Judge (Executive) Keith Self is now the new 3rd District Republican nominee after north Texas area Congressman Van Taylor (R-Plano) decided to withdraw from the runoff election resulting from Tuesday’s primary.

By Jim Ellis

March 4, 2022 — It was on a somewhat surprising note that north Texas area Congressman Van Taylor (R-Plano) was forced into a runoff from Tuesday’s primary election, but Wednesday’s related events proved astonishing.

Rep. Taylor has announced that he is withdrawing from the runoff, making public an extra-marital affair in which he engaged. Apparently, affair rumors began to surface late in the primary contest. Clearly knowing the story would become public, he admitted the indiscretion and immediately departed the race.

Under Texas election procedure, a candidate qualifying for a runoff election can decline to participate. The concession means the opponent automatically wins the party nomination. Thus, former Collin County Judge (Executive) Keith Self is the new 3rd District Republican nominee with an accompanying ticket to Washington, DC after the Nov. 8 election.

Taylor only secured 48.7 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s primary, meaning that a majority of Republican primary voters chose another candidate. This is never a good sign for any incumbent and the chief reason that most incumbents fail when forced to the secondary election. Adding the personal baggage obviously told Rep. Taylor that his re-election chances were irreparably diminished.

Self is a retired career West Point Academy Army officer who placed second in the primary with 27.1 percent, outlasting third-place finisher Suzanne Harp, a hard-charging businesswoman who proved to be surprisingly strong. The new congressional nominee presided over Collin County, an entity with now more than 1 million people, for three terms and chose to retire in 2018. In the congressional primary, he campaigned to Rep. Taylor’s right.

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Redistricting After-Effects

Click the map above or this link to go to an interactive version: Dave’s Redistricting App

By Jim Ellis

Feb. 24, 2022 — As more states complete their redistricting process and additional data becomes available, we are beginning to catch a glimpse of each party’s path to either keeping or re-claiming the House majority in the coming midterm election.

The FiveThirtyEight statistical organization along with the Dave’s Redistricting App operation are the two data groups that are charting each district as the states complete their decennial task of drawing new congressional district boundaries.

At this point, we have usable projection data from the two organizations in 350 of the nation’s 435 congressional districts, meaning newly completed maps in all but eight states. (FiveThirtyEight has not yet analyzed the new North Carolina map because the court has not yet given final approval, but Dave’s App has calculated based upon the version now before the judicial panel.) As an aside, several of the outstanding states are large, including Florida (28 congressional districts), Ohio (15 CDs: map was complete but rejected before the state Supreme Court), and Pennsylvania (17 CDs).

At this point we can see, after analyzing each of the 350 completed districts, that redistricting in and of itself will return only a narrow advantage to one party or the other. Considering the still incomplete outstanding states, it is unclear which political entity may earn a slight advantage once the entire process is finalized. Currently, newly created maps are complete (or pending court approval) in 42 states, including five of the six at-large domains whose single-state districts are included in the aforementioned aggregate number.

The FiveThirtyEight projections and Dave’s Redistricting App agree on party advantage in 344 of the completed districts even though they used different mathematical formulas and election complexion to arrive at their conclusions. Therefore, the assigned D or R-plus ratings from FiveThirtyEight consistently align with Dave’s numerical projections for Democratic and Republican strength in each of the 344 CDs.

Of the six districts where the two organizations disagree over party advantage, in each of the half-dozen CDs, the FiveThirtyEight data has projected a stronger Republican number. Three of the six lie in the state of Michigan.

The conflicting districts are:

STATE-DIST	MEMBER	FiveThirtyEight	DAVE R	DAVE D
CO-8	NEW SEAT	R+3	46.91%	48.24%
MI-7	SLOTKIN, ELISSA	R+4	47.75%	49.18%
MI-8	KILDEE, DAN	R+1	46.05%	50.84%
MI-10	CREATED SEAT	R+6	47.82%	49.44%
TX-15	CREATED SEAT	EVEN	46.73%	51.02%
VA-2	LURIA, ELAINE	R+6	48.35%	49.58%

(Note: a “New Seat” is one drawn in a state that was awarded an extra seat, or two in the case of Texas, through national reapportionment. A “created seat” is a new open district that came as a result of the redistricting process.)

Totaling the 344 districts where FiveThirtyEight and the Dave’s App are in agreement as to party advantage, the Democrats would gain 12 Republican, new, or created districts; while the GOP would gain 10 Democratic, new, or created seats.

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