Everything’s bigger in the Lone Star State. Apparently, that also includes the gerrymandering.
A New York Times analysis published Monday ranks Texas as the nation’s most aggressively gerrymandered state, concluding that Republicans gained an advantage equivalent to six congressional seats by redrawing the state’s political boundaries.
The Times’ piece describes Texas’ 2025 congressional redistricting as the nation’s “worst” gerrymander, pointing out that the GOP’s efforts weren’t just about protecting incumbents. They were about tilting the balance of power in Washington — at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Texas kicked off a nationwide redistricting arms race last year when the Texas Lege, encouraged by Trump and steadfast ally Gov. Greg Abbott, redrew the state’s congressional boundaries in a bid to boost the party’s U.S. House majority.
The resulting map resembles some Frankenstein’s monster version of the state, stitched together in all sorts of terrifying and unnatural ways.
On the north side of Austin, for example, motorists can drive through five separate congressional districts in 10 minutes, the Times reports. Meanwhile, some Dallas-area suburban voters have been lumped into districts stretching hundreds of miles, including one spanning the distance to the New Mexico border.
The Gray Lady’s analysis goes beyond pointing out Texas’ oddly shaped districts, though. Using computer simulations, Times staffers compared existing congressional boundaries with alternatives drawn without regard to which political party would benefit.
The result? Texas could have about a dozen more competitive or Democratic-leaning congressional districts if its congressional map were created in a politically neutral manner.
In other words, without the GOP-controlled Lege redrawing the battle map to make it as red as possible, the Lone Star State could be one of the nation’s biggest congressional battlegrounds. Or, to put it more bluntly, maybe Texas has been a purple state for longer than Abbott and his cronies would have us believe.
For those keeping score at home, the Times gave Texas’ redistricting scheme an “aggressiveness score” of 73 out of 99, while estimating that the map gives Republicans a six-seat advantage over a politically neutral alternative map.
But with Trump’s unpopularity on the economy, inflation, immigration and a litany of other issues, it remains to be seen how many of those districts drawn to go red will actually end up in GOP hands this cycle.
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