Donald Trump speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore

Texas legislators will convene on Monday for a special session to tackle a number of priorities set by Gov. Greg Abbott — key among those: redrawing the state’s Congressional map.

In remarks championing the controversial move, President Donald Trump, whose popularity has been underwater since the start of his second term, indicated Texas is the key to minimizing a potential blue wave in the 2026 midterms.

The mid-decade redistricting — which wasn’t originally included as a priority in the special session — was ordered up by Abbott at Trump’s behest. The president hopes it will yield a GOP advantage of five seats as the 2026 midterms loom.

Republicans lost a total of 40 seats in the 2018 midterm elections. Much like an anti-Trump backlash created a blue wave — even in Texas — during that year’s midterms, Republicans are bracing for devastating losses. Unless, of course, they can game the system.

Texas holds the key.

“There could be some other states we’re going to get another three, or four or five in addition. Texas would be the biggest one,” Trump told a pool of press reporters outside the White House Tuesday. One of the “other states” he’s referring to is likely Ohio, which is due to redraw its map, though the rest are unclear.

“It would be a simple redrawing, we pick up five seats,” Trump added about his plan for the Lonestar State.

However, some political analysts argue the move could backfire and turn into a “dummymander,” which actually puts GOP seats in jeopardy, according to the American Prospect. Even some Republicans are skeptical of the move, which would put more Republicans in Democratic districts, potentially weakening Republican strongholds.

“I think it’s a bad idea myself, personally,” state Rep. Drew Darby, a San Angelo Republican and former chair of the House Redistricting Committee, told the Texas Tribune.

Darby, who participated in the last redistricting process, asserted Texas should wait until it is due to redraw its districts in 2030. “We did it according to the law, and I think we need to live with it and the effects until we have the next census,” he added.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, whose district includes San Antonio and Austin, also expressed doubts about using five-year-old Census data for a state that’s transformed dramatically in the past few years. Hispanic residents now represent the largest share of the Texas population — a new development not accounted for in the 2020 data.

“We have a whole lot of people [that have] come into the state since then,” Roy said. “We’re going to do this all based on 2020 census data?”

However, other Texas Republicans, including U.S. Senator John Cornyn, have vocalized support for the move, claiming that the GOP’s increased support among Latino voters will benefit the party in the redistricting process.

Abbott added redistricting to the special session under the guise of responding to “constitutional concerns,” supposedly referring to a 2021 Justice Department lawsuit arguing Texas congressional maps deliberately dilute nonwhite votes.

However, the Trump administration dropped that case in March. What’s more, Democratic members of Texas’ congressional delegation such as U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett maintain the move is intended to dilute the power of those voters even further.

“We only have four seats that are represented by Black folk, where the vast majority of the people [who] get to decide who they have represent them are Black. They decided to attack three of the four seats that we have in the state,” Crockett said in a Tuesday press conference, reported on by Yahoo News.

“They [also] decided to go after a Latina, [Rep. Sylvia Garcia],” Crockett added. “They are specifically deciding to splinter the communities of common interest, as well as just blatantly say we are going to dilute minority voices.”

Racial gerrymandering was made illegal by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, partisan redistricting remains legal, and the line between the two is easily blurred.

Democrats currently control 12 of the 38 Congressional districts in Texas. Meanwhile, Republicans hold an advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives by a margin of 220 to 212, in addition to controlling the White House and Senate. Typically, the party that doesn’t control the White House sees gains during the midterms as a referendum on the party in power.

“They are playing a little bit of roulette with these maps,” Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, told Politico. “In a wave election like what we have a potential opportunity for in ‘26, I think it makes these Republicans very vulnerable.”

The roulette has included not only gaining seats but leaving strategic Democratic seats vacant.

Houston’s 13th Congressional District, formerly occupied by Sylvester Turner, has remained vacant since his death due to Abbott’s likely strategic delay in calling for an election to fill the seat.

Abbott finally called for an election to be held in November to replace Turner, meaning Democrats spent most of 2025 down one House seat for votes that often came down to razor-thin margins, including the Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

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This article appears in Jul 10-23, 2025.

Stephanie Koithan is the Digital Content Editor of the San Antonio Current. In her role, she writes about politics, music, art, culture and food. Send her a tip at skoithan@sacurrent.com.