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Texas Republicans already rigged the voting map. They won 66% of House seats in the last election with just 58% of the vote - netting 3 extra seats. But for Donald Trump, and therefore his Republican cult, that is not enough of an unfair, Democratic advantage. So, with Texas Republicans going into special session with the intent of gerrymandering another FIVE Congressional Districts in Texas, why are some shrewd Democrats quietly cheering on the scheme. Time to log on.
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On July 22, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched a special session to redraw all 38 of the state’s congressional districts, at Trump’s not so subtle urging. His excuse was that a DOJ memo noted possible Voting Rights Act violations in minority-majority districts. For someone who has previously done everything in his power to overturn the Voting Rights Act in Texas, it’s suss that he suddenly would care now. Because he doesn’t. And, as is so often the case, Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud, completely undermining his henchman’s claim.
Of course, the real goal is to steal five more Republican seats in 2026 - likely enough to ensure GOP House control for the rest of the decade, into the next census and redistricting process. Democrats and civil rights groups are preparing lawsuits. The ACLU, MALDEF, and DCCC are all on deck. One Democratic candidate, Isaiah Martin, was arrested for protesting the redistricting process, creating a viral moment of public backlash:
Democrats are right to be fighting this with every legal tool. After all, it is a brazenly anti-democratic ploy by these Republicans. But is it a smart strategy? Not necessarily. It has the potential to backfire on Republicans in catastrophic fashion. It’s so risky, in fact, that the approach has been dubbed a “dummymander [ [link removed] ].”
Here’s why. Texas Republicans have already used gerrymandering schemes to steal three seats from Democrats by concentrating Republicans into the maximum number of safe seats while forcing as many Democrats as possible into a handful of other seats. Most of those Democratic seats are also safe, but it’s worth it to Republicans to isolate most Democratic voters into one-third of districts.
Now Trump is forcing them to throw out that surgically designed balance and effectively start over. He’s right that it’s easy for map riggers to create five more majority Republican districts. But it’s impossible to do that without significantly weakening the stronghold they have in their gerrymandered districts. And because only two of Texas’s 38 Congressional races were decided by fewer than 15 percent in 2024, gerrymandering five more republican districts requires moving massive numbers of their own voters out of safe districts - a gamble riskier than Truth Social Stock.
That means that Republicans, in their haste to prevent Democrats from gaining power in 2026, Republicans will be creating new battlegrounds via 5-12 newly competitive swing districts.
What happens to swing Districts in a wave? And which party is most likely to have a wave year going into the first mid-terms of a perennially unpopular president?
The answers are obvious. But leave it to Trump to ignore the obvious in his hubristic pursuit of power. His minions - Republican officials who were elected to ostensibly serve independent of him - know the truth and are surely terrified of the outcome. Just not as terrified as they are of Trump.
So now, we may just get to watch Republicans FAFO at the ballot box. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight this undemocratic scheme or retaliate by creating more Democratic seats in New York and California to balance our flagrantly skewed map.
But it does mean we can all take a deep breath and maybe even enjoy a laugh as Congressional Republicans follow their pied piper-in-chief right into the minority.
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