Transcription
Welcome back to today's video. Today is Saturday, August 23rd, 2025. And today we are going to be talking about the Texas congressional map that is about to be signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in this state, expecting that Republicans are set to gain an additional few seats in the 2026 midterm elections.
Now, with this map that is set to be implemented, the Cook Political Report has released their first set of rankings and odds and statistics in these new seats, ultimately moving a number of traditionally safe Democratic seats well in favor of the Republican party. The Cook Political Report announced today that they were moving five of the districts, all in a direction that benefits Donald Trump and the Republican party in the 2026 midterm elections. Some of the most notable shifts come in Texas's 9th district, the 32nd district, and the 35th district. All races that were previously seen as safe for the Democratic party, all moving over to either likely or solid for the GOP. But two stick out to me. Texas 28 and Texas 34, where the characterization hasn't gotten all too bad for the Democratic party. Texas 28th, which is currently a district represented by a Democrat, has gone from lean Democrat to toss-up. Texas 34 has gone from toss-up to lean Republican.
Now, Republicans, if I'm tracking correctly, were supposed to draw these maps in a way that made it near impossible for Democrats to have any chance at winning at these five additional seats. Donald Trump himself asked for an additional five seats, largely because the House majority right now has been largely built on a four to five seat House majority across the congressional maps here. Democrats right now have 215 seats, Republicans at 220. And what this new map has essentially done has shifted the numbers in favor of the Republican party ever so slightly. Texas, after all, is the second most populous state in the union and makes a big difference on the overall congressional balance of power. If Democrats had lost these five seats in the 2024 election, which given the national circumstances, certainly wouldn't be out of question, Donald Trump and the Republicans would have had 225 seats to the Democratic party's 210, a much more daunting advantage for the GOP of 15 in totality rather than the mere five that they hold today.
But the map here, like I said, doesn't exactly pan out in the way Republicans might have hoped. Those two districts in specific have been often difficult for the Republican party in recent memory. But the idea here was that in drawing a new map, they wouldn't have to worry about it whatsoever in the '26 midterms. And that's because the 34th district, currently represented by Gonzalez, and the 28th district, represented by Cuellar, stand to be districts that Donald Trump won in the last election, but now Democrats are in a position where they are able to potentially win them in 2026. And that's because the national ratings of these states really don't make them all too bad for the Democratic party. What we've found in terms of congressional redistricting in Texas is that yes, some of these districts here that are proposed here are Trump plus 10, Trump plus 11, but it doesn't mean that Democrats can't win them. Democrats have won elections far greater in favor of Donald Trump in previous cycles, only two years later for them to go to the Democratic party.
When you take a look at some of these districts here that have been intentionally targeted by the Texas Republican party and Donald Trump and Greg Abbott, you'll find that drawing out, yes, some of these safer districts is the exact way they hope to really draw out Democrats. But at most here, they're drawing out a pretty solid three seats, giving Democrats the opportunity to win in the 34th district or the 28th district, two districts Democrats were already going to be targeting heavily in the 2026 midterms. It really doesn't shake up anything else. The thing about this gerrymander here is that it does benefit the Republican party on the overall net here. But now it begs the question, with a California response, with a state that might end up sending 40, 47, 48 Democrats to the House of Representatives instead of just 43, is this Texas map really going as deep as it otherwise could?
Now, this is not a recommendation for me to say that the Texas Republicans should redraw the map here. But arguably, I think this might be an oversight that just simply all the Republicans felt that they were, you know, a bit aligned, that the trends that they liked were going to continue, the trends they disliked were going to stop. But I don't know if that's the case in these Texas districts. The Republicans saw, rightfully so, in the last presidential election, Texas saw massive shifts, especially in their respective districts that were changed in the southern part of Texas, the 28th and the 34th, that were overwhelming in favor of the Republican party. Districts that went 15, 20, you know, 10 points more Republican than in the previous cycle. And the argument here for the GOP would be that these trend lines were only going to continue.
But what we've learned in states like Texas and across the country in predominantly Hispanic and Latino communities that Donald Trump is not as popular as he was going into the 2024 cycle, and in some of these congressional districts, doesn't stand to be as electable as he was in November of 2024. And that's sort of what the Cook Political Report is getting at in these race ratings. While Republicans are undoubtedly the favorites in the 9th district, the 32nd district, and the 35th district, in the 34th and 28th, it's a bit trickier. In the 2018 House elections, Democrats won a number of seats that were considered to be Republican favorite or slightly in favor of the Republican party. And when you take a look at the districts here, some of them that were considered to be safe Republican districts, like California's 21st or Oklahoma's fifth, ultimately ended up going in favor of the Democratic Party in a way that many people didn't expect. And that really is what the story will be told out of Texas. Yes, the maps here might be drawn in a way that give Republicans some swing districts that Democrats lost in the last cycle by 11 points, but what's to say the next election Democrats don't win them?
In 2018, I think what we learned with Donald Trump being in office is that districts sometimes that had voted for Donald Trump by 20, 21, 22 points had gone towards the Democratic party. Some of these districts that were overwhelming in favor of the GOP in the 2016 election, such as some of these districts in Virginia, as a great example, shifted tremendously towards the Democrats. A comparison of election to election, you'll find that between 2016 to 2018, some of these districts swung by 17 points. Abigail Spanberger took a district with the Republican incumbent and won it by a massive, massive amount. But it wasn't just contained to Virginia. The entire nation saw a massive, massive leftward shift. And in the state of Texas, no secret that it happened there, too. Democrats shifted in a number of these districts towards the left. And it's something that Republicans don't think will happen in 2026. And when you draw maps like this, it's very possible that it does. Democrats again will lose seats, but not to the degree that Donald Trump was hoping for, and not to the degree that was promised to the GOP.
What it would rely on is lacking Democratic incumbents who both seem like they are intentionally going to run for reelection in the 2026 cycle. And even without them, these districts aren't solid for the GOP. A Trump plus-1 district doesn't stand to be a district that is entirely and completely unwinnable by an incumbent political party, right? So that's really where we draw the line here that maybe Donald Trump does serve to be in a more advantageous position. But Donald Trump is not the person on the ballot. And if the national environment is anything like it was in 2018, when Democrats won the national popular vote by about 8.4%, given that Donald Trump won the last election's popular vote by 1.5%, that's nearly a 10-point swing. A 10-point swing on a Trump plus-10 district is a narrow Democratic victory. And so I think there was a bit of oversight here, if I'm being completely honest, from the Texas Republicans who just simply didn't know how to draw this map in a way that would secure and lock up some of their districts in ways that otherwise could. Right? I think they are relying on a lot of the trend lines again that they learned and saw from the '24 election, that what we know is that elections can move back and forth.
When you look at an example of the 2020 election, if Democrats were to ride and expect all of their results to be the exact same based off the 2016 to 2020 shift, they would not have expected to lose in 2024, and nobody would have seen that coming. But that's not the state of American elections. Elections are very, you know, crazy. They swing back and forth in favor of different political parties. Areas like Georgia that were historically very conservative. McCain won by nine. Romney won by nine. This state had been overwhelming in favor of the GOP in previous elections, but in 2016 saw a narrowing. But Republicans didn't focus on it because again, they believe this idea that the trends they don't like won't continue. The trends they do like will continue. And so they thought, okay, if Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania went to Trump, there's no way Democrats win Georgia in the next cycle. But then Democrats did win Georgia. And I think thinking just generally speaking about the way that these, you know, the Texas Republicans have really engaged with this election, they have been believing that this new draw is a slam dunk, but it might not be exactly what they're hoping for.
Now, the California map too, again, the one that we've seen, does provide Democrats the opportunity at five pickups, but does it give them exactly an immediate five? The answer is also no. Given the national circumstances of 2026, I'd argue that you're closer there than you are away from it. But it's not so easy to see an immediate five pickup in, you know, a set of circumstances where maybe it's a 2022 cycle where Democrats and Republicans are performing about even and Republicans just have the slight upper hand. In 2026, however, I'm more confident that Democrats will gain seats out of Texas, sorry, out of California in a way that Republicans might not out of Texas. And while they will gain an immediate three seats with the opportunity of four or maybe five in the right type of circumstances, let's say Henry Cuellar is not the candidate in 2026, which is a possibility, then maybe we move the district over a little bit more, but for now stands to be a district, an interesting one at that, that Democrats have had unique luck in. And yet again with these new maps, despite Republicans saying they're going to go for the jugular, well, somehow something has slipped through the cracks.
In no reality were Republicans hoping any of these districts to be a toss-up or lean Republican. They were meant to be safe because they had drawn a congressional map that was arguably safe across the board with one limited exception of a Texas 15th district that was won by 14.2% instead of 15.2%. Otherwise, all the remainder of their districts were considered to be safe, and that's overwhelming. The Republicans had a very strong gerrymander, and this one will be even stronger if it withholds the test of time. It withstands the test of time through the remainder of the decade because Republicans know that this map here was meant and continues to be temporary. It's ever-changing in a way that was meant to adapt to the trend lines of the 2024 election. But again, no guarantee that that is going to happen because I remember the 2018 races where we saw some shockers in races that were never even meant to be discussed or competitive in the first place. Oklahoma's fifth district, where Democrat Kendra Horn defeated Steve Russell, the race ratings likely or safe Republican. Very similar to those race ratings in the Texas 35th district. You can only imagine some of those districts that Cook rates as toss-up or lean Republican.
Now, no guarantee it happens, but certainly something to think about. Some of these districts that again were never even on the radar for anybody within the state have all of a sudden safe Republican down to a five-point margin in the state of Texas. Donald Trump and Republicans had won this district previously. You can take a look at some of these margins here. But the point is, by 19 points, two years later by four points, right? A 3-point margin, what was a 22-point margin, a 21-point margin, what turned into a 2.6% margin. The races here did not get closer because Republicans, you know, actually it kind of did because they did collapse in these states, but largely because Republicans had drawn this gerrymander in 2012, assuming that the trend lines of 2012 were the ones that would maintain themselves. And six years later, they fell apart. This new map that is drawn is contingent on 2024 holding strong. And if Democrats do come ahead and end up winning a lot of these demographics that were key and integral to Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 election, Democrats might be in a better position, especially in states like Texas.
Because, God forbid for the GOP, they go through all this, California redraws their map, and they end up in the negative because a state like Texas might not perform in the way that Republicans are hoping because elections drastically change overnight. And if I was drawing these maps, and again, that's a huge hypothetical, I would never be drawing the maps, but I'm very surprised they would leave a 28th district and a 34th district so competitive and so close in a day and age where they were promising they would go for everything. Democrats might be quietly happy about this being the circumstances because what it means is that two of these districts are in reach, whereas in a state like California in a 2026 election year, Republicans might have no hope. Which means it would not only counteract the Texas gains for the GOP, but potentially outpace them, outperform them, and ultimately benefit the Democratic party in a redistricting battle that Fox News incorrectly notes was started by the Democrats, but instead was actually started by the GOP that might end up backfiring in the 2026 midterm elections.
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