Sadiq S BhatWashington, DC, — The Texas House chamber is quiet again, but not by design. There are chairs, microphones, polished wood desks — but no quorum. Fifty-two Democratic lawmakers are gone, fanned out across blue-state sanctuaries, from Illinois to New York to Massachusetts.
The reason: a map.
Unveiled last week by Texas Republicans with the open backing of US President Donald Trump, the new congressional redistricting proposal would do what most maps don't admit: swing elections before a single vote is cast.
If enacted, the new lines could wipe out five Democratic seats in the US House and hand Republicans a firewall heading into the 2026 midterms.
President Trump was blunt on Tuesday morning. "We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas," Trump said. "I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats."
Professor David Levine at UC Law San Francisco told TRT World, "In no sense is the Republican Party 'entitled' to five more seats in the House of Representatives from Texas."
The Texas House reconvened on Tuesday to move the bill forward, but quickly adjourned till Friday after failing to reach the number needed to vote. The Democrats' escape has worked — for now.
Red lines, Blue stakes
Trump's remarks didn’t stop at Texas. He argued gerrymandering was overdue payback.
"In Illinois, what's happened is terrible what they're doing. And you notice, they go to Illinois for safety, but that’s all gerrymandered. California is gerrymandered. We should have many more seats in Congress in California. It’s all gerrymandered."
Josh Busby, Professor at the University of Texas-Austin, has a different take when it comes to the Lone Star State.
He told TRT World, "Texas Democrats have received 40% of the votes, but the state is already gerrymandered, so Democrats have 34% of seats in the US House of Representatives. If this effort succeeds, Republicans would control 30 out of 38 seats or 79% of the seats with likely only 40% or less of the vote share."
Democrats see this moment not just as a political fight, but an existential one. In recent cycles, the party has often resisted gerrymandering, appealing to courts and commissions to draw neutral maps. That posture is dead now.
"I won't sit by while Donald Trump and Texas Republicans try to steal our nation’s future," said New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin is in Chicago today to stand beside the Texas lawmakers. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker joined them.
Pritzker, a potential contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, lashed out at Texas GOP redistricting push: "They're afraid, and they should be," he said.
The message appears clear: Democrats are taking this head-on.
"Fight fire with fire"
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has dropped the velvet gloves entirely.
"Texas triggered this response. Whatever they are doing will be neutered here in the state of California. And they will pay that price." His warning isn't empty. California Democrats are deep in talks to redraw their own maps, and as many as five Republican-held seats are being targeted.
Newsom also issued a wider call to arms: "Fight fire with fire."
Levine added, "The long-standing custom is that redistricting occurs when required, meaning only after the census, which the Constitution says must be performed every ten years."
"The Texas Republicans are taking full advantage of the green light from the Supreme Court to try to redistrict politically now. This is all possible because the Supreme Court has held that gerrymandering motivated by politics is legal even if gerrymandering motivated by race is not acceptable. Litigation occurs because sometimes you can’t tell the difference," he noted.
On the ground in Texas, the redrawing operation is surgical and bold. According to the Texas Legislative Council, the map would increase the number of districts Trump would have won in 2024 from 27 to 30.
Five more districts would have seen Trump win by over 10 percentage points.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has defended the plan, casting it not as a power grab but a correction.
"We want to make sure that we have maps that don’t impose coalition districts while at the same time ensuring that we will maximise the ability of Texans to be able to vote for the candidate of their choice."
Outside the most populous state in the South-Central region of the US, the politics are blunter.
DNC, long cautious about wading into gerrymandering battles, is now preparing to back similar tactics in blue states.
Bulletproof Texas map
The calculation is simple: if Republicans win five new seats in Texas, they could erase the Democrats’ House majority or cement their own just in time for Trump's final two years in office.
Levine offers a pointed caveat. "All of this may well strongly affect people’s perception of the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2026 elections. This is likely to be especially true if the Republicans end up controlling the House of Representatives because of the new seats, and if no change were made, the Democrats would have taken over the House."
The GOP's majority is already razor-thin. The Texas map could make it bulletproof.
The legal picture remains messy. The Speaker of the Texas House said this week that he had signed civil arrest warrants for the fleeing Democrats. But outside Texas, the warrants are effectively null and void.
For now, the Democrats remain in exile.
"We are entitled to five more seats," Trump repeated on air.
And Democrats, for the first time in years, are answering that declaration not with lawsuits or letters, but with sharp words and maps of their own.
"It will lead to almost every state being gerrymandered based on which party controls the state right now," Busby concluded.
