In a huge blow to President Donald Trump and the Republicans, both in Texas and nationally, to keep control of Congress, a three-judge panel in El Paso blocked the new congressional map passed by the legislature this past summer.
The Republicans, at the urging of Trump, had rewritten the congressional map in a gerrymandering effort to favor the Republicans in 30 of 38 congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Trump made it known that he was looking for five additional seats in Texas to ensure his party remained in control in Congress during his final two years in office. The state legislature gave him the win in August.
But the Democrats and several advocacy groups in the state pushed back, and they took the fight to federal court, showing proof that the new congressional map takes unfair aim at Black and Hispanic voters to dilute their voting power, which violates the federal Voting Rights Act. The three-judge panel, which included Trump appointee U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, agreed with the Democrats and ruled that the map should revert to the lines drawn in 2021.
The congressional districts that would have been affected in Houston are Democratic stronghold District 18 and also District 29. Other districts affected before the ruling were in Dallas and San Antonio
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” Brown wrote in the ruling that strikes down the new lines. “To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton – both Republicans- pushed back on the ruling and immediately filed an appeal of the ruling. But candidates only have until Dec. 8 to file for the upcoming election, so time may not be on the side of the Republicans.
“Any claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony offered during ten days of hearings,” Abbott said in a statement on Tuesday. “This ruling is clearly erroneous and undermines the authority the U.S. Constitution assigns to the Texas Legislature by imposing a different map by judicial edict. The State of Texas will swiftly appeal to the United States Supreme Court.”
“I fully expect the Court to uphold Texas’s sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “The Big Beautiful Map was entirely legal.”
In the meantime, Democrats are claiming a huge victory. Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards, who are headed for a January 31, 2026 runoff for the District 18 seat that was vacated earlier this year when Congressman Sylvester Turner died.
“A federal court just stopped one of the most brazen attempts to steal our democracy that Texas has ever seen,” Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu, D-Houston, said in a statement. “Greg Abbott and his Republican cronies tried to silence Texans’ voices to placate Donald Trump, but now have delivered him absolutely nothing.”
The redistricting battle here in Texas gained national attention when Democratic leaders fled the state to delay the vote in the Republican-dominated legislature. The Republicans then threatened to have them arrested. The Democratic legislature eventually returned for the symbolic vote that allowed the redistricting to proceed.
But their efforts didn’t go unnoticed. California Gov. Gavin Newsom then did his own version of gerrymandering to offset the five congressional seats the Republicans would have gained in Texas under the redrawn maps.
