The Democrat stronghold in Texas is collapsing, and their own lawmakers are now turning on each other.
After Republicans passed new congressional maps—pushed at the request of President Donald Trump—Democrats now face the reality of fewer safe seats and the possibility of political extinction in key parts of the state.
Representative Lloyd Doggett, one of Austin’s longest-serving Democrats, has already announced he will step aside if the new maps hold.
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His exit would clear a path for Greg Casar, but it also highlights the brutal truth: Democrats don’t have enough blue districts to go around anymore.
The biggest shakeup is in Houston.
Representative Al Green, who has represented the 9th District since 2005, saw his district effectively redrawn.
Only 5% of his old base remains. Most of it was folded into the new District 18, once held by Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvester Turner.
With a special election scheduled, Green is expected to jump into that race—but he’ll be battling other Democrats in what is now a three-seat squeeze.
Houston went from having four Democrat seats to three, guaranteeing that at least one Democrat seat is now vacant.
Dallas-Fort Worth Democrats face the same disaster.
Marc Veasey of Fort Worth has been pushed into Dallas, where Julie Johnson already sits.
Her district, however, is now heavily Republican, meaning she must either take on Veasey or run a suicide campaign.
Meanwhile, Jasmine Crockett survives unscathed in her district, and Republicans like Beth Van Duyne stand ready to pick up the pieces.
Democrats have responded with lawsuits.
The NAACP, LULAC, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law claim the maps discriminate against minorities.
But this playbook is nothing new. Back in the 1990s, Democrats used redistricting to carve out majority-Black and majority-Hispanic districts for political gain.
Those maps were so blatantly race-based that the Supreme Court struck them down in Bush v. Vera (1996). The irony is simple: Democrats created the very system they now denounce.
Republicans argue the new maps are about fairness, not race.
Senator Joan Huffman, who chaired the redistricting committee, testified under oath that race was not a factor.
Instead, the changes corrected distortions caused by the Biden administration’s decision to allow illegal immigrants to be counted in the census.
That gave Democrat-heavy districts inflated representation, undermining the principle of one person, one vote.
By erasing Green’s district and reshaping others, Republicans shifted power back to legal voters.
The outcome is devastating for Democrats: fewer safe seats, infighting among incumbents, and a map that forces them to compete in places where they’ve coasted for decades.
In short: Democrats aren’t victims of racism—they’re victims of reality.
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