The elections in Texas on Tuesday will be the first held using a new congressional map drawn last summer by state Republicans, who took the unusual step of altering their districts in the middle of a decade at the behest of President Trump.
The move, made with the explicit goal of helping Republicans in the midterm elections, was a watershed moment in national politics during the early stages of the second Trump administration. It set off a nationwide redistricting arms race that soon ensnared nearly a dozen states. The result so far has been roughly a draw, with Republicans potentially picking up a few more seats.
But the political landscape in Texas, which is holding a series of hard-fought Senate and House primary races, has changed in a big way.
Roughly one in three voters across the state live in a House district that is very different from the one they lived in before last year’s redistricting. And several longtime Democratic incumbents, whose districts were redrawn to benefit Republicans, are headed out of Congress or face tough primary battles.
Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Austin who has represented Texas in Congress for more than 30 years, saw his district drastically change and chose to retire rather than run against Representative Greg Casar, another Austin Democrat, in a primary race. Representative Marc Veasey, a Democrat from the Fort Worth area, announced he would not run for re-election after he was drawn out of his seat.
Colin Allred, a Democratic former congressman, is now challenging Representative Julie Johnson, a Dallas-area member of Congress whom Mr. Allred endorsed in 2024. He initially ran for Senate this year, but after redistricting scrambled the state’s politics and Representative Jasmine Crockett jumped into the Democratic primary for Senate, he moved to challenge Ms. Johnson instead.
And Representative Al Green, a Democratic 20-year veteran of Congress from Houston, also had his district dismantled. But rather than retire, Mr. Green chose to run in a new district, where he is confronting a difficult Democratic primary against the recently elected Representative Christian Menefee.
For Republicans, the new map has given conservative state senators new opportunities to run for Congress, and created headaches for some incumbents. Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican who is no moderate but who criticized Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is facing a challenge from his right in a district that became more conservative on the new map.
Beyond Tuesday’s primaries, redistricting has created new uncertainties for the November general election.
While Texas Republicans set out to draw five safely red seats, the apparent leftward shift of the political environment has made that endgame less certain. Hispanic voters have shown signs of souring on Mr. Trump in elections in recent months, and widespread concerns about the cost of living persist.
Some Democrats believe they could hold on to as many as three of the redrawn seats in Texas, two in the Rio Grande Valley and possibly a third in the San Antonio area.
The party is also hoping to flip a Republican seat in the Valley, whose districts were not heavily affected by the new map, with a popular Tejano music star running as a moderate Democrat.
“The assumption that Latino voters who voted for Trump in 2024 would continue to vote Republican is potentially a bad assumption,” Michelle Lowe Solis, the chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party, which includes San Antonio, told The New York Times last year. “We have a good shot at this.”
The push to redraw Texas’ congressional map began last June, when Mr. Trump’s political team pressured the state to examine how district lines could be redrawn to try to save the party’s endangered majority in 2026. That summer, Republicans in the Texas Legislature convened for a special session last summer and created five new Republican-leaning districts. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the maps into law in August.
“Texas is now more red in the United States Congress,” he said, holding up the paper with his signature on it and calling it “the One Big Beautiful Map” in homage to the president.
J. David Goodman, Jeff Adelson and Irineo Cabreros contributed reporting.
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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