The Trump administration is encouraging Republican leaders in Texas to examine how House district lines in the state could be redrawn ahead of next year’s midterm elections to try to save the party’s endangered majority, according to people in Texas and Washington who are familiar with the effort.
The push from Washington has unnerved some Texas Republicans, who worry that reworking the boundaries of Texas House seats to turn Democratic districts red by adding reliably Republican voters from neighboring Republican districts could backfire in an election that is already expected to favor Democrats.
Rather than flip the Democratic districts, new lines could endanger incumbent Republicans.
But a person close to the president, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to talk publicly, nevertheless urged a “ruthless” approach and said Mr. Trump would welcome any chance to pick up seats in the midterms. The president would pay close attention to those in his party who help or hurt that effort, the person warned.
Congressional Republicans from Texas were called to an “emergency” meeting on Monday night in the U.S. Capitol organized by Representative Michael McCaul, a senior member of the state delegation, according to an email sent by his office and viewed by The New York Times. Three people with direct knowledge of the gathering said it would be about redistricting. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
A spokeswoman for Mr. McCaul did not respond to a request for comment, nor did several other Republican members who were invited to the meeting.
Redistricting of states is supposed to come at the beginning of each decade, when new census data requires the reapportionment of House seats to match population shifts within the states. Mid-decade redistricting is rare and almost always contentious.
The maps that were drawn by the Republican Legislature in 2021, after the last census, are still being fought over, in forums including a trial that began last month in a federal court in El Paso.
But talk among Republicans of taking the task on again has been swirling around the Texas Capitol since the Legislature was in session earlier this year. The governor, the lieutenant governor and the attorney general have all discussed the possibility in recent weeks, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
In recent days, that talk has become more serious. It appeared to be driven in part by President Trump’s concern that the Republican Party could lose its slim majority in the House, derailing the second half of his term and empowering Democratic investigations of his administration.
Trying to push through new maps would almost certainly set off a bruising political fight of the sort last seen in 2003, when Representative Tom DeLay, a senior Republican House leader from Texas, forced through a redrawing of the Texas political maps. Democrats in the Texas Legislature fled the state in an attempt to stop them. Ultimately, Republicans prevailed, drawing new maps and securing a majority of the Texas House delegation, which they have held ever since.
But that effort came at a time when the state had been shifting from Democratic to Republican control, and there were many opportunities for map drawers to craft new districts for Republicans to win.
With Republicans now holding a 25-to-12 advantage in the state’s House delegation over Democrats, those opportunities would be more limited. (There is one vacant seat, in a deeply blue district of Houston.)
Still, those pushing for the plan believe that Republicans could potentially pick up as many as four or five House seats in 2026, according to two of the people with knowledge of the discussions.
To do that would involve pushing Republican voters from safe Republican districts into neighboring Democratic districts to make them more competitive. In a wave year for Democrats, that could endanger incumbent Republicans as well as Democrats.
“The only way you make the state more competitive congressionally is you do it at their expense,” State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, a San Antonio Democrat, said of congressional Republicans. “I think the Republicans have already maximized their map, given the demographic changes in the state.”
Just this week, the Texas Democratic Party announced that it would start a vast organizing effort across the state in partnership with a Texas Majority PAC, a group that has received significant funding from the billionaire George Soros. Democrats have already been eyeing a potential opportunity in Texas for a pickup in the Senate if the state’s polarizing attorney general, Ken Paxton, prevails in his primary over Senator John Cornyn.
Any attempt at a mid-decade redistricting would require the Texas Legislature to approve new maps. Since the Legislature is not in session again until 2027, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, would have to call a special session.
“From my understanding, this would be in July,” said Ron Reynolds, a Texas House Democrat from the Houston area, saying his information had come indirectly from a Republican member of the Texas House. “This is something that they’re keeping very tight-lipped.”
Mr. Abbott, Mr. Paxton and the state’s lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did a spokesman for the White House.
The lawsuit over the current maps, drawn in 2021, is being fought before a panel of U.S. District Court judges in El Paso. Organizations representing Black and Hispanic voters argue that the maps illegally disadvantage their communities.
The Justice Department under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had sued over the 2021 maps, but the Trump administration dropped the government’s challenge earlier this year.
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
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