By Mary Ellen Klas / Bloomberg Opinion
President Donald Trump is attempting a massive power grab in Texas and most Americans aren’t aware of it. That’s a very bad sign.
If, by the end of August, most Americans don’t know that the president is trying to use Texas to manipulate the results of the 2026 midterm elections by changing three to five congressional seats in his favor, it’s a loud signal that the decline of democracy isn’t capturing public attention; and that Democrats are failing, again.
This week, the Texas Legislature convened a 30-day special session to take up a host of issues; including Trump’s exhortation to redraw the state’s congressional districts to help the GOP retain its narrow majority in Congress next year.
It’s a risky gambit. Texas is one of the few states where Republicans can put their thumb on the scale to try to pick up more red seats. To do it, they’ll have to spread reliably Democratic voters across safe red districts. With Trump’s approval rating underwater, Texas’ Republican congressional delegation could lose more seats to Democrats in 2026 than they would have before the changes. Trump is gambling that won’t happen. He won Texas by 14 percentage points in 2024 and now thinks he can tell Republicans there what to do.
But the impact may not be confined to Texas. Three of the districts the GOP wants to tinker with are represented by Black and Latino lawmakers in Houston and Dallas: Al Green, Sylvia Garcia and Marc Veasey. The White House is preparing a map that reportedly splits these coalitions. That would likely spark a legal challenge. If sustained by the courts, the changes would dilute the voting strength of minority districts and mark the death knell of the 40-year-old Voting Rights Act, endangering the protections for communities of color across America.
Aside from rolling the dice with a lawsuit, Texas Democrats have few good options. They’re in the minority in both chambers of the state Legislature. They could try to block Republican attempts to redraw the districts by running out the clock or by fleeing the state to deny the Legislature a quorum for a final vote on any new maps. Or they could accept the results, raise funds and recruit candidates to win in districts drawn to disenfranchise Democrats; a surprisingly plausible option when you consider that midterm elections historically disfavor the party in power and Trump and his policies are remarkably unpopular with most voters.
“We have a multi-step plan,’’ said U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a freshman Democrat whose district stretches from Austin to San Antonio, at a press conference before the session convened on Monday. “We will need to buy time, and that means keeping everything on the table, doing whatever it takes: filibusters, dragging out hearings, quorum breaks, the kinds of tactics that will make sure that we have the time to highlight these issues in front of everyday Americans.”
Democrats “are leaving all options open,” added House Democratic Leader Gene Wu of Austin. “We will take whatever measures are necessary to protect our communities and to protect the state.’’
Texas Republicans are understandably nervous about Trump’s attempt to use them to stave off a mid-term electoral defeat. For months, Gov. Greg Abbott was silent about whether he would capitulate to Trump and add a mid-decade redistricting to the special session agenda. Then, without any prodding, the Department of Justice issued a letter July 7 announcing that four of the state’s Democrat-held congressional districts were unconstitutional and needed to be redrawn. No one seems to have asked for a DOJ review; but the agency’s move gives Abbott political cover, as well as a strong nudge.
In many ways, the pressure Abbott and his fellow Republicans face due to Trump’s extraordinary demand is self-inflicted. Decades of gerrymandering created cushy districts for Texas Republicans. Those margins also spelled opportunity for Trump. Candidates now rarely face a competitive general election, so their only race is in a party primary. When Republicans disagree with Trump or his policies, he famously threatens to recruit primary challengers. Republicans forced to choose between the president or their voters almost always abandon their voters. But if Texas had more competitive districts in the first place, Trump wouldn’t hold this leverage.
Most importantly, the 2026 midterms are likely America’s last chance to defeat Trump’s march towards authoritarian rule. Trump’s first six months in office have been a madcap dash to consolidate executive power and steamroll over political norms and the rule of law. Members of Congress, afraid of being “primaried” by Trump, let him do it, even as it diminishes their own influence. It’s clear by now that only a Congress — or at least a House — controlled by Democrats will provide any check or balance on the executive branch.
If there’s any good news, it’s that national Democrats are finally signaling they’re ready to go to the mat.
“If we’re coloring in the lines while the Republicans are tearing up the coloring book right in front of us, we’re going to continue to lose power and be less relevant to the Americans that we want to support and help,” Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman and potential Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate told CBS News on Monday.
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is reportedly exploring the possibility of redrawing House maps in the Democrat-controlled states of California, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington in hopes of counter-punching against Trump’s strategy in Texas.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Democrat, has vowed to redraw his state’s congressional districts to benefit Democrats and counter the Texas gambit. But it’s unrealistic to expect that could happen before the midterms. California is one of four Democratic-leaning states that have created commissions to remove partisanship from the once-a-decade redistricting process and voters would have to sign off on any change.
I have covered state legislative redistricting for four election cycles and watched how the practice of gerrymandering — allowing politicians to pick their voters, not the other way around — has become one of the most destructive political forces in America. Both parties do it, but for the past three decades, Republicans in Texas and throughout the country have been disproportionately aggressive, according to Jacob Grumbach, an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Using voter suppression laws and gerrymandered maps to rig the mechanics of elections, the GOP has built safe Republican districts with disturbing results for the health of democracy.
Democrats have met the challenge in many states by enacting non-partisan redistricting commissions or “fair district” standards that attempt to reduce the partisan bias that distorts true representative democracy. These were noble efforts, but they now look like the equivalent of unilateral disarmament.
In the face of Trump’s attempts to consolidate power and undermine democratic rule, I understand why Democrats say it’s time to take off the gloves.
If Texas follows through with its plan to kowtow to Trump, Democrats must make sure voters see it as a showdown over democracy. As they learned in 2020 and 2024, they can’t break through with an abstract message about “saving democracy.” But maybe they can with a message focused on how Republicans are skewing elections so they can win even when a majority of voters want someone else. Texas Democrats should not only leave town, but light up the internet with non-violent spectacles of political theater. As the late Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis used to say, “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble; and redeem the soul of America.”
Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades.
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