(Austin) The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, promulgated on Friday a new electoral card of the congress intended to help the Republicans to win more seats during the mid-term elections of 2026, thus offering a victory to President Donald Trump and his desire to keep a small republican majority in the House of Representatives.
The Texas map, drawn up during a rare electoral redistribution in the middle of the decade, aroused strong protests from the Democrats and sparked an show between voters from all over the country.
“Texas is now more republican at the American Congress,” said Abbott in a video published on X where it signs the law.
Before Texan legislators adopted their new card, California has adopted a bill asking voters to approve new democratic constituencies in order to counter any republican progression in Texas.
California’s governor Gavin Newsom, who has become one of Donald Trump’s main opponents on electoral redistribution and other subjects, ironically qualified Mr. Abbott as the president’s “pocket dog” after signing the bill.
Photo Fred Greaves, Reuters archives
The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom
The outgoing President’s party generally loses seats at the congress during the mid-term elections. At the national level, the partisan composition of the existing constituencies places the Democrats with three seats of the majority.
Defense groups of the right to vote brought legal action this week before the signing of the bill by Mr. Abbott, claiming that the new electoral division weakens the electoral influence of black voters.
The Democrats of Texas also promised to challenge the new division before the courts. They delayed the two -week vote by leaving Texas on August 3 in protest and to reach national support. Upon their return, they were placed under police surveillance 24 hours a day to ensure that they present themselves to the debates.
But the large republican majority in the Texas Legislative Assembly made its final adoption almost inevitable.
The chief of the Democratic Party of Texas criticized Mr. Abbott, saying that he and the Republicans “have de facto gave Texas to Washington” with the new card.
“They love to boast of being” hard texts “, but as soon as Donald Trump has made a decision, they have folded in four to favor his policy in the Texans, said Kendall Scudder, president of the State Democratic Party, in a statement. Honestly, it’s pathetic. »»
The redistribution of the Texas card has already reshaped the race for the 2026 elections: the Democratic representative Lloyd Doggett, dean of the delegation of the State Congress, announced that it would not represent itself in its Austin headquarters if the new card came into force. According to the proposed map, the district of Mr. Doggett rides that of another outgoing Democratic deputy, the representative Greg Casar.
Donald Trump prompted other states controlled by Republicans to redesign their card. The Republican leaders of the Indiana Legislative Assembly met the president in private in the oval office this week to discuss redistribution. The president also encourages the Missouri Republicans to redraw the electoral map of the House of Representatives, while the Ohio Democrats are preparing for the Republicans to try to increase their majority at the Congress when the legislature undertakes electoral redistribution later this year.
Donald Trump’s desire to redraw the constituencies of the House of Representatives to the advantage of his party has aroused a reaction from other Democratic States, in addition to California.
New York Democrats presented a law authorizing an electoral redistribution in the middle of the decade, but the new electoral cards would only be in force in this state before the 2028 elections.
The Supreme Court having approved the purely partisan electoral redistribution, the only way for opponents to obstruct the new electoral card of Texas would be to plead before the courts that it violates the obligation of the law on the right to vote to preserve the unity of the minority communities so that they can choose their representatives.
Republican leaders have denied that the card is discriminatory on the racial level and claim that it creates more mainly minority seats than the previous one. They also explicitly expressed their desire to redraw a new electoral card in order to have more Republicans elected.
