Greg Casar Rips Texas GOP's Proposed Congressional Map as 'Illegal Voter Suppression'

The Texas Republican Party drew heavy criticism on Wednesday after it unveiled a redrawn map of their state's congressional districts aimed at squeezing out Democrats even further.

In an analysis of the new map, Cook Political Report analyst Dave Wasserman projected that it could help Republicans post a net gain of as many as five seats in the House of Representatives during next year's midterm elections.

Among other things, Wasserman found that the map pushes the districts of several incumbent Democrats, including Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, into more Trump-friendly terrain. Wasserman adds that this might not necessarily doom these Democrats if the party has a strong overall midterm performance next year.

"It's clear what Republicans' strategy is here," Wasserman wrote on X. "Create as many solid Trump seats as possible while *increasing* the number of Hispanic-majority seats by population, even though Hispanic *voters* will be well south of 40% of the electorate in several of them."

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus whose current district would be obliterated by the new map, delivered a scathing rebuke of the proposal.

"Merging the 35th and the 37th districts is illegal voter suppression of Black and Latino Central Texans," he said. "By merging our Central Texas districts, [U.S. President] Trump wants to commit yet another crime—this time, against Texas voters and against Martin Luther King's Voting Rights Act of 1965."

Casar also warned that the Texas GOP scheme would become a blueprint for other GOP-run states unless it's stopped.

"If Trump is allowed to rip the Voting Rights Act to shreds here in Central Texas, his ploy will spread like wildfire across the country," he said. "Everyone who cares about our democracy must mobilize against this illegal map."

Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, issued a similarly critical statement about the Texas GOP's new map.

"This proposed map is a racially discriminatory, brazen power grab," she said. "It is an insult to all Texans, who have demonstrated overwhelming, bipartisan opposition to President Trump's order to draw a mid-decade gerrymander. Texans deserve better than this, and if the legislature and the governor follow through with enacting this egregious gerrymander, it will face fierce legal challenges."

The Trump White House pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their map this year in order to help the party in the 2026 midterm elections, despite the fact that redistricting normally occurs only once every decade. Democrats across the country have decried the move and Democratic-run states such as California and New York have threatened to redraw their own maps to benefit their party.

Republicans in the House of Representatives currently hold a slim 219-212 majority that will likely grow even slimmer in the coming months as elections occur to replace three Democratic representatives who have died in office in the last year.