As a wave of mid-decade redistricting sweeps the country, politicians on both sides of the aisle are being uncharacteristically blunt about their endgame: political power.
With only slightly more subtlety, Texas Republicans and California Democrats are also signaling where they think trends in the Latino vote are going — and how they think those voters will help them gain power in 2026 and beyond.
Latinos’ big shift toward Republicans has been one of the major changes in American politics during the Trump era. Now, the durability of those GOP gains — and whether Vice President Kamala Harris’ low numbers in key swing states and swing districts represents a low-water mark for Democrats or a waypoint on the way to worse trends in the future — are key questions that will determine how newly drawn congressional districts perform for the parties drawing them.
“Those maps were drawn assuming that the 2024 and to a lesser extent, the 2020 results, will provide the strongest indication of what’s going to happen in 2026 for both parties,” said Erin Covey, a nonpartisan election analyst who is the House editor at The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
“Republicans are banking on their gains with Hispanic voters that they’ve made in south Texas particularly, not just in 2024 but over the last eight years. … That’s kind of the whole ballgame for them if they want to keep the House,” Covey added.
Texas Republicans bet big on Hispanic voters
Republicans’ optimism about building on their improvement with Hispanics is a clear through line in their Texas congressional map redraw.
As the mapmakers sought to improve GOP chances of dethroning Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, a tough longtime opponent despite a federal bribery indictment, they pushed his district boundaries farther east, creating a district that Donald Trump would have won by more than 10 percentage points in 2024 (Trump won Cuellar’s old district by more than 7 points). In doing so, they turned a 73% Hispanic district into a 91% Hispanic one, a clear bet that political upheaval in the Rio Grande Valley, particularly among Hispanics moving toward Republicans, will continue.
On the other side of south Texas, the 34th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, got less Hispanic, but its putative 2024 margin for Trump also grew.
The more dramatic changes happened in Democratic-held districts in Texas’ major metro areas. The new 9th District, now a ruby-red district in eastern Houston and the surrounding area, is 62% Hispanic, and Trump would have won the seat by almost 20 points last fall.
And then there’s the new 35th District east of San Antonio, an area that’s 57% Hispanic that Trump would have won by 10 points in 2024.
Throughout the redistricting process, Republican lawmakers repeatedly stressed their sole lens for redrawing the maps was a political one — pushing back on Democratic accusations, and lawsuits from outside groups, alleging the redraw amounts to an unconstitutional race-based gerrymander. But they highlighted that most of the districts where they hope make gains have Hispanic majorities.
“The underlying goal is this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance,” GOP state Rep. Todd Hunter said earlier this month during debate on the bill, adding that the primary changes to the state’s congressional map are “focused on only five districts for partisan purposes.”
He went on to note that “four of the five new districts are majority-minority Hispanic” by citizen voting-age population, before adding: “Each of these newly drawn districts now trend Republican in political performance. While there’s no guarantee of an electorate success, Republicans will now have an opportunity to potentially win these districts,” he added.
Partially because of rightward-trending Latino voters, no Republican incumbent in Texas will represent a district that Trump won by less than a double-digit margin, and all five potential Republican pickups sport that same floor.
But some of these districts were more competitive in previous elections — particularly the Democratic-held 28th and 34th districts, as well as the potential Republican targets in the 9th and 35th districts.
Brendan Steinhauser, a former campaign manager for Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, told NBC News the “key element” ahead of 2026 is whether Republicans not named Trump can replicate his performance with Hispanics.
“It’s a very plausible scenario that it is durable, but if not, we might have some competitive seats to defend,” he said.
Steinhauser went on to note that Cornyn performed well with Hispanics on his way to re-election in 2014, and he said there are nuanced differences among Latino voters — like between south Texas and the rest of the state, between male and female voters, and differences based on education and income levels. He added that his “gut” tells him that Trump’s Hispanic vote share will likely be a “high-water mark” for Republicans next cycle, “and we’ll be working to get as close as we can to that.”
