Texas May Have Just Saved Trump’s GOP House Majority*

(*) If upheld in court, the new maps created by the Texas legislature will doom Democrats next fall. I show you just how bad it is for them:

Earlier this week, I provided a snapshot of Ohio’s redistricting mission and what impact it is likely to have on the 2026 midterms. I decided if the new maps are in play next November, that the Republican Party should pick up a minimum of two seats. Those two seats are OH-9, currently held by Marcy Kaptur, and OH-13, held by Emilia Sykes. With a precise enough cut, Greg Landsman’s OH-1 could be on the table for a flip as well.

The impact of a net gain of two in Ohio for the Republican Party takes their floor from 197 to 199 seats in my estimate, requiring them to pick up or hold just 19 more seats nationally to keep the majority in place. If you’re one of those sweating over the House, force your mind to accept a win-win scenario and move on to strategy.

Even bigger news has hit the 2026 race for the House now that the Texas legislature has revealed its proposed map for redistricting. The tired old saying is that “everything is bigger in Texas,” and if this map makes it through the legislative process and the inevitable lawsuits to follow, then Texas very well may have saved President Trump’s Republican majority before a single vote was even cast.

Other forecasters, who have much more bullish estimates for the GOP which I fear don’t take into account the impact of midterm political dynamics, think Texas’s play seals the deal and pushes the GOP right to the brink of a House majority. My model considers several seats they think are locks for the GOP to hold to be in the competitive or leaner categories which require diligence on the part of the GOP to win.

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What’s the Verdict on Texas?

Never forget one of the founding principles of Captain K’s Corner – intelligence officers love maps. Here is the 2023-24 map (current map):

It produced a GOP delegation with a 25R/13D split in 2024:

In what has become a typical tactic, the legislature in charge of that map took care to ensure that none of their GOP Congressmen would need to actually campaign, as evidenced by no Republican-won seat being decided by less than 14.2%. 8 of the 10 Democrat seats were blowouts, and the other 2 finished within single digits.

Here is the new map:

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The Texas Republican legislature is anticipating the GOP will pick up 5 seats from the Democrats. Here is the roll call from my vantage point:

Continued Safe Republican Seats (25)

TX-1, TX-2, TX-3, TX-4, TX-5, TX-6, TX-8, TX-10, TX-11, TX-12, TX-13, TX-14, TX-15, TX-17, TX-19, TX-21, TX-22, TX-23, TX-24, TX-25, TX-26, TX-27, TX-31, TX-36, TX-38

Most of these GOP seats have been tightened, in that they have lost full counties that have now been redrawn into the districts Republicans are looking to flip. For example, if the Congressman from TX-1 wins by an insurmountable margin, some of his territory can be donated to a more competitive district to help with those margins. Yes, it’s gerrymandering. Democrats do it worse than Republicans – take the 43D/9R delegation from California as a prime example.

Continued Safe Democrat Seats (8)

TX-7 (Fletcher), TX-16 (Escobar), TX-18 (Turner – deceased), TX-20 (Castro), TX-30 (Crockett), TX-33 (Veasey), TX-35 (Casar), TX-37 (Doggett)

These Democrats have been entrenched in their vote dumps in Houston, El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. If it’s not in a city, Republicans are going to be running it.

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With 33 of 38 seats now accounted for, what are the other five Republicans are looking to flip?

TX-9

A bonus to this seat changing hands is that it stands to rid the American people of Al Green, one of the most insufferable people in all of Congress; however, he may just switch districts and run for TX-18, vacated by Sylvester Turner’s death. The GOP just straight up moved the district to the east side of Harris County, into turf that is R+15.2% in voter composition. Well, bye.