The National Republican Congressional Committee on Thursday added three Texas districts to its list of targets for 2026, following changes to the state’s House map that make those seats much tougher for Democrats to hold.
The districts are the Houston-area 9th District; the 32nd District, which includes parts of Dallas; and the Austin-centered 35th District. Each is represented by a Democrat under its current lines.
The mid-decade redistricting, which the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature completed last month following pressure from President Donald Trump, has made these seats far more hospitable to the GOP.
Republicans view the districts – and the 26 other Democratic-held seats on their initial target list – as their best chance to grow their slender House majority.
“House Republicans are in the majority, on offense, and expanding the map,” NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson said in a statement. “Vulnerable House Democrats are painfully out of touch with hardworking Americans, and now 29 of them are squarely in danger of losing their seats. The NRCC is taking the fight straight to these Democrats in their own districts, and they will be unemployed next fall.”
The Texas map is being challenged in the courts, with groups representing Black and Latino voters alleging that the newly drawn districts are discriminatory.
Rep. Greg Casar of the 35th District is running for the neighboring 37th District, which is currently represented by fellow Democrat Lloyd Doggett. Doggett initially said he’d run for reelection, setting up an intraparty battle with Casar. But the longtime congressman announced at the end of August that he won’t run against Casar if the maps are upheld by the courts.
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race for the redrawn 35th District as Likely Republican.
Democratic Rep. Al Green, who represents the 9th District, is weighing a run in the redrawn 18th District, where the majority of his current constituents will reside if the new map is allowed to stand. That seat has been vacant since the March death of Democratic Sylvester Turner.
The 32nd District, currently represented by Democratic freshman Julie Elizabeth Johnson, has become deeply red terrain following the map redrawing, and there are now just two Democratic-leaning seats in the Dallas area.. Johnson has yet to disclose which district she intends to run in.
Inside Elections rates the contests for both the redrawn 9th and 32 districts as Solid Republican.
In addition to the three Texas districts, the NRCC was already targeting two Democratic-held seats in the Rio Grande Valley – the 28th District, held by Rep. Henry Cuellar, and the 34th, represented by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez. Both seats became more Republican in the latest round of redistricting.
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