Federal Judges Block Texas Congressional Map

Texas map with an X — Source: Madd Hatta / Madd Hatta

TRENDING: Texas Playing Map Games—Again

In August 2025, Texas faced a historic redistricting battle. This effort came from Donald Trump’s attempt to pressure GOP states to gerrymander House districts to help republicans ahead of the midterms. The adjusted map would have shifted 5 seats currently held by Democrats in the GOP column in favor of Republicans.

Tuesday, three federal judges have blocked Texas from using the redrawn U.S. House map that caused a nationwide redistricting battle. This was a major piece of President Donald Trump’s effort to manipulate the 2026 elections.

Bondi posted on X saying, “Texas’s map was drawn the right way for the right reasons.”

The ruling is to ruin Trump’s intent to create a favorable political landscape for republicans in next year’s midterms. Texas filed an appeal Tuesday evening with the United States Supreme Court after Governor Greg Abbott and other republicans publicly defended and supported the map that gave republicans additional House seats.

If the ruling stands, Texas will be forced to use the map drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2021 for next year’s elections.

This was a 2-1 ruling; a panel of federal judges in El Paso sided with opponents who argued this new map would harm black and Hispanic residents.

Governor Gavin Newsom, on the social media platform X, celebrated the Texas ruling, saying “Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won.”

This decision came from U.S District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, who was a trump nominee from the president’s first term. The ruling states To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”

States like Missouri and North Carolina followed Texas when it came to the redrawing of the maps, adding additional republican seats. This redistricting battle was a national battle.

Abha Khanna, who is a partner in the Elias Law Group, which is a democratic firm that represents minority voters who are opposing Texas’s new map, says that “Today’s decision is a critical victory for voting rights and a powerful rebuke of Texas’s brazen attempt to dilute the political power of Latino and Black voters.”

Texas Republicans insist they drew the new map for only partisan advantage. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering is a political question and one that the federal courts decide.

National president of the NAACP Derrick Johnson, who was a part of the parties suing the state of Texas over redistricting, says, “The state’s intent here is to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities, and that, in and of itself, is unconstitutional.”

Republicans heavily argued that this map redrawing was better for minority voters. While five “coalition” districts are eliminated, there’s a new, eighth Hispanic-majority district, and two new Black-majority districts.

In a statement on Tuesday, Greg Abbott said it’s “absurd” to claim that the map is discriminatory. He says, “The Legislature redrew our congressional maps to better reflect Texans’ conservative voting preferences – and for no other reason.”

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