Gabby Birenbaum, The Texas Tribune
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett was in and then he was out. Then, he was back in.
The Austin Democrat’s reelection plans have ping-ponged as the Legislature’s new congressional maps winded their way through the courts. Drawn at the behest of President Donald Trump, the new map is intended to yield more seats for the GOP in the coming midterm elections and would have pit Doggett against fellow Austin Democratic Rep. Greg Casar.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court said, in a 6 to 3 ruling, that the state can use the new map in 2026 — reversing a lower court ruling from last month that found the new boundaries be unconstitutional.
On Friday, Doggett said he’s once again planning to retire.
“I will continue working with the same urgency and determination as if next year were my last, which in public office it will be,” Doggett said in a statement Friday. “After that, I will seek new ways to join my neighbors in making a difference in the only town I have ever called home.”
Democratic campaign organizations, elected officials and candidates ripped the court decision as unfair. But with no further prospect of legal relief for this cycle, given that the filing deadline is Monday, Doggett and others are back to the reality they faced after the map’s passage: contemplating House retirement or primaries against fellow incumbents.
Meanwhile, Republican candidates for the new seats have attractive prospects once again.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has now confirmed what we knew: Texas got it right with the Big Beautiful Map!” said state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, who is running in a Houston area seat that was redrawn to elect a Republican.
The ruling means Republicans will now be favored in Congressional Districts 9, 32 and 35, sending Democratic incumbents in those districts to run elsewhere or retire. And it also gives the GOP a better shot in Congressional Districts 28 and 34, both in South Texas, where they added Trump voters in districts that they considered to be tossups.
In those districts, U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez will face reelection battles in districts that Trump had already won under the old lines and were tweaked to give Republicans a stronger advantage. Trump would have won each district by 10 percentage points under the new lines, but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, while slamming the redistricted map, pledged that the incumbents would win regardless.
“Our battle-tested Democrats in Texas, including Congressmen Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, will win their newly-redrawn districts and render this Republican scheme futile,” Jeffries said in a statement.
Dallas and Houston Democrats
In Dallas and Houston, Democratic incumbents face tough decisions.
Republicans dismantled longtime Houston Rep. Al Green’s district, drawing him and the majority of his constituents into the 18th Congressional District, left vacant after Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner died. A special runoff election between former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards and Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee is scheduled for Jan. 30. The winner will be in Congress for about a month before facing the prospect of a March 3 primary against Green, 79, who confirmed Friday he will run in the 18th Congressional District.
Green said the redistricting and subsequent court ruling “only fuels the fire in my belly, the fire within me to continue to fight.”
“We understand what the president’s goal is…to have me not serve in the Congress of the United States of America,” Green said. “Well, the president’s not going to run me out of office. That won’t happen.”
Edwards, Green and Menefee have all already filed to be on the ballot for the 18th District primary in March.
North Texas is home to three congressional Democrats — Reps. Jasmine Crockett, Julie Johnson and Marc Veasey — whose ranks will likely shrink to two.
The 32nd congressional district, occupied by Johnson, was reconfigured to stretch into East Texas, transforming a seat former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024 by about 24 percentage points into one that President Donald Trump would have won by 18 percentage points.
The newly-drawn 30th District, currently occupied by Crockett, contains a large portion of Crockett’s old district and a piece of Tarrant County, Veasey’s political base. The 33rd District is now based entirely in Dallas County and contains a nearly even number of voters from each of the three Democrats’ old districts.
Crockett’s potential entry into the U.S. Senate race is the final domino hanging over Democratic plans in North Texas. If she jumps into the Senate race — a decision she has said she is leaning toward — then the path is clear for Veasey and Johnson to run in different districts.
Veasey plans to run in the 30th Congressional District, according to a source familiar with his plans, while Johnson has said she will run in the 33rd Congressional District.
“TX-33 is home to many families, small businesses and neighborhoods that I have been proud to represent over the years,” Johnson said in a statement Friday. “I’m running in TX-33 because these communities need someone who shows up, listens and never stops fighting for them — no matter how the lines are drawn.”
But if Crockett decides to stay in the House, she could lay claim to either the 30th or the 33rd Congressional District, scrambling plans. Veasey does not intend to run against her, setting up either a primary between Veasey and Johnson, forcing one to either retire from Congress prematurely or face an uphill battle against a neighboring Republican.
Veasey has already filed in District 33 but could change his filing before the Monday deadline. Neither Crockett nor Johnson has filed yet.
Former Democratic state Rep. Domingo Garcia could also factor into the race in the 33rd District. Garcia, a former national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, formed an exploratory committee to run for that district, which includes heavily Latino parts of Dallas.
Texas Republicans’ actions kicked off a redistricting arms race around the country, including inspiring Democratic retaliation in California, which passed a ballot initiative to implement a new map seeking to yield five new Democratic seats.
The reverberations of the Supreme Court’s decision will be felt beyond Texas as well. In Virginia, where legislative Democrats are pursuing their own mid-decade redistricting campaign, Democratic state Sen. Louise Lucas, is pushing her party to redraw Virginia’s 6-5 map to favor Democrats 10-1.
“I got something waiting for Texas…” she said on X, minutes after the ruling dropped.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.