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Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, told Texas Democrats on a call on Tuesday that the moment required everyone to take extraordinary actions.
July 15, 2025Updated 4:34 p.m. ET
National Democratic leaders are encouraging state Democrats in the Texas House to consider walking out of a special legislative session this month to block Republicans from redrawing the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
At the same time, President Trump held his own call on Tuesday with congressional Republicans in the state, urging them to carve out five new G.O.P. seats from those held by Democrats, according to a person briefed on that call, which was first reported by Punchbowl News.
“Just spoke to our Great Congressmen and women of Texas,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. He added, “I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”
The redistricting of House seats is supposed to come at the beginning of each decade, after new census data shifts populations and changes the number of seats granted to each state. Reapportionment in the middle of the decade is rare and almost always contentious, since it is driven by political considerations, not demographic shifts. In this case, Mr. Trump is openly trying to use new maps to stave off midterm Democratic gains that would potentially cost his party control of the narrowly divided House.
“It is important that we fight back,” said U.S. Representative Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat whose Houston district could be affected. “What is happening is absolutely an unacceptable betrayal of Texans.”
During the Democratic call on Monday evening, which lasted for more than two hours, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, spoke with about 40 Democrats in the Texas House.
