Latest news with #midtermElections
Fox News
a day ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Lone Star State rivals for US Senate compete to wrangle runaway Democrats
A super PAC supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's 2026 primary challenge against longtime Republican Sen. John Cornyn is showcasing the MAGA firebrand's efforts in the Lone Star State's high-stakes redistricting battle. It's the latest example of how the redistricting showdown in Texas is shaping what is likely to be one of the most bruising and expensive Senate races in next year's midterm elections. A digital spot by Lone Star Liberty PAC includes a compilation of cable news reports, and it highlights Paxton's efforts to track down Democratic Texas lawmakers who fled the state to prevent the Republican-dominated legislature from voting on new GOP-crafted congressional maps in the red state that would create five more right-leaning congressional districts. It includes a clip of Paxton pushing "to remove some of these legislators from office" and conservative media figures praising the attorney general's moves. If also includes a photo of Paxton standing next to President Donald Trump, who remains neutral to date in the GOP primary battle. The Republican push in Texas, which comes at Trump's urging, is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to keep control of its razor-thin House majority in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats. Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats stormed back to grab the House majority in the 2018 midterms. While the redistricting battle has spread to states across the country as Democratic governors in blue states and GOP governors in red states move toward rare mid-decade gerrymandering pushes of their own, the dispute in Texas is taking center stage in the GOP Senate primary. Texas-based veteran Republican strategist Tyler Norris told Fox News Cornyn and Paxton "are using every tool at their disposal to prove that they're both dedicated to helping the Trump administration gain more seats in Congress for 2026." Cornyn spotlighted his urgent letter asking the FBI for help in tracking down the Democratic state lawmakers who fled Texas. The senator's move resulted in the FBI approving his request to locate the AWOL lawmakers. "I am proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats," Cornyn said in a statement. "We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities." But it remains unclear whether the FBI could actually return the lawmakers to Texas. Paxton is also looking into whether two political action committees aligned with former Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas may have violated state laws by assisting the state lawmakers who fled. "Any Democrat coward breaking the law by taking a Beto bribe will be held accountable," Paxton said this week during a news conference. O'Rourke came close to ousting Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2018 midterms before running unsuccessfully for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. He lost to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the state's 2022 gubernatorial contest, and is considering jumping into the 2026 Senate race in Texas. He's been visible in his support for the fleeing Texas Democrats. And O'Rourke has pushed back against Paxton. "The guy impeached for bribery is going after the folks trying to stop the theft of five Congressional seats," O'Rourke argued in a social media post Wednesday. "Let's stop these thugs before they steal our country." Texas state Sen. James Talarico, who is also moving toward entering the Senate race, is among the Democrats who fled to Illinois to prevent the legislature from voting on the redistricting plan. Since arriving in Illinois, Talarico has sat for a couple dozen interviews with media outlets across the country. The only major Democrat who's already announced his candidacy in the Senate race, former Rep. Colin Allred, is also supportive of the fleeing lawmakers. But Allred, who is making his second straight bid for the Senate in Texas, has not been in the media spotlight to the degree of Talarico or O'Rourke.
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
How closely do congressional delegations reflect how people vote? Not very
WASHINGTON — The Constitution makes it clear: 'The People' get to pick those who'll represent their interests in the U.S. House of Representatives. But just how closely do those choices reflect the overall political leanings of the people? The question is at the heart of a power play in Texas, where Republicans are trying to reshape the state's congressional boundaries to help them maintain control of the House in next year's midterm elections.
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
How closely do congressional delegations reflect how people vote? Not very
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Constitution makes it clear: 'The People' get to pick those who'll represent their interests in the U.S. House of Representatives. But just how closely do those choices reflect the overall political leanings of the people? The question is at the heart of a power play in Texas, where Republicans are trying to reshape the state's congressional boundaries to help them maintain control of the House in next year's midterm elections. In many cases, a state's congressional delegation doesn't align very closely with what would seem to be the will of the voters, although that's not always because of partisan gerrymandering. Every state decides how to draw its own congressional boundaries. Some, like California, rely on independent redistricting commissions, while most leave it to the state Legislature and the governor to hammer out a plan. It's states where one party controls all the levers of government where redistricting dramas like the one in Texas often play out as the majority tries to maximize its power. Regardless of the process, the resulting maps often produce congressional delegations much more lopsided in favor of one party than the state's partisan demographics might suggest. A state's presidential vote result isn't a precise tool for measuring what its congressional delegation ought to look like, but it can provide a compelling point of comparison. Politicians frequently cite it when decrying partisan redistricting practices they think are unfair. President Donald Trump, who's pushing Texas and other GOP-controlled states to redraw their maps, said this week Republicans were 'entitled to five more seats' in Texas based in part on the size of his win there in November. Trump won 56% of the Texas vote, but Republicans already hold 65% of the state's congressional delegation — which would rise to 79% if the GOP's new maps are adopted and past voting patterns hold in the next election. During an event with Texas Democratic lawmakers in Boston, Missouri state Rep. Ashley Aune cited her state's presidential vote results in warning of possible Republican-driven redistricting efforts there. 'Fifty-eight percent of Missouri voted for Trump, but they want to send an 87% representation to Congress,' said Aune, a Democrat. It's actually fairly common for a state's congressional delegation not to align with statewide presidential vote results. In 41 of the 44 states with more than one congressional district, the party of the winning presidential candidate had a larger share of the state's congressional seats than its share of the presidential vote, an Associated Press analysis found. In most cases, it was a much larger share, a gap of at least 10 percentage points. Here's a comparison of the congressional delegations and presidential vote results in a sampling of states, including some of those considering a redraw of their congressional boundaries after Texas called its special session. California and Illinois In remarks to CNBC, Trump pointed to California and Illinois as justifications for redrawing the Texas map in Republicans' favor. 'You notice they go to Illinois for safety, but that's all gerrymandered,' he said in reference to the Texas Democrats who relocated to the Chicago area to block, at least temporarily, the Republican redistricting efforts. 'California's gerrymandered. We should have many more seats in Congress in California,' he said. He's right about Illinois: Democrats have gerrymandered the lines so they hold 14 of the 17 House seats. Not so in California. Democrats there do have an outsized majority, holding 43 of the state's 52 House seats, about 83%. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, received about 59% of the November vote. But that's not because of Democratic gerrymandering. A ballot initiative took the process away from state lawmakers and gave it to an independent citizens commission. California's lopsided map is due in part to the way like-minded people cluster: California Democrats tend to live in and near major cities that get more congressional districts because of their population. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis scored a legal victory in July when the state Supreme Court upheld his congressional redistricting plan redrawing a district with a large Black population. That plan resulted in Republicans holding about 71% of the state's 28 U.S. House seats. Trump carried the state in November with 56% of the vote. DeSantis later indicated there may be more 'defects' in the map that need to be addressed before the next census. Republicans held an 18-7 advantage over Democrats in Florida's House delegation after the 2000 census. Democrats slowly narrowed the gap, reaching 13 seats to Republicans' 14 after the 2018 election. But Republicans reestablished their advantage after the redistricting that followed the 2020 census, when they reached the 20-8 split they hold today. New York Democrats have long enjoyed an advantage at the New York ballot box in presidential and congressional elections. Harris received nearly 56% of the vote in 2024, while Democrats hold 73% of the state's 26 House seats. With Democratic advantages in both chambers of the state Legislature, New York might have been a ripe target for Democrats looking to offset Republican redistricting gains in Texas and elsewhere. But they would need to amend the state constitution to conduct a new round of redistricting before the next census. That constraint means the earliest Democrats could enact a new map would be for 2028. North Carolina North Carolina, among the most closely divided states, has been embroiled in its own redistricting drama. State Republicans implemented new House boundaries in 2023 that turned a 7-7 congressional delegation into one in which Republicans took a 10-4 advantage with the 2024 elections. Several districts are now the subject of a federal lawsuit, with Democrats alleging Republicans illegally diluted Black voting power. North Carolina has been among the most competitive states in the last several presidential elections. While Trump carried the state in November with about 51% of the vote, it has elected Democrats as governor and attorney general and to other statewide offices. In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama narrowly edged Republican John McCain with 49.7% of the vote. The congressional delegation at the time mirrored that with an almost even split, with Democrats holding seven seats and Republicans six after the 2010 midterms. But following rounds of Republican-controlled redistricting after the 2010 census, Republicans held a 10-3 or 9-4 advantage in the congressional delegation for the rest of that decade. After the 2020 census, a Democratic-majority North Carolina Supreme Court threw out a Republican-drawn plan and permitted elections under a map adopted by trial judges that produced the 7-7 split. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the boundaries to be used in the 2022 elections. After flipping to a Republican majority in 2023, the state Supreme Court ruled partisan gerrymandering wasn't outlawed by the state constitution, allowing GOP lawmakers to redraw a congressional map in use today that led to their party's 10-4 majority. Minnesota Minnesota is the state where the congressional breakdown most closely matches the 2024 presidential result. Harris received 51% of that vote, compared with Trump's 47%. Democrats and Republicans split the state's eight House seats with court-imposed maps. Nevada Nevada, where a Democratic Legislature drew the lines, is the only state where the party of the winning presidential candidate is outnumbered by the other party in the state's congressional delegation. Trump received 51% of the vote in Nevada, but Democrats hold three of the state's four House districts. ___ Associated Press writer Leah Willingham in Boston contributed to this report.
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Republicans draw a roadmap to change more US House seats outside of Texas
National Republicans are ramping up their efforts to squeeze more GOP-friendly congressional seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections outside of the five seats they hope to gain in Texas. Allies of President Donald Trump have called on state leaders in Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina and Missouri to target the handful of Democratic districts remaining in the states. In Florida, Republicans took a first step toward as possible mid-cycle redistricting by launching a House committee to examine the issue. Vice President JD Vance visited Indiana on Thursday to meet with the state's Republican leaders. The push to pick off those remaining seats marks the latest phase in a redistricting arms race sparked by Trump, who is taking extraordinary measures in hopes of stopping Democrats from winning back the House next year. The effort is also the latest test of Trump's ability to persuade state and federal lawmakers to enact his agenda even at their own expense. GOP state lawmakers have several reasons to resist drawing new maps, from the additional costs of holding special sessions to the fact that new maps would change the districts of incumbent Republicans, potentially making them more competitive and undermining Trump's goal for the midterms. Efforts to target some seats could also draw legal challenges, including potential violations of the Voting Rights Act. In some cases, Republican legislatures already considered more partisan maps during the traditional once-a-decade redistricting cycle but opted against them. Republicans control the governorship and legislatures in 23 states – compared to just 15 held by Democrats – giving them a longer list of maps to target. But in several states, Republicans have already successfully left Democrats few, if any, seats. Here's where the president and his allies are seeking to gain additional seats. Outside of Texas, Ohio represents Republicans' best chance of gaining additional seats. Under state law, Ohio must approve a new congressional map by November 30 because the current lines drawn by Republicans passed without any Democratic support. Republicans could gain an additional two to three seats in the state by targeting Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Emilia Sykes and Greg Landsman, according to an analysis by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. Democrats currently hold five of the state's 15 House seats. But the process isn't clear-cut. Under rules backed by voters in 2018, Republicans must first attempt to pass a map with bipartisan support. If Republicans end up passing a map along party lines, Democrats could potentially ask voters to strike the map down via a statewide referendum. Republicans are hoping to flip one, possibly two, districts in Indiana, where the party currently holds seven of the state's nine House seats. A new map would likely target Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan, who represents the state's northwest corner, or, potentially, Rep. André Carson, who represents much of Indianapolis. Republican Gov. Mike Braun and GOP legislative leaders have expressed limited interest in redistricting, partly due to the costs of holding a special session as well as concerns of undermining Republican incumbents. 'You can spread out your Republican vote a little too thin so that every few cycles, seats are going back and forth,' Indiana Sen. Todd Young told Punchbowl News last month. 'And that can sort of cut both ways.' Braun remained noncommittal after the meeting with Vance. 'We listened,' Braun said when asked if state officials and the vice president reached a consensus, according to the Indianapolis Star. Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican who recently launched a campaign for governor, has called on state lawmakers to draw maps that would give the GOP all seven seats in the state. That would come at the expense of longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state's lone Democratic member of Congress. 'We have Republican supermajorities in South Carolina. Let's use them to create more competition in our congressional seats,' Norman told Fox News. 'I have no doubt Republicans can be successful in every part of our state.' Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who is also running for governor, disagreed. 'I think our lines are good,' Mace told reporters ahead of an event in Myrtle Beach Wednesday. 'We did a great job.' Mace argued that a 7-0 map would face constitutional hurdles. Democrats would almost certainly challenge any efforts to dismantle Clyburn's seat – the only majority-Black district in the state – as a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Missouri's Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe told reporters Tuesday that he would work with state leaders to 'see if there's a path' to redrawing the state's congressional map. 'We want to keep the House in Republican control,' he said, according to the Kansas City Star. Republicans control six of the state's eight districts. A new map would likely target Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City seat. Cleaver has vowed to challenge any new map targeting his seat in court. Trump allies have been lobbying leaders in the state. Republican Rep. Eric Burlison told the Star last month that he spoke with a member of the Trump campaign who said the Cleaver seat was a missed opportunity during the last redistricting cycle. Missouri House Speaker Chad Perkins said White House staff reached out to him after he told a local outlet that mid-cycle redistricting would be 'out of character with the way' the state operates. 'They said 'Well, we're really going to try to do that,' and that might change the dynamic of it,' Perkins told the Missouri Independent last month. Republicans already hold all three seats in Nebraska but lawmakers could redraw the map to make the state's swingy 2nd District less competitive. US Rep. Don Bacon, who announced in June he won't seek reelection to the seat next year, told the Nebraska Examiner that there have been conversations about redrawing the maps, but 'nothing serious.' Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez sent a memo to lawmakers Thursday announcing the launch of a Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting, marking the first concrete step towards redrawing the state's US House maps off-cycle. The Select Committee comes a month after the state Supreme Court upheld the 2022 congressional map drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis' office. Opponents said the map violated the state constitution's 'Fair Districts' provision, which prohibits lawmakers from favoring one party or diminishing the political power of minorities, by dismantling a majority-Black seat. The state Supreme Court ruled that the district was a racial gerrymander that violated equal protection rights under the US Constitution, an interpretation that weakened the 'Fair Districts' rule. The select committee Perez created will further examine how lawmakers should view the provision. 'Exploring these questions now, at the mid-decade point, would potentially allow us to seek legal guidance from our supreme court without the uncertainty associated with deferring those questions until after the next decennial census and reapportionment,' the memo reads. Republicans currently hold 20 of the state's 28 House seats. Five of the state's eight Democrats won their 2024 races with less than 60% of the vote: Reps. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor, Lois Frankel, Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. CNN's Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mass. among places Texas lawmakers fleeing to during redistricting fight
A standoff in Texas over redrawn U.S. House maps sought by President Donald Trump sharply escalated Sunday when dozens of Democratic legislators left the state to block a vote, followed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott warning them that he will seek their removal from office if they don't return. The revolt by Democrats, and Abbott giving them until Monday to come home or face efforts to strip them of their elected positions, pushed a widening fight over congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections into new territory. At the center of the deepening impasse is Trump's pursuit of five more winnable congressional seats that will help bolster the GOP's chances of preserving their slim U.S. House majority. In response to Texas' rare mid-decade political gerrymander, Democratic governors have floated the possibility of redrawing their own state's maps in retaliation, but their options are limited. Many of the Texas Democrats were bound for Illinois and a welcoming from Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, who in recent weeks has offered them support. Another contingent of lawmakers departed for Boston to attend the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual legislative summit, alongside some Senate Democrats, according to the Texas Tribune. House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Gene Wu declined to say how long lawmakers were prepared to stay out of Texas, and it was unclear whether the gambit would succeed. Four years ago, House Democrats left Texas for 38 days in protest of new voting restrictions that still wound up passing once the holdout ended. 'We will do whatever it takes. What that looks like, we don't know,' Wu said at a Sunday night news conference. The state of the vote now Lawmakers can't pass bills in the 150-member Texas House without at least two-thirds of them present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber and at least 51 left the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus. In addition to those in Illinois, delegations of Democratic lawmakers left Texas for Boston and Albany, New York, among other places, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said. Abbott threatened to seek the lawmakers' removal, saying they were not meeting under the state's constitution. 'This truancy ends now,' Abbott said in a statement released by his office Sunday night. Abbott also suggested the lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they'd face. Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the chamber would still meet as planned on Monday afternoon. 'If a quorum is not present then, to borrow the recent talking points from some of my Democrat colleagues, all options will be on the table. . .,' he posted on X. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, said on X that Democrats who 'try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.' A refusal by Texas lawmakers to show up is a civil violation of legislative rules. The Texas Supreme Court held in 2021 that House leaders had the authority to 'physically compel the attendance' of missing members, but no Democrats were forcibly brought back to the state after warrants were served that year. Two years later, Republicans pushed through new rules that allow daily fines of $500 for lawmakers who don't show up for work as punishment. In calling for the lawmakers' removal, Abbott cited a non-binding legal opinion that was issued by Paxton's office after the 2021 revolt by Democratic lawmakers. The quorum break will also delay votes on flood relief and new warning systems in the wake of last month's catastrophic floods in Texas that killed at least 136 people. Democrats had called for votes on the flooding response before taking up redistricting and have criticized Republicans for not doing so. Texas Republicans last week unveiled their planned new U.S. House map that would create five new Republican-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state's 38 seats. Illinois hosts fleeing Texas lawmakers Pritzker, who has been one of Trump's most outspoken critics during his second term, had been in quiet talks with Texas Democrats for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum. Last week, the governor hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state. Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map, according to a source with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. 'This is not just rigging the system in Texas, it's about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come,' Pritzker said Sunday night. Now, with Texas Democrats holed up in Illinois and blocking the Trump-backed congressional map, the stage may be set for a high-profile showdown between Pritzker and the president. Trump is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House just two years into his presidency, and hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states, such as Missouri, according to a person familiar with conversations but unauthorized to speak publicly about them. More on Politics Trump's popularity slides in new UMass Amherst poll. Here's how it happened Department of Justice waiting for response on Massachusetts voter data 'We can't let evil win': At Boston summit, state leaders confront political violence Here's who is pushing Trump to upend higher ed — and what they want Boston's Big Wonk Summer: Thousands of lawmakers arrive for annual conference | Bay State Briefing Read the original article on MassLive. Solve the daily Crossword
