The Supreme Court Will Decide the Texas Gerrymandering Case Within Days, But Either Way, the Republican Scheme is Sputtering

This week, the United States Supreme Court is sure to decide the appeal by the State of Texas of a Texas Federal district court decision that found the August 2025 mid-decade redistricting by the Governor and the Legislature was unconstitutional.

That’s because by Monday, December 8^th, candidates for office in Texas must legally declare their candidacies for the March party primaries in that State, and the maps of the districts must be known.

In League of United Latin American Citizens, et al., v. Greg Abbott as Governor of Texas, the three judge panel ruled 2-1 that the redistricting constituted an illegal racial gerrymander in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution. Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote the decision. The main precedent cited actually came from a 2007 case on race decided by the conservatives on the Court. The panel preliminarily enjoined the 2025 House maps created by the law and ordered the use of the 2021 maps for the 2026 midterms. The conservatives on the Supreme Court would have to nullify their own decisions on race to approve the Texas gerrymander.

The national Republican effort to wipe out Democratic districts in mid-term redistrictings and prevent the Democrats from winning back the House in the midterms may be imploding.

The Texas Republican effort itself, begun by President Trump, may fail to win more than two of the five seats in the scheme even if  the Supreme Court approves the gerrymander (which it should not do, but cannot be predicted).

In what may prove to have been a major political mistake, Republicans assumed the Hispanic 2024 shift to vote for Trump, both nationally and in Texas, would continue and carry through to three new Hispanic-majority districts in Texas.  

Three of the five supposedly new Texas Republican districts have Hispanic majorities and voted for Trump in 2024, but polling throughout the year has shown growing disenchantment with Trump by the Hispanic electorate, including in Texas.

The 2020 Exit Polls showed Joe Biden won the Hispanic vote nationally 65%-32%, and the Texas Hispanic vote 58%-41% (Biden only lost Texas by 6 points). In 2024, Harris barely carried the Hispanic vote 51%-46% against Trump, and lost the Hispanic vote in Texas to Trump 55%-45% (See CNN Exit Polls 2020 and 2024).

Now, however, a Pew Research Center poll ten months into Trump’s Presidency showed 70% of Hispanics disapprove of the job Trump is doing, and 65% disapprove of his policies on immigration.

An aggregator of polls by Decision Desk of Hispanic voters about how they would vote in the midterms showed the following solid results for Democrats:

An average of all the results showed a Democratic lead of 18 points, @ 51%-33%.

Most telling of all could be a poll of the Hispanic electorate in Texas taken within the context of the Texas Senate race, which contained questions not just about who people would vote for in the Senate race, but also how their views had changed since 2024. It included this poll on retrospective Presidential vote intentions:

The poll, taken by the University of Houston-Texas Southern University, showed overall in 2024 Texans voted 56%-43% for Trump over Harris, but by October 2025 Trump would only have won 49%-45%. The swing among Latinos is paramount. Trump defeated Harris 53%-45% among Latinos in 2024, but as of October the swing is Harris 52%-Trump 41%.

In a Hispanic majority Congressional district, a swing of 11-12 points among Hispanic voters from Republican to Democrat could doom a Republican candidate. That swing, in fact, doomed a Republican candidate in the 2025 gubernatorial election in New Jersey, where Hispanic voters swung back to the Democrats in big numbers.

If the United States Supreme Court throws out the Texas gerrymander, the Republican ploy will have gained them nothing even as they might lose 4-5 seats in California. Even if  the gerrymander is upheld, the benefit could be as low as 2 seats, while across the country the gerrymanders bear bitter fruit for both parties but little to no gain for the Republicans.

Will this maneuver by the Republicans backfire?  We will find out soon.