The race for Texas governor will decide control of the House

When Americans think about the fight for the House, they picture swing districts in Pennsylvania, Arizona and New York. But the truth is that the contest that could shape the House for years to come is the race for governor of Texas. If Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wins reelection, it could set in motion further redistricting that gerrymanders three to seven House seats out of play and into Republican hands for the long haul.

Texas Republicans have already shown what they will do with unchecked power. Last summer, under pressure from President Trump’s political team, they redrew the state’s congressional map in the middle of the decade, producing a map that could give them 30 of Texas’s 38 congressional seats . The new lines took aim at districts built by coalitions of Latino and Black voters in the Rio Grande Valley, Dallas-Fort Worth and Central Texas.

The Supreme Court upheld it and even went further. In Louisiana v. Callais , the court gutted the Voting Rights Act protections for communities of color from gerrymandering. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent that the ruling leaves that protection “all but a dead letter.” For decades, it was the law that kept Latino communities in Texas from being carved up and drowned out. Now, according to a University of Houston professor , there are virtually no legal limits on how aggressively partisan a map can be.

Early reports show Texas Republicans plan to redraw the congressional map again in 2027, along with the maps down the ballot. Every district that still gives Latino Texans a real voice in Congress will be on the table.

That makes the governorship the last line of defense in Texas. A new map is a bill, and a bill needs the governor’s signature. Abbott signed the last one and would sign the next one. A Democratic governor can veto it, and Texas Republicans do not have the votes to override.

Whoever wins this November decides whether the next gerrymander becomes law as early as next year.

It doesn’t stop there. Texas is projected to gain four more congressional seats after the 2030 census, and Republicans will try to gerrymander these too. Every round of unchecked gerrymandering makes the math to a Democratic House harder, and it leaves one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country with fewer representatives who answer to it.

Republicans drew their maps on a bet that Latino voters would keep voting the way they did in 2024, when Trump won a majority of Texas Latinos and counties along the Rio Grande turned red. That bet now looks like a mistake. In March, Democratic primary turnout in Texas’s 64 Latino-majority counties rose four points over 2022 and topped even the 2024 presidential year. This fall, a Univision-YouGov poll found Texas Latinos favor Democrats for Congress by 13 points, and roughly one in three Latinos who voted for Trump now have doubts or regret their choice. Why the swing? Latino families were promised lower prices and got higher ones. A full three-quarters of Latinos now disapprove of Trump’s economic policies .

That’s good news for the House this cycle. But statewide races in Texas are won at the margins. In 2018, the U.S. Senate race came down to fewer than 215,000 votes . Some 6.5 million Latino Texans are eligible to vote, and Latinos make up more than a quarter of registered voters in the state. If they continue to swing back to Democrats, they can decide the governor’s race, and with it, the shape of the congressional map for years to come.

Texas Democrats have a strong gubernatorial nominee in Gina Hinojosa. Voters far beyond Texas should be watching this race, because its outcome will show up in the House majority long after Election Day.

The fight for the House runs through Texas, and the fight for Texas runs through Latino communities. This November, Texas Latinos can protect their own representation and help decide who controls Congress. El futuro se decide en nuestras comunidades .

Linda Sanchez represents California’s 38th District in the U.S. House. She is chairwoman of CHC BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.