在唐纳德·特朗普总统和白宫的鼓励下，德克萨斯州共和党人正在重新绘制国会地图创建五个新区共和党明年可能会翻盘，以保住他们在众议院的多数席位。
但这一结果可能取决于拉美裔选民，以及特朗普在2024年对拉美裔选民的重塑是否会延续到下一个选举周期。
去年11月，特朗普获得了48%的拉美裔选民的支持，创下了共和党总统候选人的最高纪录，也赢得了普选。皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)的民调显示，特朗普在2024年的表现比2020年好12个百分点，当时他以61%比36%的比例输给了前总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)。
德州新增的席位中，有四个将是拉美裔占多数的选区，使该州的席位总数增加了一个。
其中两个席位在南得克萨斯州，由民主党众议员维森特·冈萨雷斯和亨利·库勒尔代表，他们都在2024年以微弱优势赢得连任。特朗普在2024年赢得的这两个地区，在重新划定的选区界线下，将变得更加共和党化。
对于保守派来说，一些专家表示，2024年的选举代表了一种范式的转变，以及拉丁裔选民对共和党及其经济、移民和文化立场的根本调整。“这既是对共和党结盟的拥护，也是对他们与民主党一直试图强加给他们的东西有多么不同的拒绝，”Libre Initiative的总裁丹尼尔·加尔萨(Daniel Garza)说。Libre Initiative是科赫家族保守派政治网络中的一个组织，专注于拉美裔外联。
民主党人承认新地图确实给他们带来了挑战。但他们指出了历史趋势，即中期选民传统上拒绝执政党，选民对特朗普的关税政策和经济状况感到失望。
曾为拜登和哈里斯竞选团队工作的民主党民调专家马特·巴雷托(Matt Barreto)分析了自2016年以来每个选举周期的德克萨斯州投票数据，在联邦审判中作证，质疑德克萨斯州基于2020年人口普查的现有地图。
“在2020年和2024年，拉美裔人只对特朗普产生了影响，而且他在两个周期中都提高了自己的地位，”巴雷托告诉美国广播公司新闻。"它没有转移到选票上的其他共和党候选人身上."
巴雷托说，共和党人在2018年没有看到拉美裔选民的同样收益，当时川普不在选票上，民主党参议员候选人贝托·奥鲁克(Beto O'Rourke)以不到3个百分点的优势输给了参议员特德·克鲁兹——这是几十年来得克萨斯州参议院的最大差距。
事实上，共和党人本周在德克萨斯州提议的新选区中，有一个会投票给奥罗克，根据弗吉尼亚大学政治中心的分析.
巴雷托说:“我们已经进入中期选举，共和党人将在通货膨胀、关税、医疗补助削减和突击检查方面面临残酷的阻力。”“对于德克萨斯州的共和党人来说，如果在中期选举中特朗普没有参加投票，并且存在反现任情绪，他们就会接近特朗普2024年的数字，这是非常危险的。”
住在南德克萨斯州的加尔萨表示，特朗普的移民和驱逐议程不会在明年11月伤害他。
“拉丁美洲人，我们觉得你可以两者兼得。你可以做边境安全，我们可以拓展合法渠道。那个人在哪里，那个派对在哪里?无处可寻，”他说。“所以他们会坚持特朗普，因为他们宁愿要这个，而不是你在拜登领导下提供的东西。”
迈克·马德里(Mike Madrid)是一名共和党政治活动家，他写了一本关于拉丁裔选民的书，并共同创立了反特朗普林肯项目(anti-Trump Lincoln Project)，他告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，由于对经济的担忧，拉丁裔选民已经从民主党“向右转移”。
“出现了向右的转变。这是毫无疑问的。但这是种族重组吗?”他说。“这是一次完全不同的投票。这些表现出更多亲共和党倾向的拉美裔人大部分年龄在30岁以下。甚至没有足够长的投票历史来表明某些事情正在重新调整。”
“他们不会从传统的种族和民族角度来投票，”他补充道。“首先，也是最重要的，他们是经济上的、有抱负的中产阶级选民，绝大多数人都是出于经济考虑投票的。”
距离中期选举还有一年多的时间，两党仍有很多工作要做。随着德克萨斯州和其他潜在的州改变他们的地图以最大化党派利益，共和党人和民主党人正在加倍努力，以确定能够在他们的选区进行竞争性本地化竞选的候选人。
特朗普的支持率已经下降到37%，是他任期内的最低水平，根据盖洛普的调查这个月，他在对一系列国内问题的处理上失去了支持，但对于操作人员和立法者来说，现在说环境是否会打破民主党的方式还为时过早。
一名国会议员本周表示:“我想我的许多民主党同僚都认为这将是一个波动年。”。"对我来说，那还没有得到证实。"
无论如何，如果德克萨斯州的地图获得批准，共和党人将拥有一个更大的堡垒来应对潜在的中期浪潮——只要他们能够保持2024年的联盟。
GOP success with new Texas House map could hinge on Latino voters: ANALYSIS
With encouragement from President Donald Trump and the White House, Texas Republicans are redrawing their congressional map tocreate five new districtsthe GOP could flip next year, in a bid to insulate their House majority.
But that outcome could hinge on Latino voters, and whether Trump's reshaping of the Hispanic electorate in 2024 carries into the next election cycle.
Last November, Trump carried 48% of Hispanic voters, setting a high-water mark for a Republican presidential ticket that also won the popular vote. Trump's 2024 showing was 12 points better than 2020, when he lost Hispanic voters 61% to 36% to former President Joe Biden, according to polling by the Pew Research Center.
Four of the new Texas seats would be majority-Hispanic districts, adding one more to the state's total.
Two of those seats are in South Texas, and represented by Democratic Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, who both narrowly won reelection in 2024. Both districts, which Trump carried in 2024, would become more Republican under the redrawn district lines.
For conservatives, some experts say the 2024 election represented a paradigm shift, and a fundamental realignment of Latino voters towards the Republican Party, and its positions on the economy, immigration and culture."It's been both an embrace of the alignment of the Republican Party and a rejection of how different they are with what the Democratic Party has been trying to push on them," said Daniel Garza, the president of the Libre Initiative, a group in the Koch family's conservative political network that focuses on Hispanic outreach.
Democrats concede that the new map does create challenges for them. But they point to historical trends that show midterm voters traditionally rejecting the party in power -- and an electorate showing frustration with Trump's tariff policies and the state of the economy.
Matt Barreto, a Democratic pollster who worked for the Biden and Harris campaigns, has analyzed Texas voting data from every election cycle since 2016, testifying in the federal trial challenging Texas' existing map based on the 2020 census.
"There was a Trump-only effect with Hispanics in 2020 and 2024, and it is the case that he improved his standing [in both cycles]," Barreto told ABC News. "It was not transferred to other Republican candidates on the ballot."
Barreto said that Republicans did not see the same gains with Latino voters in 2018, when Trump was not on the ballot, and Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke lost to Sen. Ted Cruz by less than 3 percentage points – the tightest Senate margin in Texas in decades.
In fact, one of the new districts proposed by Republicans in Texas this week would have voted for O'Rourke,according to an analysis from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
"We're already going into a midterm where Republicans will be facing brutal headwinds over inflation, tariffs, Medicaid cuts and ICE raids," Barreto said. "It is extremely risky for Texas Republicans to assume that in a midterm election when Trump is not on ballot and there is an anti-incumbent mood, that they are going to come anywhere close to Trump 2024 numbers."
Garza, who lives in South Texas, suggested that Trump's immigration and deportation agenda would not hurt him next November.
"Latinos, we feel you can do both. You can do border security and we can expand legal channels. Where's that person, where's that party? Nowhere to be found," he said. "So they're going to stick with Trump because they'd rather have this than what you offered under Biden."
Mike Madrid, a Republican political operative who wrote a book on Latino voters and co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, told ABC News that Latino voters have made a "rightward shift" away from the Democratic Party because of concerns about the economy.
"There has been a rightward shift. There's no question about that. But is it a racial realignment?" he said. "This is an emergence of an entirely different vote. Most of these Latinos that are showing these more pro-Republican propensities are under the age of 30. There isn't even a vote history long enough to suggest that something is realigning."
"They're not going to vote through a traditional racial and ethnic lens," he added. "First and foremost, they're an economic, aspirational middle-class voter that is voting overwhelmingly on economic concerns."
Texas State Representatives conduct a committee meeting on August 01, 2025 in Austin, Texas. The House Select committee on Congressional Redistricting holds its first hearing since Texas
Both parties will still have their work cut out for them, more than a year out from the midterms. And with Texas, and potentially other states, changing their maps to maximize partisan gains, Republicans and Democrats are redoubling efforts to identify candidates that can run competitive localized races in their districts.
Trump's approval rating has dropped to 37%, the lowest of his term,according to Gallup, and he's lost ground this month in approval of his handling of a range of domestic issues, but it's too early for operatives and lawmakers to say if the environment will break Democrats' way.
"I think a lot of my fellow Democrats think this is going to be a wave year," one member of Congress said this week. "That, to me, has not borne out yet."
Whichever way it breaks, if the maps in Texas are approved, Republicans will have a larger bulwark against a potential midterm tide -- as long as they can keep their 2024 coalition engaged.
