Texas Redistricting to Accelerate Democrats’ Tilt Left

Besides likely gaining Republicans five new Texas seats in the United States House of Representatives, the Lonestar State’s congressional redistricting is speeding up the evolution of the Democrat Party.

At the end of his term, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, a 78-year-old who became a Texas lawmaker in the 1970s, appears to want to hand over his district to fellow Texas Democrat Rep. Greg Casar, a 36-year-old, “squad”-aligned firebrand.

The Texas state legislature’s redistricting will make it practically impossible for both Doggett and Casar to remain as congressmen in the Austin area.

Losing Doggett and keeping Casar will be a small, but emblematic shift for the Democratic party’s makeup in Washington. For one, it represents a changing of the guard from the generation of former President Joe Biden to the generation of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Secondly, it will mean the loss of the relatively mild-mannered Doggett and the political survival of the pugnacious Casar.

Casar, a former member of the Austin city council, has been a firecracker in Congress, picking fights with individual Republicans and urging a more distant relationship with Israel.

In July, he called Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., “full of s–t” on X for “talking about not wanting to cut Medicaid.”

Casar was also a signatory of a letter to then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken and then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in December 2024, urging them to cease shipping arms to Israel in order to prevent “prolonging [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s war.”

During a May congressional hearing on transgender participation in women’s sports, he lashed out against Republicans, asking, “What the hell are we doing here?” while characterizing the issue as trivial.

Texas’ new congressional map, when signed into law, will move Casar’s now solidly blue Austin area 35th district to the more conservative San Antonio suburbs, a more difficult area for an urban ultraprogressive such as Casar to win. This leaves only one solidly Democrat district in the state capital’s orbit, as opposed to two.

At first, this appeared likely to trigger a fight between Casar and Doggett over a redesigned 37th District. 

But in a statement Thursday, Doggett appeared to hand the torch to Casar.

“If the courts give Trump a victory in his scheme to maintain control of a compliant House, I will not seek reelection in the reconfigured CD37, even though it contains over 2/3rd of my current constituents,” said Doggett.

On Monday, Casar launched his campaign to take over the redrawn Austin-area district.

“Trump and [Texas Gov.] Abbott just rammed through maps designed to kick people like me out of office. They don’t want me in Congress because they don’t want us to be heard,” Casar wrote on X. “But we’re not going anywhere. Today I’m launching my campaign for reelection in the city I love.”

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