Keyword: Redistricting

Second Reading Podcast: A conversation with Ross Ramsey about the big issues facing Texas

| By: Texas Politics Project

In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson talks with Ross Ramsey about how Texas is tackling the fundamental issues facing the state, and how he's thinking about them as he writes his last set of regular columns as Executive Editor of The Texas Tribune.

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Comparing Trump-Biden Vote Shares in Old and New Texas House Districts

| By: Joshua Blank

As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive legislative races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.

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Comparing Trump-Biden Vote Shares in Old and New Texas Senate Districts

| By: Joshua Blank

As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive legislative races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.

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Comparing Trump-Biden Vote Shares in Old and New Texas Congressional Districts

| By: Joshua Blank

As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive congressional races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.

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Second Reading Podcast: The Texas Legislature will finally take up redistricting next week

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

With the Texas legislature set to return next week to formally take up redistricting, Jim Henson and Joshua Blank talk preview how demographics, geography, and lots of politics will shape the redistricting process in the Capitol.

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Texas Public Opinion and the agenda for the third special session of the Texas Legislature

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation calling for the third special session of the 87th Texas Legislature Tuesday afternoon, adding four items to the agenda in addition to the expected focus on redistricting, and setting September 20 for the legislature’s return. n addition to the Constitutionally mandated drawing of new district maps for the U.S. House of Representatives, the state legislature, and the State Board of Education, Abbott called on the legislature to consider and act on allocating federal COVID relief funds, “disallowing” students from competing in UIL athletics “designated for the sex opposite to the student’s sex at birth,” prohibiting COVID-19 vaccination mandates, and the dog abuse bill that the governor vetoed after the regular session. We’ve compiled results of recent polling to provide the public opinion context for all but one of the issues on the governor’s call. 

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Pragmatic Approach to Changes to the U.S. Census Trumped by Nativist Attitudes in Texas GOP

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

Given the array of attitudes toward immigration and citizenship among the voters who dominate both the selection of GOP statewide candidates as well as the selection of winners in the general election, these elected officials' remain eternally vigilant in their efforts to remain on the right side of the electorate – and each other – on all things related to immigration. The result is that they continue to channel the nativist impulses that course through their base, for better or for worse when it comes to major policy consequences of the Trump Administration's proposed changes to the U.S. Census.

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Taking Texas to Trial: Public Opinion on Texas' High Profile Cases

| By: Joshua Blank and Jim Henson

 When it comes to legal cases in general, and legal rights in particular, it's important to note that public opinion can often act as a poor guide to a just outcome, and in many cases, may have no relevance on particular legal proceedings. With that caveat aside, public opinion is useful in determining how elected officials, including the Attorney General, might react to court decisions, and further, whether the state chooses to push ahead in the legal process in the face of adverse decisions. 

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Race, Ideology and Redistricting

| By: Adam Myers

Which groups in Texas believe most strongly that their members of Congress don't represent people "like them"? Liberal and moderate whites.

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