Every ten years Texas undergoes a redistricting process during which the Legislature redraws congressional as well as state legislative districts. Looking at the demographic shifts over the last ten years, the 2021 redistricting process could have a significant impact on the political makeup of the Texas Senate.
Back in 2011, when the last redistricting process took place, the Legislature gave Republicans a significant majority of safely Republican senate districts. Based on geography and population shifts in the last decade where most of the population growth has been in suburban and urban counties, it will be difficult for the Republican majority to carve out districts that are as safely Republican as they were in 2011.
With nearly 29 million residents by the latest count, each state senate district contains almost one million people. While Republicans started the last decade with nearly 20 safely Republican senate districts, that overwhelming majority has dwindled by the 2020 election to just 14 districts where Republicans lead by a double-digit majority.
In November, both Biden and Trump won 15 of the 31 Texas Senate districts each with the last district being decided by less than two points. As the political gravity of the state continues to move toward suburban and urban counties, the Texas senators who have been voting on a very conservative platform no longer match the interests of their districts.
With increasingly diversifying Senate districts, Texas senators will be forced to legislate closer to the makeup of their districts, rather than being pulled ideologically in one direction. Republicans will have to meet their voters in the middle.
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