No, Texas Republicans did not pass a dummymander

The GOP might fall short of its aim of flipping five Democratic seats, but they haven't jeopardized their own incumbents

Texas’ old congressional map (at left) and its new map, focusing on South Texas (credit: Dave’s Redistricting App)

From the moment Donald Trump first began goading Texas Republicans to further gerrymander their state's already skewed congressional map, Democrats have hoped—and some Republicans have feared—that any such changes might backfire.

Unnamed Republicans expressed such anxieties to the New York Times when the paper first broke the news of Trump's push in early June. And just recently, a conservative writer told MSNBC that more nameless Republicans had informed him that they were "worried [that] instead of gaining five seats, you can have 10 competitive seats and you could end up losing seats."

This sort of predicament has a name. In political parlance, it's known as a "dummymander"—an overly aggressive map that winds up boomeranging on the party it's meant to benefit.

Unfortunately for Democrats—and democracy—the GOP has nothing to worry about.

Yes, Republicans may well fall short of their goal of flipping the five Democratic seats they've set their sights on, for a whole host of reasons.

In a couple of cases, they pulled their punches, making relatively modest adjustments to districts where moderate Democrats have long managed to outperform the national party. There are also signs that Latino voters, who moved sharply in the GOP's direction last year, are now shifting back.

And the Democrat who turned in the best performance in Texas in many years—Beto O'Rourke, during his 2018 run against Sen. Ted Cruz—actually carried three of the targeted districts and came within a whisker in a fourth. Should next year's midterms resemble those during Trump's first term, Republicans in Texas could very well walk away disappointed.

But they haven't done anything to jeopardize the seats they already hold. Their new map isn't a dummymander. It's just a classic gerrymander, taken to the extreme.