The Texas House of Representatives is holding a public hearing after releasing a new congressional map that could give Republicans a chance to pick up as many as five seats in next year's midterms.

The state's legislature is expected to approve it in the coming days.

And a new Politico report puts it this way.

Quote, the GOP's maps indicate the

party is bullish on Latino voters continuing the rightward political shift even without Trump

atop the ballot. It's a move that doubles down on a strategy Republicans were already

implementing across the country targeting heavily Hispanic House districts. Because there has been this rightward shift in the last three election cycles that we are

undergoing some sort of racial realignment. Most of the data suggests that there's overwhelming

sense amongst this growing Latino vote against both parties, which has been demonstrated for the better part of 15

years. Republicans are thinking that this is somehow a pro-Republican vote. There's no evidence to

suggest that. In 2018, for example, in Trump's first midterm, Beto O'Rourke won three of the five new

congressional districts that they're carving up. And the dynamics of

2018 are going to be probably by a factor of 10 worse for the Republicans heading into

2026. So the idea that we're undergoing a racial realignment really is a misunderstanding of the

underlying data. So help us understand the underlying data.

You've described this as being driven largely by economic concerns, right?

Yeah, and let's keep in mind.

I think conventional wisdom suggests that because of the ice raids

and the overreach of the federal governments during

these crackdowns on the undocumented, that that is somehow driving Latino sentiments downward.

The data, again, suggests that the collapse of Latino support that Trump enjoyed, and again,

it was probably the shortest political honeymoon in history.

...