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By Renzo Downey and The Texas Tribune Politics Team
3 days until election day for the May local elections
27 days until the primary runoffs
188 days until the midterms
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IN TODAY’S BLAST
SCOTUS ruled in Callais. Now what?
A burst of good polls for Talarico
Familiar faces tapped for Texas GOP Convention leadership
SCOTUS RULED IN CALLAIS. NOW WHAT?
At long last, the U.S. Supreme Court has released its decision in Louisiana v. Callais. And while the opinion doesn’t completely gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act like some had expected, the new standard — requiring “a strong inference” that a map was “intentionally” drawn to dilute voting power based on race — was enough for dissenting Justice Elena Kagan to declare Section 2 “all but a dead letter.”
One thing that’s clear: The ruling opens the door to another round of redistricting next year in Texas.
Republicans are already facing pressure to redraw maps beyond the new congressional lines they enacted last summer. State Rep. Todd Hunter, the Corpus Christi Republican who chaired the 2021 redistricting committee and filed the 2025 redistricting bill, has acknowledged the possibility. State Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, previously said it would happen. The Texas GOP has also called for redrawing the state House lines.
Whether the pressure comes from inside the Capitol or from advocates, expect redistricting to be a part of the conversation in 2027 — no matter how Texas Republicans fare in November. Assuming they don’t lose the state House entirely, some in the GOP will want to use their post-Callais latitude to either firm up their control of the chamber or shoot for a supermajority.
Republicans currently control 88 seats in the Texas House. If they reach 100, they could advance constitutional amendments and leverage certain chamber rules, such as adopting amendments on third reading or other squirrelier procedures, without Democratic support. They could also prevent quorum breaks — or advance a constitutional amendment to drop the quorum threshold from two-thirds to a simple majority.
“Securing two-thirds of both chambers and then dropping the two-thirds quorum rule would be perhaps the most impactful change you could ever do in Texas,” one GOP member told The Blast.
A spokesperson for Gov. Greg Abbott called today’s Callais decision “a victory for state sovereignty and a recognition of the inherent equality of all Texans,” without any further comment about the governor’s redistricting intentions. But multiple people suggested back in August that the governor was considering it.
Thirty-one House members penned a letter that month asking Abbott to call a third special session on state House redistricting. In that letter, they told the governor they had understood that this “was already your intention.” Before that, Texas GOP Chair Abraham George suggested to members of the State Republican Executive Committee that Abbott had addressed the possibility during a private meeting.
“We’ve got to get to 100 so that way we don’t have to deal with this every two years, and one way or the other, we’re going to get there,” George said, speaking of the quorum break. “My understanding is there is about 20-plus coalition districts in the Texas House today. It doesn’t have to be, like the governor said this morning. We want to start messaging that it should be redrawn to political districts, not coalition districts.”
For the list of 20-plus seats Republicans could target, look no further than these 22 “coalition districts,” where Black and Hispanic voters combine to form a majority. Advocates of a state House redraw have homed in on those seats, and today’s SCOTUS decision could help pave the way should lawmakers choose to go that route.
Republicans’ current 88 seats plus those 22 seats would get them to 110, well more than the magic number for a supermajority. Drawing up a dummymander-proof map that gives the GOP nearly three-quarters of the state House might be beyond the powers of even the most adept packers and crackers, however.
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A BURST OF GOOD POLLS FOR TALARICO
Back-to-back polls show state Rep. James Talarico beating U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton in potential November matchups. Seven months out from the general, the Austin Democrat has started inching ahead in polling averages of the race.
The first survey dropped yesterday, with Texas Public Opinion Research putting Talarico up 3 points over Cornyn and 5 points over Paxton. While Democrats were energized by the poll, Republicans generally wrote it off for a number of reasons, none more than the fact that the ostensibly nonpartisan outfit is led by Democratic strategist Luke Warford.
The Blast checked in yesterday with multiple GOP insiders who were quick to suggest the poll was skewed toward Democrats, pointing to Warford’s involvement and what one source said was an underweighting of President Donald Trump’s voters by 4 to 5 points. Republicans also posited that the favorable outcome was designed to drive fundraising to Talarico, who is already breaking records in that department.
Then the Texas Politics Project this morning pegged the race at Talarico up 7 over Cornyn and 8 over Paxton, both outside the poll’s margin of error.
UT Austin’s TPP, led by Jim Henson, is far less impeachable than TPOR, with a reputation for reliable polling of the Texas electorate stretching back to 2008. Many who were quick to dismiss the TPOR poll yesterday did not respond to The Blast’s prods today.
Yet, Democratic and Republican consultants alike caution that it is extremely early to read too much into the horse race.
Polls are a snapshot in time, so it could very well be true that Talarico leads both candidates at the moment. But that also means the snapshot is capturing sentiments after Cornyn and Paxton have spent months training their fire on each other through a bitter primary slugfest — and before Republicans have taken aim at Talarico.
One GOP consultant suggested Talarico is currently just an “idea” or a “feeling” to voters right now.
“Wait until tens of millions of dollars are spent defining him,” they said. “That’s when the idea crashes against reality.”
For context, at the same point last cycle, 36% of voters viewed Colin Allred favorably, against just 21% who had an unfavorable view, per TPP’s April 2024 poll. By October, Allred’s favorability rating stood at 38% to 37% — a swing from +15 to +1.
Notably, Talarico did not hit 50% in either poll, meaning there’s still room for undecided voters to break toward the eventual GOP nominee. (That’s another parallel to 2024, by the way. In TPP’s April 2024 survey, 43% were in the “neither/don’t know” camp toward Allred; by October, after months of advertising warfare, that figure had dwindled to just 24%.)
But with Paxton seemingly leading the primary runoff, insiders on both sides are paying attention to the fact that the AG is faring worse than Cornyn in head-to-head hypotheticals against Talarico, albeit narrowly.
“The divide between the Republicans that has continued to show up in the polling pretty consistently for going on six months now I think has to be considered real by this point,” one Democratic operative pointed out.
Another concern for Talarico, as Politico explored this weekend, has been his support among Black voters. Both TPOR and TPP showed Talarico underperforming the top of the 2022 and 2024 tickets by double digits among Black voters.
Seeker Strategies’ Cliff Walker, a Texas Democratic strategist who was quoted in Politico’s story, told The Blast that Talarico still has time to shore up Black support.
“I’ve been around this 20 years,” Walker said. “I think the intentionality of his campaign to reach out to Black voters ranks highest among any I’ve seen at the top of the ticket.”
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FAMILIAR FACES TAPPED FOR TEXAS GOP CONVENTION LEADERSHIP
The Texas GOP announced committee chairs for the party’s state convention in June. A few highlights below:
Former party Chair Matt Rinaldi will oversee the convention’s Rules Committee. Under his leadership, the state party began adopting rules to close its primaries and put teeth behind its censure policies by potentially banning incumbents from the primary ballot.
Tarrant County GOP Chair Tim Davis will chair the convention’s Platform Committee, which helps adopt the party’s wide-ranging platform.
Bergundi Cain, the wife of Deer Park state Rep. Briscoe Cain, will chair the convention’s Organization Committee.
This week:
The House Select Committee on Health Care Affordability will meet at 9 a.m. on Thursday and Friday to hear invited testimony on four interim charges:
Healthcare spending, including the impact of fraud, waste and abuse
Insurance market and costs
Impact of consolidation
Transparency for consumers
Highlights for next week:
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee will meet at 9 a.m. on Monday to consider interim charges on prison security and a review of last year’s laws about AI and child pornography. There will be invited and public testimony on:
The House Human Services Committee will meet at 10 a.m. on Tuesday to conduct agency oversight, review recent laws and consider interim charges, including how to prevent waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and SNAP.
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TX-SEN: 46% of state Rep. James Talarico’s donations came from out of state after Feb. 11, according to a report from OpenSecrets. He raised $27 million in Q1 2026.
TX-SEN cont’d: Talarico said his first bill would be a national ban on gerrymandering.
TX-SEN and TX-23: Attorney General Ken Paxton will be in San Antonio tomorrow with TX-23 GOP nominee Brandon Herrera.
Governor: While the recent Texas Public Opinion Research and Texas Politics Project polls both show Talarico leading his hypothetical matchups, they also had Gov. Greg Abbott beating Talarico’s fellow Austin Democrat, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa. TPOR showed Abbott leading by 5 points, while TPP had him up by 7. That’s still better for Hinojosa than the 10-point gap she had in TPP’s February poll, before she won the Democratic nomination.
TX-09: Winning For Women Action Fund, a super PAC dedicated to electing conservative women, launched a $200,000 ad campaign today in support of Alex Mealer in her GOP primary runoff against state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. — Gabby Birenbaum
TX-33: U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, endorsed former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, in his primary runoff battle against incumbent freshman U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch. Allred, of course, famously gave a fiery endorsement to Crockett back in February, when he ripped Talarico for allegedly calling him a “mediocre Black man.” (Talarico has acknowledged describing Allred’s “method of campaigning” as mediocre but said the rest was a “mischaracterization” and he “would never attack him on the basis of race.”)
IOWA WATCH: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is headed to Clive, Iowa, on Friday for the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual Spring Kickoff. The junior senator, who is reportedly considering another run for president, will be the keynote speaker.
The Mexican American Legislative Caucus will hold its inaugural Skeet Shoot on Saturday in McAllen.
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U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, said she will work to elect like-minded Democrats as she bows out of Congress. She suggested she would use her leadership PAC, the Fueling Individual Rights Everywhere PAC, as the vehicle for her efforts.
Michael Morris, the longtime director of transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, was fired today. Read more from the Fort Worth Report.
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(April 29) Musician Willie Nelson
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