Doggett bows out after Supreme Court backs GOP redistricting, warning Republicans may have overreached

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, announced he will not seek re-election after the Supreme Court resolution He supported Republicans’ redlining in his district, a decision that symbolized the difficult calculations Democrats face in the Lone Star State amid a new slate of congressional districts.

Despite his personal loss, Doggett, 79, believes Democrats have unique reason for optimism: He believes Republicans have given themselves a soft spot in the redistricting effort by basing their recast action on the results of the last election — and that in doing so they may have spread themselves too thin.

“My general view is cautious optimism that people realize that the midterms were started this summer by Trump when he started the new redistricting process,” Doggett told Fox News Digital on Wednesday morning.

“I think there are a lot of state House seats that have become competitive that may not have been competitive last time,” he said.

Trump angers red state Republicans who are blocking new congressional maps

Rep. Lloyd Doggett speaks as activists protest against mid-decade redistricting at the Texas Capitol in Austin, August 20, 2025. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)

The Supreme Court’s confirmation of the new maps reinforces new political realities in the Lone Star State designed to pressure five Democrats out of office, and raises questions about the legitimacy of the change. Although Doggett’s exit makes a Democratic victory in Texas’s 37th Congressional District unlikely, and has forced other Democrats like Rep. Mark Veasey, D-Texas, to make similar retirement decisions, questions remain about whether these benefits are short-term gains or whether Republicans can reliably expect to benefit from them in the coming years.

The new political landscape — like all gerrymandering efforts — is a feature that will change over time, said Matthew Green, a political science professor at The Catholic University of America.

“Gerrymandering can have different effects in different states over time, but in general, partisan gerrymanders tend to ‘stack the deck’ toward one party or the other,” Green said. “Texas is potentially unpredictable; Latinos are increasingly swing voters, so it’s not clear what the results might be in 2026 and beyond.”

Like Greene, Doggett also pointed to the Latino vote as a particularly big trump card that Texas Republicans will likely have to take into account. He believes Republican redistricting efforts assumed that Texas’ Latino community would continue its rightward trend in recent elections. Latinos make up nearly 40% of the population in Texas, According to the data From the 2020 Census.

“I see incredible participation by people across ethnic and racial lines,” Doggett said. “But given the way Republicans drew these districts, where they said they were essentially mobilizing Hispanics in some areas, I think that could create a problem for them.”

In addition to changing voting patterns among demographics, Doggett noted that Trump’s messaging on immigration may not play as strongly among voters as in 2024.

“They’re fighting the last war, and we’re fighting a war now, where a lot of people realize that Trump’s promises about affordability and the like aren’t working. And so I think the immigration issue is not the kind of hammer that he was able to use last time,” Doggett said.

Republican strategists who responded to those comments said these vulnerabilities are everywhere.

“It’s an interesting way to think about it,” said a strategist familiar with the thinking of Republican candidates in Texas. “The same case could be brought in California or any other state that does redistricting, right? As is generally the case, [the advantages] Temporary, whatever the map.”

Republicans — and Democrats in other states — are all trying to push what advantages they can find as the margin that determines the balance of power on Capitol Hill continues to shrink in recent years, the source said.

“You know, the days of having a House majority of more than 10 are in the rearview mirror. The map is always going to be small, no matter what the redistricting situation is. So redistricting may help people right now, but it’s always a game of inches. So there’s always going to be a small margin no matter which party controls the House,” the strategist said.

The red state is moving forward in a Trump-backed campaign for a new congressional map

Rep. Lloyd Doggett was the first Democrat to call on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. (Getty Images)

Until the Supreme Court decision put the nail in his coffin, Doggett was prepared to continue his public service.

It was initially unclear whether the new maps approved by the Texas Legislature in August would remain in place. Doggett had already announced his intention to retire, but shelved those plans when a lower court froze implementation of the new maps, citing concerns that the new maps were manipulated based on race in her 160-page book. to rule. In her decision In this matter, the Supreme Court wrote that the lower court had unfairly read race-based motivations into the Legislature’s deliberations.

“The district court failed to respect the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the Legislature,” the Supreme Court said.

SCOTUS allows Texas to use congressional redraw map that Trump pushed in favor of Republicans

Representative Lloyd Doggett leaves the House Democratic Caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington on November 17, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Doggett’s departure deprives Democrats of a senior position with deep ties to the region. Any alternative candidate the party may put forward is likely to have a harder time facing a Republican opponent.

Doggett, who was the first Democrat to call on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, last won re-election in 2024 with a 74.2%-23.6% victory over Republican candidate Jenny Garcia Sharon.

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“I greatly appreciate the opportunity to represent our community in public office over the past 50 years — and I appreciate the support and encouragement of my many neighbors as well as people from McAllen to San Antonio, and from San Marcos to La Grange,” Doggett wrote in a news release announcing his retirement.