How Republican Jace Yarbrough flipped a redrawn Texas district while Democrats gained elsewhere

Texas handed Republicans a bruising night on Tuesday. The state elected its first Democrats to statewide office in 32 years, and Democrats held onto four congressional districts that the legislature had recently redrawn to favour the GOP. Yet in one redrawn district near Dallas, the plan worked.

That district is the 32nd, where Republican Jace Yarbrough defeated Democrat Dan Barrios and took a seat previously held by a Democrat. He won 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent. He is the only Republican this year to flip a Texas congressional seat, despite the push under President Donald Trump to reshape the state's map for the party's benefit.

The map is the main part of the explanation. In August 2025, the Texas legislature voted to reconfigure congressional boundaries, aiming to help Republicans win five additional seats in this year's midterms. The move came at Trump's urging, and he called on Republican-led states across the country to do the same. The 32nd had been made up of left-leaning Dallas and its immediate suburbs. After redrawing, it covers only a portion of Dallas and stretches east into several Republican-dominated counties. The demographics shifted too. In 2024, Latino, Black and Asian residents made up about 60 percent of the district's population. The new map lowered that share and added several predominantly white areas.

Matthew Wilson, a Southern Methodist University professor who lives in the district, credits Yarbrough's campaign as well. A constitutional lawyer who built his career litigating against progressive policies, Yarbrough leaned on social and cultural issues in the primaries. Then, Wilson said, he pivoted quickly to the general election, talking about lowering prices and other concerns of voters in the centre of the electorate. Still, Wilson noted that the race was closer than Yarbrough would have expected, reflecting a fairly uniform Democratic swing across congressional districts.

The result leaves Republicans with 24 Texas representatives when the new term begins in January, one seat fewer than before. Democrats, who will have commanding control of both chambers of Congress, will have 14 House seats filled by Texans.

The four other Democratic-held districts Republicans targeted were swept up in opposition to Trump. In those, the redrawn maps largely miscalculated Latino voters, who make up 40 percent of the state's population and, according to political experts, swung toward Trump in 2024. This year they tilted back toward Democrats with force, driven by affordability worries and dismay over Trump's hardline immigration policies, which disproportionately affect Latino communities. Michael Adams of Texas Southern University pointed to what political scientists call group threat theory: when a group feels threatened, it mobilises, and turnout typically rises.

In Houston's ninth district, the new map cut out some Black communities but kept a large population of low-propensity Latino voters. Democrat Leticia Gutierrez took nearly 58 percent against Republican Alex Mealer. Latinos make up about 60 percent of the district. Gutierrez had told Al Jazeera before the vote that she relied on aggressive Spanish-language outreach, door-knocking and pocketbook messaging, noting that relatives who are registered citizens might not turn out if they did not hear the message in Spanish.

South Texas, where Republicans hoped to pick up the 28th, 34th and 35th districts, followed the same pattern. In the San Antonio suburbs, Democrat Johnny Garcia beat Republican Carlos De La Cruz by more than 10 points. Along the border, incumbent Henry Cuellar won with nearly 66 percent over Tano Tijerina, and in the 34th, Vicente Gonzalez won by more than 15 points over Eric Flores. In another border district, Tejano musician Bobby Pulido, a Democrat, unseated Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz, whose 2022 win had foreshadowed a conservative shift among the state's Latinos.

Trump carried nearly every Latino-dominated border district in 2024, capitalising on unrest over immigration under Joe Biden and on conservative social views among a largely Catholic population. Donato Medina, a 37-year-old voter in McAllen, said before the election that he was not surprised by the 2024 result, but that people were now waking up because the policies affect them directly. Yarbrough's narrow win, in a seat drawn to favour him, is the figure to keep in mind as the next redistricting fights begin.