A proposed redistricting of Texas’ U.S. House of Representative seats would not significantly alter the partisan makeup of El Paso’s primary congressional seat currently held by Democrat Veronica Escobar, but reopens a bitter fight from 2021 over placing Fort Bliss in the district currently represented by Republican Tony Gonzales.
Texas Republicans Wednesday unveiled their plan for a rare mid-decade redistricting pushed by President Donald Trump as part of an effort to preserve a narrow GOP majority in the U.S. House during the 2026 midterm elections. The redistricting effort is being debated in a special session of the Texas Legislature and is subject to changes.
The map redraws boundaries in a way that could yield an additional five more GOP seats in the 38-member Texas House delegation, which currently has 25 Republicans, 12 Democrats and one vacancy in a strongly Democratic district. The Republican gains would come by redrawing district boundaries of seats currently held by Democrats in South Texas, Austin, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The redistricting plan could leave Escobar as the sole Democrat representing part of the Texas-Mexico border, which until 2020 was a longtime Democratic stronghold.
Republicans had considered redrawing the boundaries for seats held by Escobar and Gonzales in an effort to target the four-term Democrat, but the new boundaries don’t significantly alter the partisan balance of El Paso’s two House seats, the 16th and 23rd congressional districts.
But there is a significant change in the makeup of the El Paso boundaries for the two districts. Fort Bliss, which has been included in El Paso’s main House district throughout Texas’ history, would shift entirely to the 23rd Congressional District, which has stretched from the edge of El Paso County to San Antonio.
Early maps in the 2021 redistricting effort also put all of Fort Bliss in the 23rd district, prompting an outcry from a bipartisan group of El Paso civic and business leaders. They said the Army post’s major role in El Paso’s overall economy meant that it should be part of the 16th Congressional District.
In the end, the Texas Legislature included largely unpopulated Fort Bliss rangeland in Gonzales’ district, but put the bulk of the post’s population – known as the cantonment – in Escobar’s district.
The battle led Gonzales to return campaign contributions to some of El Paso’s most prominent Republican donors, who had opposed the efforts to place all of Fort Bliss in his district. Gonzales called for a congressional investigation of El Paso businessman Woody Hunt’s business, Hunt Companies. No such investigation took place.
El Paso’s most prominent GOP donors, including Hunt, largely withheld support from Gonzales in the 2022 election after the redistricting battle. But in 2024, as Gonzales narrowly survived a primary challenge from YouTube influencer Brandon Herrera, El Paso donors gave Gonzales $466,000, campaign finance records showed.
That included $16,500 from Hunt and $36,000 from businessman Paul Foster.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Disclosure: The Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation and Paul Foster Family Foundation are financial supporters of El Paso Matters. Financial supporters play no role in El Paso Matters’ journalism. The news organization’s policy on editorial independence can be found here.
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