Texas's population boom should be a boon to Democrats. But Republicans are reaping the gains (WP)

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/10/texas-population-boom-benefits-politics/

Texas’s population boom should be a boon to Democrats. But Republicans are reaping the gains.
Redistricting by the Republican-controlled legislature could help flip the House back to the GOP in next year’s midterm elections
By Arelis R. Hernández and Griff Witte
May 10, 2021 at 4:22 p.m. CDT

SAN MARCOS, Tex. — In a fast-growing city in a fast-growing state, Yvonne Flores-Cale is typical of the population surge that is transforming Texas.

The native Midwesterner is relatively young, Hispanic and politically left of center. She has lived in Kyle — a booming suburb just south of Austin, on the edge of Texas’s famed Hill Country — only for a decade but has watched as the surrounding county has morphed from red to purple to a pale shade of blue. ...

Yet the change coming to Texas is, for now, likely to be the opposite of what one might expect. The state’s growth — fueled overwhelmingly by people of color in its largest cities and their close-in suburbs — should be cause for celebration among Democrats.

But because of the way the GOP-controlled legislature is expected to redraw congressional districts, this growth is predicted to be a boon for Republicans instead. When coupled with new lines in states such as Florida and Georgia, it might even be enough to flip control of the House in next year’s midterm elections.

“Gerrymandering is an easy road map to a Republican majority,” said Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. “They have a lot of incentive to be very aggressive.”