Dallas County residents, East Texans discuss sharing redrawn congressional districts

With new congressional maps set to take effect this election cycle, voters in Dallas-Fort Worth and rural East Texas will find themselves sharing a U.S. Congressman.

President Donald Trump publicly called for Texas to net Republicans up to five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives through “just a very simple redrawing” in July. Texas House reps responded quickly, approving a controversial redistricting bill by a 87-53 vote during a special session before Gov. Greg Abbott signed the new map into law on Aug. 29.

While it remains unclear whether Republicans will win all five seats, the new congressional map creates several new Republican-leaning districts by splitting traditionally Democratic urban voting blocs among predominantly Republican suburban and rural areas. Texas Democrats have called the new map a gerrymander created to disenfranchise urban and minority voters, with more than 50 state representatives leaving the state in August in an attempt to stall its passage. 

A 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court decision, split on partisan lines, overturned an earlier U.S. District court ruling blocking the map’s implementation later that month. In a scathing 16-page dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race.”

Starting with Texas, the White House and national Republican leaders have launched a rare mid-decade redistricting push as Trump’s approval ratings tank ahead of midterm elections. State legislators have created new congressional maps expected to cost urban Democrats some or all of their few U.S. House seats in Republican-controlled states like Missouri, Florida and Ohio. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee signed a new congressional map into law that divides the state’s lone blue district in majority-Black Memphis among several predominantly rural White districts. The Supreme Court has also taken aim at the Voting Rights Act, emboldening GOP lawmakers.

To protect expected Democratic midterm gains endangered by Trump’s redistricting offensive, solidly blue states have responded in kind, with California and Illinois lawmakers passing maps that pull large swaths of the states’ GOP-voting rural populations into heavily Democratic urban districts. The redistricting in California may net Democrats up to five U.S. House seats, effectively negating GOP gains in Texas.

Amidst the national redistricting struggle, the results on the ground largely look the same for residents in Republican and Democratic states. Oilfield workers and tech executives will vote for the same U.S. House representatives, who will be asked to simultaneously advocate for inner-city transit infrastructure and agricultural subsidies.

North Texas has found itself home to one of the starkest examples of urban voters grouped with heavily Republican rural electorates: Texas’ 32nd Congressional District. At present, the majority-minority district is represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson and lies almost entirely within Dallas County. With the new map taking effect in the current election cycle, parts of the district in East Dallas have been siphoned into Democratic-leaning District 33, where Johnson is locked in a runoff race against Colin Allred. The remainder of Johnson’s constituents now find themselves in an unrecognizable, deep red district that stretches as far as Gilmer in East Texas, a town more than 100 miles away from Dallas with a population just over 5,000, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.

The majority (52%) of the redrawn district’s voting-age population is white, according to the Texas Secretary of State website.

Republican nominee Jace Yarbrough is facing off against Richardson City Council member Dan Barrios in the race to represent District 32. In 2024, voters in the district favored Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by nearly 24 points. Under the new boundaries, voters in District 32 voted for Trump by 18 points in 2024, according to prior reporting by the Texas Tribune.

So, what do voters in the Piney Woods of East Texas and Dallas think of sharing a congressman? Do they have anything in common? We asked four Dallas County residents and four East Texans living in the district’s boundaries. Here’s what they had to say.

‘Representatives are choosing who their voters are.‘

Jose Velasco, 71 | Richardson | Generally Votes Democratic

A U.S. Army veteran, Velasco has lived in Richardson for 27 years and votes regularly. He is a father with four grandchildren, and up until recently, he identified as an independent. His vote has skewed left, he said, as he now feels “I don’t have a choice.”

Velasco is originally from Puerto Rico and is married to a woman from Mexico. For decades, he worked for the National Credit Bureau Administration, which brought him to Richardson. The agency has been hit hard by the administration’s federal spending cuts, with a new proposal seeking to reduce its staffing to less than a third of the pre-Trump workforce.

“Twenty to 25% of the workforce is gone, so there’s no credibility going forward,” Velasco said. “That is not sustainable. That way of governance that I see right now is not sustainable. America will not be the strong voice it is in the world, or even domestically. People just aren’t going to believe anything the government says.”

He said he is especially concerned about the dwindling of U.S. influence overseas and the alienation of traditional allies. In the wake of U.S. tariffs and threats of annexation from top GOP officials, strategic North American allies have increasingly diversified commercial and diplomatic relations. In an April address, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that “many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become weaknesses.”

For Velasco, the redistricting “doesn’t make sense.” He said he doesn’t know much about East Texas, which now represents the majority of his congressional district.

“I don’t go to East Texas, I don’t go down to Balch Springs,” he said. “I think I’ve driven through there a few times; that’s about it. I do believe we should be electing our representatives. These maps show the representatives are choosing who their voters are.”

‘They’re not Austinites‘

Chris Langford, 44 | Gilmer | Identifies as libertarian with conservative values

Like a growing number of Americans, Langford used to follow political news “like a religion” but said he hasn’t in recent years because he feels “it doesn’t matter.” He votes in nearly every election, generally supporting Republican candidates. While he strongly dislikes Kamala Harris, he could not bring himself to vote for Trump, as he feels the president is not a true conservative and “just steps in that box when it’s convenient.”

Langford likes to go on roadtrips with his family and owns a roofing company, where he said he’s “not shooting them like fish in a barrel like I used to.”

“It used to be pretty inflation-free, because it was very much an insurance market, and people didn’t pay for their roofs,” he said. “But the insurance has changed the policies, so it’s turning into a retail market, which this kind of feeds into your thing.”

He is “against all government,” he said, generally favoring the libertarian approach to policy. As opposed to Trump, he said he views Vice President J.D. Vance as a “classier” option, whom he might vote for in a presidential primary.

On the new boundaries, Langford said he hadn’t done much research but feels he does not have much in common with Dallasites, though it could be worse.

“I reckon I probably have more in common with them than voters in California, but, I mean, they’re still Texan, kinda,” Langford said. “They’re not Austinites.”

‘Politicians shouldn’t be choosing for me‘

Kelly Reber, 54 | Richardson | Tries to assess each candidate on their own strengths but generally leans left

Caring for and helping people is a guiding principle for Reber, a Richardson realtor who sent her two kids through public schools. She said she mostly votes for Democratic candidates, as she feels Republican positions are often “selfish.”

Reber especially takes issue with Texas’ taxpayer-funded voucher program, which has been utilized overwhelmingly by families already sending their children to private schools.

“Politicians shouldn’t be choosing for me what I can and can’t do with my body or what decisions I can or can’t make with my children and their schooling,” Reber said. “The vouchers are a good point of that. Don’t take away from public schools that I appreciate and value just because you’re wanting to make it better for the people who have more money and more means — I don’t think it’s just about me and what’s important to me and what matters to me. I think it’s about the greater good.”

She said she does not believe that a congressman can represent rural and urban communities simultaneously under the new map, which, again, she believes is the result of a selfishly partisan endeavor by Republicans.

“This is self-serving, because there’s no way the needs of the people in a bigger, more populated, busier city adjacent to Dallas, or even in Dallas, are the same as those of someone who’s rural,” she said. “The concerns are slightly different, and they’re doing it to quiet some voices that deserve to be heard.”

While some argue that gerrymandered districts lead to decreased voter enthusiasm, Reber wants something different for the new District 32.

“I hope it has the opposite effect,” she said. “I hope people get so annoyed that they will never again not let their vote and their voice be heard. That’s my hope, that this rebounds on them.”

‘One of the big draws to come here was to escape the big city’

Scott Bowman, 53 | Winnsboro | Conservative

After living in Midlothian for 23 years, Bowman and his wife moved to Winnsboro to leave urban life. He is a worship leader at the First Baptist Church and has five children and three grandchildren.

“One of the big draws to come here was to escape the big city,” he said. “I was living in Midlothian with my wife and kids, and commuting to the north side of Dallas — that was taking me a couple of hours in the morning.”

He said his chief values are “God first, family second,” and that he generally has a conservative outlook.

“One of the biggest issues would be abortion,” Bowman said. “I believe in the sanctity of life, and so that would also be fiscally conservative, and those would be some of the biggest issues that would concern me.”

The current political climate in the U.S. is “distressing,” he said, due to escalating rhetoric on both sides, which has led to greater polarization. Bowman has not looked over the new maps much, but said he feels, as someone who has lived in both areas, that Dallas and East Texas aren’t very similar.

“This area would probably be considered much more depressed than those areas, we’re more rural, a lot of farming, and so you don’t have as many upwardly mobile and highly educated individuals in this area,” he said. “That’s not to say that they don’t exist, but it’s a different walk of life, different priorities. They’re not out here running the rat race, and so you won’t have as much of a corporate mentality.”

‘We’re gonna have to wait and see how this goes‘

Janna Castloo, 68 | Mineola, Wood County | Straight-ticket Republican voter

After 30 years of living in South Carolina and Alpine, where her husband worked for the U.S. Border Patrol, Castloo returned to her native Wood County 12 years ago. She is a former travel agent who has remained extremely active in local politics, most recently serving as the president of the Republican Women of Wood County. 

Castloo said she was extremely discontented during the Biden years and is happy with the way Trump’s administration has gone so far. Her values are informed by her Christian beliefs, she said, and she is concerned that the U.S. has distanced itself from religious teachings.

“I do think that getting away from our church is a big issue. I think that this whole thing with immigration, of course, I’m very hard on immigration,” Castloo said. “I think there’s a right way to do it. I’m not for amnesty at all.”

She said she thinks Trump is “America first” and is bringing the country back to the values she believes it was built on.

“I think the bringing back of those values and trying to keep us on a moral track, like you know, with let’s just say the biological sex of people,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m one of those where it’s male or female, that’s it. And so these 32 different things that they’re called, I just don’t believe in that, and so it’s a shame that we have to have bills and things to keep people in the right restrooms.”

In 2025, Texas enacted a new law requiring individuals to use the bathroom corresponding with their assigned sex at birth in governmental buildings, regardless of gender identity. 

On her new co-constituents in Dallas, she said she doesn’t think she has much in common with them in terms of lifestyle, and added that she does not like going into the city because of traffic.

Castloo said she has spoken with the GOP nominee for District 32, who has been endorsed by Trump, and believes he is a “defender of the Constitution.” 

“I guess we’re gonna have to wait and see how this goes. I don’t mind being with other conservative counties,” she said. “Okay, I don’t think that that’s a bad thing, but I think that it really comes down to the needs in the rural areas versus the city needs.”

‘Ashamed to be an American‘

Susan Hubbard, 63 | Richardson | Democratic voter

Susan Hubbard works from home in banking after retiring from Texas Instruments after 30 years. She is a single mother of two adult daughters, one of whom is currently pursuing a doctorate in education.

A primarily Democratic voter, Hubbard said she does not enjoy spending time in rural areas and recalled the racism she faced in East Texas while visiting family in Palestine, a sentiment that she thinks persists into the present day.

She is a strong Trump critic who said his policies have made her “ashamed to be an American.” Among Hubbard’s concerns are the Iran War and the creation of a $1.8 billion compensation fund for Jan. 6 rioters and election deniers that the administration officials say were targeted by government “weaponization and lawfare.”

“He is creating a billion-dollar fund out of our taxes to pay the Jan. 6 people,” Hubbard said. Everybody saw it. There was no question that it was a riot, and I’m gonna be honest with you, had it been Black people up there, they would have picked us off like target practice.”

She said she is upset about the redistricting and feels it will silence minority voices.

“If you have a community that is white Republican, they’re not going to represent the needs of a diverse community,” Hubbard said. “It’s just that simple. There are different needs; they’re not going to represent the needs of a metropolitan space.”

Hubbard is also concerned about the state’s direction, especially with the rise of Christian identity politics, and places much of the blame for the new map on state lawmakers and Abbott.

“I’m ashamed of Texas, too,” she said.

‘Y’all have the city mindset‘

Keaslie Hall, 26 | Gilmer | Democratic-leaning

During the day, Keaslie Hall works with about 80 kids daily as a full-time substitute teacher. She lives in Gilmer now, which she said was driven by job scarcity for her and her husband, with whom she has a 3-year-old son.

Outside of school, Hall enjoys gaming with her husband and going to church. The latter activity has become harder recently, and she blames Republicans. 

“I think that they had a lot of the common man convinced that they were going to fix things, and then they have done the exact opposite,” Hall said. “I mean, you didn’t have to start the war, right? You know it’s making our gas prices go up. My church is in Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh is 20 minutes away. I am now struggling to be able to go to church when I want to.”

Of all the major cities she’s visited, she said her least favorite is Dallas, where she regularly takes her son for doctor visits. She said Dallasites and East Texans won’t be easy to represent concurrently.

“We have completely different issues, like I said, you know, even though y’all are not New Yorkers, y’all have the city mindset,” Hall said. “Everything you need is right there. I don’t have everything I need right where I’m at.”

It’s for those reasons, she said, along with the partisan motivations behind the redistricting, that she views the new map as a gerrymander.

“Texas has almost become a purple state, which is why they’re redistricting,” she said. “It’s gerrymandering. They’re just trying to make sure that we don’t switch to a blue state, because in their eyes, that would be really bad.”

‘Better try to learn to live with it‘

Mitchell Stein, 70 | Dallas | Straight-ticket Democratic voter

When Stein was seven years old, his parents moved the family from a rural area of East Texas near Nacogdoches to Dallas. They left to provide more educational opportunities for their children and landed in Hamilton Park, a master-planned historically Black community. Hamilton Park was built in the mid 1950s as a refuge for Black Dallasites as their communities in South Dallas were terrorized by racial violence, and neighborhoods near Love Field were torn down for runways. He said the difference between rural East Texas, where many areas lacked basic utilities at the time, and Dallas was “night and day.”

Stein is a retired tobacco salesman who has now lived nearly his entire life in the neighborhood. He lives in a house his godmother moved into in March 1956, the same month and year he was born. He said the community has been “my life,” and volunteers at the local elementary school.

Stein is a straight-ticket Democratic voter who said Trump’s election in 2024 has caused him to stray away from national news.

“I used to watch the world news and certain news channels almost religiously every night, and kept up with the politics, but to be honest with you, the results of the last presidential election, it just somewhat, I don’t know how to even describe it,” Stein said. “They just hurt me.”

He said inflation has caused his grocery bills to go up under the current administration, which he said should never have come into power due to the Jan. 6 riot and Trump’s legal record

“It’s just almost sickening, and that’s why I have just refrained from watching the national news, because just every almost seems like almost every day or every week, you just get more and more upsetting news,” he said.

Stein has not studied the congressional map a great deal, although he said he thinks it is “unfair” and is concerned it could lessen minority representation. On that front, however, he doesn’t think he has any alternatives but to get used to it.

“Until some politician or somebody comes through with a plan to change it, or to get it overruled, or get it changed, I’ve just taken a position that I just better try to learn to live with it,” Stein said.