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It took the nearly 3 million Hispanics in the Houston metro region decades to finally elect one of their own to Congress in 2018.
And one summer for Gov. Greg Abbott to potentially roll it all back.
When Abbott pushed the Legislature to redraw all of the congressional districts in Texas to boost Republicans' chances of picking up more seats in the 2026 elections, it took a machete to U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia's 29th Congressional District. That now has Garcia in a real primary battle, putting her political career in serious jeopardy on March 3.
While her district is still heavily Democratic, Republicans hacked off heavily Hispanic areas around Houston's East End, Pasadena and Galena Park and replaced them with more high-performing Black voting areas around Acres Home and North Houston. The result is less a Hispanic-leaning district and more of a coalition one where either a Hispanic or Black candidate has a good chance of winning.
While the total population of the 29th remains almost 60% Hispanic compared to 27% Black, the changing voter demographics tell a different story. A Houston Chronicle analysis of eligible voters shows the new district will go from being 64% Hispanic and 18% Black, to 43% Hispanic and 33% Black.
Former state Rep. Jarvis Johnson sees the opening. Johnson has jumped into the race to knock off Garcia. He said it's not personal, but the district now includes areas around Acres Home and North Houston that he represented for 10 years in the Texas House, and before that on the city council.
"I live in this community," Johnson told me during an interview in Acres Home. "I've lived here close to 50 years of my 54 years of life. So the community knows me and I know the community."
For Garcia, it has meant campaigning hard in the Black community and picking up endorsements from Black leaders in Houston and Washington to get her to the finish line. Last week, the Congressional Black Caucus formally endorsed Garcia, praising her work for both "Black and Brown neighborhoods" over her tenure in Congress. And just on Thursday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., made clear he is fully backing Garcia in the primary.
"The Black community has been the backbone of progress in this country and I have made it my mission to ensure that our policies reflect that truth," Garcia said about the Congressional Black Caucus support.
Going in Garcia's favor is the power of incumbency. In 2018, she made history by becoming the first Hispanic to be elected to Congress from Houston. She and U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, were the first Latinas to ever represent Texas in Congress.
But to Johnson, the reconfigured district map is a comeback chance. In 2024, he lost his bid for a state Senate seat by just 62 votes to fellow Democrat Molly Cook. The newly configured 29th Congressional District offers a chance to return to public service.
Johnson said the way he sees it, Republicans tried to eliminate one of the two historically Black Democratic seats from Houston in Congress when they redrew the maps last year (redrawing U.S. Rep. Al Green's district to favor Republicans). But he said if he wins on March 3, he'll be in a position to make sure the area keeps two Black voices in Congress.
"This is an opportunity to pick a seat up so people will not be underrepresented," Johnson said.
Because the new 29th District was drawn by Republicans to favor a Democrat, whoever wins the primary is nearly guaranteed to win the seat in November.
Absentee voting for the March 3 primary is already underway with in-person early voting starting on Feb. 17.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's Up, Who's Down
A daily stock market-style report on key players in Texas politics.
Up: Marc LaHood.
The San Antonio Republican has a major fight on his hands to win a second term in the Texas House of Representatives. Reporter Bayliss Wagner reports that about $3 million has been spent on the race, which has become kind of a proxy war between lawyers and big business. It's become the most expensive statehouse primary race this cycle and even outpaced spending on some statewide and state Senate races. The good news for LaHood is that despite all the spending, he has internal polling showing he is still leading challenger David McArthur sizably.
Down: CAIR.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday moved to shut down the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Texas branch with a lawsuit that seeks to block the advocacy group from owning property in the state or recruiting members. The lawsuit comes amid a heated campaign against Muslim-led groups in the lead-up to this year's midterm elections. State GOP officials have moved to block an Islamic planned community in North Texas, accused CAIR of aiding and abetting terrorism and cut out Islamic private schools from the state's new private school voucher program, even though they were not explicitly prohibited in the law that created it.
What do you think? Hit reply and let me know.
What else is going on in Texas
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Pick of the day
Photo by: Susan Barber
A North Texas shocker has turned Lone Star State politics on its ear. The Austin American-Statesman's John Moritz joins me on this week's Texas Take Podcast to explain the wide ramifications of Democrat Taylor Rehmet's victory from a truly Texas perspective. President Donald Trump quickly distanced himself from the debacle. Plus U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro takes us behind the scenes of his late-night drive to a detention facility to personally escort 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his father to freedom in Minnesota.
What else I'm reading
Wind turbines just east of Waco are about to start getting blown up. It's not an anti-renewable energy push. Instead, Mike Copeland of the Waco Tribune-Herald reports the company who runs the wind farm near Mart, is destroying 100 turbines to replace them with 63 more efficient turbines that can generate the same amount of electricity.
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