Trump articulates institutional coup in Texas with redesign of the electoral map

“It’s an old trick: if you can’t win a vote, make sure it doesn’t happen.” This is how the New York Timesthe American newspaper, defined the maneuver of the Republican Party.

With the endorsement of President Donald Trump, Texas Republican parliamentarians presented a proposal to redesign state electoral districts in an attempt to expand the most conservative representation in the House of Representatives.

The coup, articulated in partnership with Texan Governor Greg Abbott, provides for changes in five districts currently controlled by Democrats. If approved, the plan can raise from 25 to 30 the number of republican deputies of Texas, reinforcing the majority of the party in Washington on the eve of the 2026 legislative elections.

The extraordinary session for voting on the new map was scheduled for Monday (4), but was suspended for lack of quorum, after dozens of Democratic deputies deliberately leave the state.

The maneuver aimed to prevent the session and block the project. According to New York Timesthe proposal of Republicans mainly affects urban areas with a Democratic majority – such as Houston, Dallas and Austin – as well as regions of the Mexico border, where the Hispanic electorate has grown.

The tactic employed, known as gerrymanderingIt aims to concentrate progressive voters in a few districts and dilute them in others, ensuring structural advantage to conservatives. Although the practice is legal according to the US Supreme Court decision of 2019, it is widely denounced for distorting representativeness.

Democrats’ escape out of state has generated authoritarian reactions from the Texan government and Trump himself. Governor Greg Abbott threatened to arrest and fine the missing parliamentarians and stated that he will revoke his mandates if they do not return until the end of the week.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he will seek court orders to force the appearance. Already Trump indicated that he can trigger the FBI to force the return of the legislators and make the vote possible.

“Maybe you need to send the Federal Police to pick them up,” said the president. The escalation of rhetorical evidences the authoritarian character of the republican offensive, which aims to redesign the electoral map not through political conviction, but by institutional imposition.

In a coordinated reaction, Democratic deputies found shelter in states governed by allies. Illinois governor JB Pritzker received about 30 Texan parliamentarians in Chicago, providing logistical and political support.

During a conference alongside Democratic leaders, Pritzker countered Governor Abbott and his alignment with Trump. “Greg Abbott is a coward,” he said, responding to a provocation of the Republican published on social networks. “They say,” Yes, Lord. Immediately, Lord. Happy to lick his boot, Lord, “Pritzker mocked, describing the submission of Trump’s allies.

The impasse in Texas is only the most visible face of a national strategy articulated by Trumpiso to consolidate Republican rule in Congress before the 2026 legislative elections.

Currently, the House of Representatives has 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats. Four chairs are vacant, and the balance of forces is considered critical.

According to Trump’s allies heard by the Politicothe strategy is “total war, everywhere, all the time.” Texas’s proposal already inspires similar initiatives in conservative states such as Florida, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas and New Hampshire.

Vice President JD Vance would be pressuring on changes in Indiana. The goal is simple: to ensure a structural majority to block democratic projects, prevent investigations against Trump and consolidate a new cycle of legislative domination.

Unlike the Brazilian system, in the United States, federal deputies are elected by geographical district, and not by proportional vote at the state level. This means that border redesign can radically change the result of the elections without any change in the absolute number of votes received by each party.

It is the map that decides who wins, not the electorate itself. The manipulation of this mechanism poses a serious risk to representative democracy. THE gerrymandering Mina the principle of voting equality and allows an organized minority to maintain institutional control.

Trump’s tactics in the US echo attempts seen in Brazil during the Bolsonaro government: attacks on the electoral system, opponent intimidation, attempt to control the rules of the game within the institutions.

By threatening to arrest parliamentarians and trigger the Federal Police to force legislative sessions, Trump and their allies put even the foundations of US liberal democracy.