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WASHINGTON A year before the polls open in the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans are already poised to flip at least five seats in the closely divided House thanks to redrawn district maps that are more distorted, more disjointed and more gerrymandered than any since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.

The rapidly forming congressional map, a quarter of which has taken shape as districts are redrawn this year, represents an even more extreme warping of American political architecture, with state legislators in many places moving aggressively to cement their partisan dominance.

The flood of gerrymandering, carried out by both parties but predominantly by Republicans, is likely to leave the country ever more divided by further eroding competitive elections and making representatives more beholden to their partys base.

At the same time, Republicans upper hand in the redistricting process, combined with plunging approval ratings for President Biden and the Democratic Party, provides the party with what could be a nearly insurmountable advantage in the 2022 midterm elections and the next decade of House races.

The floor for Republicans has been raised, Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of House Republicans campaign committee, said in an interview. Our incumbents actually are getting stronger districts.

Congressional maps serve, perhaps more than ever before, as a predictor of which party will control the House of Representatives, where Democrats now hold 221 seats to Republicans 213. In the 12 states that have completed the mapping process, Republicans have gained an advantage for seats in Iowa, North Carolina, Texas and Montana, and Democrats have lost the advantage in districts in North Carolina and Iowa.

All told, Republicans have added a net of five seats that the party can expect to hold while Democrats are down one. Republicans need to flip just five Democratic-held seats next year to seize a House majority.

Theyre really taking a whack at competition, said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice. The path back to a majority for Democrats if they lose in 2022 has to run through states like Texas, and theyre just taking that off the table.

Competition in House races has decreased for years. In 2020, The New York Times considered just 61 of the 435 House elections to be battleground contests. The trend is starkest in places like Texas, where 14 congressional districts in 2020 had a presidential vote that was separated by 10 percentage points or less. With the states new maps, only three are projected to be decided by a similar margin.

Redistricting, which happens every 10 years, began late this summer after states received the much-delayed results of the 2020 census. The process will continue, state by state, through the winter and spring and is to be completed before the primary contests for next years midterm elections.

In most states, the map drawing is controlled by state legislators, who often resort to far-reaching gerrymanders. Republicans have control over the redistricting process in states that represent 187 congressional seats, compared with just 75 for Democrats. The rest are to be drawn by outside panels or are in states where the two parties must agree on maps or have them decided by the courts.

Gerrymandering is carried out in many ways, but the two most common forms are cracking and packing. Cracking is when mapmakers spread a cluster of a certain type of voters for example, those affiliated with the opposing party among several districts to dilute their vote. Packing is when members of a demographic group, like Black voters, or voters in the opposing political party, are crammed into as few districts as possible.

The Republican gains this year build on what was already a significant cartographic advantage. The existing maps were heavily gerrymandered by statehouse Republicans after the G.O.P.s wave election in 2010, in a rapid escalation of the congressional map-drawing wars. This year, both parties are starting from a highly contorted map amid a zero-sum political environment. With advancements in both voter data and software, they have been able to take a more surgical approach to the process.

Republicans are cautious about doing a premature victory lap in case the countrys political mood shifts again over the next year. Democrats believe that while keeping their House majority will be an uphill battle, they have a stronger chance of maintaining control in the Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris currently breaks a 50-50 tie.

Republicans also argue that there could in fact be many newly competitive House districts if Mr. Bidens approval ratings remain in the doldrums and voters replicate the G.O.P.s successes in elections this month.

Democrats, without much to brag about, accuse Republicans of being afraid of competitive elections.

Fear is driving all of this, David Pepper, a former Ohio Democratic Party chairman, said on Wednesday at a hearing to discuss a proposed map that would give Republicans 13 of the states 15 congressional seats. Fear of what would happen if we actually had a real democracy.

More districts are certain to shift from Democratic to Republican in the coming weeks. Republican lawmakers in Georgia and Florida will soon begin debating new maps.

Several other states have completed maps for the 2020s that entrench existing Republican advantages. Republicans in Alabama and Indiana shored up G.O.P.-held congressional districts while packing their states pockets of Democrats into uncompetitive enclaves. In Utah, a new map eliminates a competitive district in Salt Lake City that Democrats won in 2018. Republicans have made an Oklahoma City seat much safer, while Colorados independent redistricting commission shored up the district of Representative Lauren Boebert, a Republican and Trump ally, so much that her leading Democratic opponent, who had raised $1.9 million, dropped out of the contest to defeat her.

And in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a map that protects the states 23 Republican incumbents while adding two safely red seats, a year after the party spent $22 million to protect vulnerable House members.

The competitive Republican seats are off the board, said Adam Kincaid, the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, the partys clearinghouse for designing new maps.

In one of the few states where Democrats are on offense, Illinois will eliminate two Republican seats from its delegation and add one Democratic one when Gov. J.B. Pritzker signs the map that the states Democratic-controlled Legislature approved last month. New York is likely to add seats to the Democratic column once the partys lawmakers complete maps next year, and Maryland Democrats may draw their states lone Republican congressman out of a district.

Democrats in Nebraska also managed to preserve a competitive district that includes Omaha after initial Republican proposals sought to split the city in two.

Calling the Republican moves an unprecedented power grab, Kelly Burton, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said that the G.O.P. was not successfully taking over the battleground but instead proactively and intentionally trying to remove competitive seats.

Several other states where Republicans drew advantageous districts for themselves a decade ago will now have outside commissions or courts determining their maps.

What is redistricting? Its the redrawing of the boundariesof congressional and state legislative districts. It happens every 10 years, after the census, to reflect changes in population.

How does it work? The census dictates how many seats in Congress each state will get. Mapmakers then work to ensure that a states districts all have roughly the same number of residents, to ensure equal representation in the House.

Who draws the new maps? Each state has its own process. Eleven states leave the mapmaking to an outside panel. But most 39 states have state lawmakers draw the new maps for Congress.

If state legislators can draw their own districts, wont they be biased? Yes. Partisan mapmakers often move district lines subtly or egregiously to cluster voters ina way that advances a political goal. This is called gerrymandering.

Is gerrymandering legal? Yes and no. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruledthat the federal courts have no role to play in blocking partisan gerrymanders. However, the court left intact parts of the Voting Rights Act that prohibit racial or ethnic gerrymandering.

Wisconsin Republicans on Thursday passed a congressional map that would shift a Democratic seat to certain Republican control, though Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, promised to veto it. Michigan and Virginia, which had gerrymandered districts, have adopted outside commissions to draw new lines. Pennsylvania has a Democratic governor certain to veto Republican maps.

And its not clear what Californias independent commission will do when it completes the states process later this year.

Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chairman of House Democrats campaign arm, said the party still had a path to hold its majority.

Weve got a battlefield that we can win on; I think we are very much in the fight, he said in an interview. No one is declaring victory just yet.

Still, Republicans have far more opportunities to press their advantage. G.O.P. lawmakers in New Hampshire proposed changing a congressional map largely unaltered since the 1800s to create a Republican seat. In Georgia, Republicans are set to place Representatives Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux, Democrats who hold seats in Atlantas booming northern suburbs, into a single Democratic district while forming a new Republican seat.

Officials in both parties are preparing for years of legal fights over the maps, with the potential for courts to order the redrawing of maps well into the decade. Lawsuits have already been filed over maps in Oregon, Alabama, North Carolina and Texas.

But the legal landscape has shifted since the last redistricting cycle: The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts were not the venue to bring lawsuits regarding partisan gerrymandering. (Lawsuits claiming racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act are still an option.)

This is always in every decade a very accelerated process in the courts, but it is even more so this year because of the four months that were lost because of the delayed release, said Thomas A. Saenz, the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a group involved in multiple redistricting lawsuits. The question is, will the courts run out of time and allow even maps that are legally flawed to be used for one election cycle in 2022?

Among the states with completed maps, nowhere more than North Carolina represents the vigorous Republican effort to tilt the scales of redistricting in the partys favor.

Republicans who control the Legislature in North Carolina, the only state forced by courts to completely redraw its congressional maps twice since 2011 for obvious partisan gerrymandering, this month approved highly gerrymandered districts that essentially revert the state to a map similar to the ones thrown out by the courts.

The map Republicans passed gives the G.O.P. an advantage in 10 of the states 14 congressional districts, despite a near 50-50 split in the statewide popular vote for president in 2020. Former President Donald J. Trump carried the state by 1.3 percentage points. (The current congressional breakdown is eight Republicans and five Democrats, the result of a court-ordered redrawing of the map for the 2020 election.)

The map packs Democrats into three heavily blue districts around Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte, as well as one competitive district in the northeast with a significant Black voting population that would put a Black congressman, G.K. Butterfield, in danger of losing his seat.

Republicans in the state argued that their redistricting process had been race blind because they drew maps without looking at demographic data. But the result, critics say, was even worse.

To pretend to be race-neutral and then draw these districts that are so harmful to Black voters flies in the face of why we even have federal law, said Allison Riggs, an executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which is suing the state. The process is so broken.

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How Republicans Have an Edge in the Emerging 2022 Congressional Maps - The New York Times

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After nearly a year of planning and months of negotiations with Congress, President Joe Biden is signing his landmark $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law Monday.

He will be joined by several Republican lawmakers, as well, in a rare showing of bipartisanship at a signing ceremony. GOP Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia are expected to be in attendance.

The bill will inject $550 billion of new funds into transportation, broadband and utilities over the next five years. It also represents one half of Biden's domestic agenda, and opens the gate to passage of the second half, a $1.75 trillion social spending and climate change bill.

Biden's signature on the bill Monday follows years of failed efforts in Washington to pass legislation to overhaul physical infrastructure, improvements that advocates have said will boost the economy and create jobs.

The legislation will put $110 billion into roads, bridges and other major projects. It will invest $66 billion in freight and passenger rail, including potential upgrades to Amtrak. It will direct $39 billion into public transit systems.

The plan will put $65 billion into expanding broadband, a priority after thecoronavirus pandemicleft millions of Americans at home without effective internet access. It will also put $55 billion into improving water systems and replacing lead pipes.

Funding will go out over a five-year period, but it could take months or years for many major projects to start.

The bill passed the House shortly after 11:00 p.m. on Nov. 5, following weeks of wrangling between the progressive and centrist planks of the Democratic party.

Here is the list of speakers, according to the White House:

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Watch live: Biden signs infrastructure bill with several key Republicans in attendance - CNBC

Congressional Republicans warn that inflation is having a disproportionate effect on low-income Americans, as they continue to sound the alarm about rising prices as Democrats look to pass a social spending package along party lines.

GOP lawmakers on the Joint Economic Committee released an analysis on Monday to illustrate that inflation is especially harmful for poor and middle-class Americans.

The analysis cited global polling from World Bank and International Monetary Fund researchers, which found that individuals who label themselves as very poor have a 10.5 percent higher chance of pointing to inflation as a top national concern, compared to individuals who consider themselves to be rich.

The analysis also cited research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which says that inflation decreases lifetime consumption opportunities for poor individuals at a higher ratethan wealthier people.

Additionally, the Republicans pointed to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which pointed to gas prices as the main driver behind why rich and poor individuals feel the effects of inflation differently.

Inflation reduces poor Americans quality of life, and rising gas prices specifically increase the cost of living for poor Americans living in rural areas much more than for richer Americans, wrote Jackie Benson, a senior economist who works for the GOP members on the committee.

The GOP-led analysis comes after the Labor Department released new data last weekshowingannual inflation at a 30-year high. The numbers sent alarm bells throughout the country, as Americans continue to grapple with spending more at gas pumps and in grocery stores.

But lawmakers disagree over where to place the blame for the spiking inflation numbers.

Democrats say the bottlenecks in the countrys supply chains due to COVID-19 are causing the rising prices, in addition to the rapid recovery following a reduction in spending amid the pandemic. Republicans believe it is a result of the increase in government spending spearheaded by the White House.

Benson wrote in the GOP analysis that while inflation is a defining piece of the post-COVID economic recovery, it has an outsized effect on poor Americans.

While some argue that there should be no concern over todays rising prices because they are simply the consequence of a strong economic rebound, the evidence suggests that inflation is depressing economic growth and harming poor Americans the most, she added.

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Republicans say inflation hurting low-income Americans the most | TheHill - The Hill

A group of Senate Republicans is pushing their colleagues to withhold support for bipartisan annual spending legislation if it does not include funding for the border wall,a signature project of former President TrumpDonald TrumpHouse Freedom Caucus elects Rep. Scott Perry as new chairman Meadows 'between a rock and a hard space' with Trump, Jan. 6 panel On The Money Biden caps off infrastructure week MORE's for which Democrats hope to rescind funding.

In a Monday letter, GOP Sens. Mike BraunMichael BraunOn The Money Biden caps off infrastructure week Senate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding Time for a national strategy on food MORE (Ind.), Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzOn The Money Biden caps off infrastructure week Senate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding Democrats face steep climb in Texas as O'Rourke mounts governor bid MORE (Texas), Mike LeeMichael (Mike) Shumway LeeOn The Money Biden caps off infrastructure week Senate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding US added 531,000 jobs in October as delta eased MORE (Utah), Cynthia LummisCynthia Marie LummisOn The Money Biden caps off infrastructure week Senate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding Senate Republicans raise concerns about TSA cyber directives for rail, aviation MORE (Wyo.) and Marco RubioMarco Antonio RubioOn The Money Biden caps off infrastructure week Senate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding Hillicon Valley Biden signs telecom security bill MORE (Fla.) vowed not to back the appropriations legislation ifdollarsare not set aside for the wall.

Last month, Senate Democrats unveiled legislation seeking to rescind $1.9 billion in border wall funding from previous years. Democrats say the funding would be directed toward bolstering border security technology, among other measures.

They also said the funding would also be used for repair damage to the environment due toconstruction of the barrier.

President BidenJoe BidenBiden restates commitment to 'one China' policy on Taiwan in call with Xi Biden raises human rights with China's Xi during four hour meeting Biden, Xi hold 'candid' discussion amid high tensions MOREs budget for fiscal 2022, unveiled earlier this year, also called for funding for the border wall to end.

The group ofGOP senators panned the legislation as partisan," saying it fails to provide border agents with the proper security infrastructure necessary to defend America's southern border from the continued crisis of unrestrained illegal migration.

Republicansclaimed the proposed legislation would also cut funding to the U.S. Border Patrols budget from the previous years spending levels and give the Biden administration authority to remove portions of the wall that were erected in the past.

The continuation of border security funding, particularly continued funding for physical barrier construction, remains necessary during the continued immigration crisis, they wrote.

As such, and in the defense of our nation, we will not offer support for any fiscal year 2022 omnibus agreement that omits this funding or authorizes the administration to remove previously constructed border security measures,theyadded.

The joint letter signals another challenge for Democrats as they work to resume stalled negotiations on the annual spending bills, which will require at least 60 votes in the evenly split upper chamber for passage.

As government funding for fiscal 2021 was set to expire at the end of September, Congress passed a stopgap bill in the eleventh hour to buy time for negotiations.

The legislation allows the government to remain funded into early December. Congress is expected to pass another continuing resolution (CR) in the next few weeks to avoid a shutdown as both sides of the aisle have failed to reach an agreement on defensefunding and an overall top line for spending.

Earlier this month, Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Richard ShelbyRichard Craig ShelbySenate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding Congress barrels toward end-of-year pileup White House puts pressure on Congress to pass bipartisan government funding bills MORE (R-Ala.) floated the possibility of a yearlong CR if lawmakers arent able to find common ground on spending.

If theres no progress then we could be headed for a yearly CR. A lot of people would like that, he told reporters then.

But congressional Democrats have pushed back on that possibility, as has the White House, which said last week thatmembers must reach a bipartisan deal on full-year appropriations bills for fiscal 2022 in the weeks ahead.

Senate Majority Leader Charles SchumerChuck SchumerChristie: Trump rhetoric about stolen election led to Jan. 6 attack Senate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding Schumer presses Biden to tap oil reserves to lower gas prices MORE (D-N.Y.) expressed hope in a Dear Colleague letter on Sunday about chances lawmakers would reach a deal soon on spending.

I am hopeful that we can reach an agreement soon so that the Committees can finalize their bills and we can consider a FY2022 Omnibus bill later this year, Schumer said.

However, it is likely that we will need to process a Continuing Resolution before December 3rd to give our Appropriators more time to finish their work, he added.

Continued here:
Senate Republicans call on colleagues to reject government spending bills without border wall funding | TheHill - The Hill

The 2022 elections have officially begun.

Comal and Guadalupe county candidates on Saturday began filing the necessary paperwork with Republican and Democratic county party chairs for offices in the March 1, 2022 primary elections.

Because most offices up for election in both counties are held by Republicans many of whom wont be opposed in either the primary or the Nov. 8 general election, expect little movement until the month-long filing period ends at 6 p.m. Dec. 13.

However, dozens of candidates for statewide offices declared their intent to run long before Saturday.

Democrats hopes to turn Texas blue next year were dashed by a colossal Republican blowout on Nov. 2. Neither of Texas two U.S. Senate seats is on the ballot in 2022, but 14 state offices are including the top two positions.

Despite being flush with cash and determination, Democratic candidates in statewide and local races were met by Republican voters stubbornly determined to not cede power.

Gov. Greg Abbott, facing re-election himself in 2022, wasted no time in taking to Twitter to talk about the Democrats and their failed efforts.

Groundhog Day here in Texas: Biggest red state stays red, Abbott tweeted. Texas Democrats have gone 26 years without winning a statewide race. That is the longest losing streak of its kind in America. Texans appear to like it that way!

All Democratic and Republican candidates must pay filing fees of $3,750 or submit petitions with 1,750 or more signatures to appear on the primary ballot. Thirty-two U.S. House seats and 151 state House seats are up for election, as well as half of the states 31 senate seats.

Thanks to redistricting by the 87th Texas Legislature, residents in New Braunfels will select one of four U.S. House races in the 15th, 21st, 28th and 35th districts. In addition, the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state comptroller, agriculture commissioner and land commissioner are on the ballot in statewide races.

Abbott will face several in the Republican primary as he seeks his third term as governor. Former Texas GOP Chairman Allen West and former state Sen. Don Huffines are two of the most prominent primary foes.

On Monday morning, Beto ORourke announced he would be running for the Democratic nod in the governors race.

Democrats have banked on shifting demographics that are making the state younger and more diverse, particularly in the suburbs and major cities. They continue to believe those changes will eventually turn the tide in their favor.

But they have to overcome the tinge of the off-year elections.

U.S. House District 35

Leaving the 35th District is U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, who will instead run in the 37th District, a newly formed U.S. House district that encompasses much of Austin. For Doggett, 75, redistricting is a homecoming. He was originally elected to Congress in 1994 in the then-Austin-based 10th District, which once was represented by Lyndon Baines Johnson.

But Republicans in 2011 split Travis County, a Democratic haven, into six congressional districts and forced Doggett to move into the 35th, which stretches from East Austin to San Antonio.

The opportunity to once again represent the neighborhoods that I grew up in, that Ive lived in and worked in for most of my life in the city that is the only city that Ive ever called home that really is very appealing, Doggett recently told the American-Statesman. Living on I-35 is very unappealing.

The new 35th still runs from eastern Travis County to San Antonio along a narrow strip of Interstate 35. It includes 300,000 residents each in Bexar and Travis counties. In the middle are about 140,000 Hays County voters and 40,000 in Comal County. Its heavily Democratic, nearly 70% Black and Hispanic combined, but two GOP hopefuls are likely to file.

In New Braunfels, District 35 runs right through the eastern fringe of Comal County. It includes Hunter Road to the west then cuts southeast along the I-35 access and main lanes before it slants west along Morningside Drive and County Line Road to the east.

A lot of people who used to be in District 35 on the H-E-B side (of I-35) are now in District 21 but those on the Walmart side are still in 35, was how Comal County Elections Administrator Cynthia Jaqua described it.

Austin Democrats Claudia Zapata and David L. Anderson Jr. announced campaigns for the seat in June. State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, has filed campaign paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. Running is Austin City Council Member Greg Casar, who said hed resign the seat hes held since 2015. Not running is State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, who instead will seek reelection to the Texas House.

U.S. House District 21

Each primary year dozens of state and national candidates declare for positions months before filings begin and spend the months in between testing the fundraising waters through social media. Many of them disappear before filing fees come due.

But District 21 U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, might have some primary opposition this time around as Michael French is seeking the GOP nod against the incumbent. French says he is a member of New Braunfels Conservatives, the Bulverde Spring Branch Conservative Republicans, and GOP connections in Blanco, Travis, Hays and Comal counties.

Scott Sturm, a paramedic from New Braunfels, announced for a House seat in northeast Texas in 2018 but dropped out prior to the deadline. Hes seeking the Democratic nomination in the district, as is Coy Branscum from San Marcos.

Im not getting any younger and though Ive enjoyed working in public service in EMS for the past 20 years I yearn to make a bigger impact, an even more positive impact on this world before I leave it, Sturms campaign website said. I dont have children, yet, but I want to fight and make sure that not only is there a world for them but that its better off than when I got here.

Branscum, from Dripping Springs, is asking for donations and volunteers to share our campaign with anyone who wants to make history, helping to elect the first open gay man to represent Texas in Congress.

Now Ive got a new request. To officially get on the ballot, Ill need to pay a $3,500 filing fee. This is a great example of how the wealthy gate-keep politics to keep average Americans from having a voice in government. If 140 people donate $25, well hit our goal EASY.

Others running include Republican Robert Lowry from San Antonio, and four other Democrats, including Michael Smitty Smith from Blanco.

Guadalupe County

In Guadalupe County, which contains portions of the city of New Braunfels, a new addition is the 28th District, a nine-county district that runs from San Antonio in the north to Laredo and Rio Grande City on the U.S.-Mexico border, covering part or all of Bexar, Guadalupe, Atascosa, McMullen, Webb, Duval, Zapata, Jim Hogg, and Starr counties.

Locally, D28s north boundary borders District 35 along I-35 in central New Braunfels then cuts east and south of Interstate 10 in central Guadalupe County. It parallels I-10 into east San Antonio then winds southwest of District 35 toward the international border.

Henry Cuellar, D-San Antonio, has represented the district since 2005. He is facing two primary challengers from the Democratic progressive wing, and in the general would face one of five now seeking the GOP nomination.

There will also be a change in the 15th Congressional District. U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, will seek reelection in the 34th Congressional District rather than his current 15th, which includes Seguin and the eastern part of Guadalupe County. The district is nicknamed the fajita strip because of its length and narrowness, but perhaps also because of the great Tex-Mex cuisine throughout the district.

Gonzalez has the blessing of the incumbent, retiring U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville.

In 2020 he won reelection by a surprisingly close margin against GOP challenger Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez, who is favored to win the Republican nod over Mauro Garza, a former congressional candidate from the San Antonio area with a home in McAllen, Ryan Krause of New Braunfels, De La Cruzs opponent in the 2020 GOP primary runoff, and two others.

Texas House

and Senate

Texas Senate District 25 now includes most of Comal, Hays and Kendall counties, north San Antonio and northwest Bexar County.

Ten years ago, an upstart named Donna Campbell defeated longtime GOP incumbent senator Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio in the 2012 GOP primary, winning a two-year term. In 2014 she beat former San Antonio city council member Elisa Chan, and Mike Novak, a former Bexar She brushed back primary and general election challenges in 2018 but now appears to have no opposition in a district redrawn more conservative.

District 24 Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, was drawn out of her district and into Campbells after she announced for land commissioner. Democrat Jinny Suh sought the Democratic nod in District 25 but now is also running for land commissioner.

After nearly six years in the Texas House of Representatives, Fredericksburg State Rep. Kyle Biedermann won the District 73 seat in 2016, defeating three-term New Braunfels incumbent Doug Miller in the GOP primary and captured the seat without Democratic opposition in the November general election.

Biedermann announced he would not seek reelection in District 73. His decision came after the first draft of the redistricting map, which separated Gillespie and Kendall counties from Comal County and added the rural portion of Hays County.

Biedermann, 62, who owns the ACE hardware store in Fredericksburg, is now in District 19, but declined a run against former Austin City Council Member Ellen Troxclair and Austin police officer Justin Berry.

Justin Calhoun, a 32-year-old social worker from New Braunfels, announced for the D73 Democratic nomination leaving the three Republicans to duke it out in the primary.

Carrie Issac of Dripping Springs brings a big war chest against two former New Braunfels elected officials, Barron Casteel and George Green. Green, former District 1 council member, announced in September; Casteel, who was New Braunfels mayor from 2014-20 announced after Biedermann departed the race in October.

Biedermann won the District 73 seat in 2016 by defeating three-term New Braunfels incumbent Doug Miller in the GOP primary sans Democratic opposition that November. Miller was asked to support Issac, but is backing Casteel.

I had to tell Carrie that District 73 is a Comal County seat, Miller said. We need to have a Comal County represented and I believe Barron Casteel is the right person for the job.

The last day to register to vote is Monday, Jan. 31; the early voting period begins Monday, Feb. 14 through Friday, Feb. 25. For election information and updated candidate filings, visit the elections link at the Texas Secretary of States website, http://www.sos.state.tx.us.

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Republicans aim to keep their firm hold on Texas - Herald Zeitung