President Donald Trump’s plan to redraw Texas’ congressional maps would bring major changes to Bexar County’s five-member congressional delegation, likely leaving one of the state’s last blue strongholds with more Republican representatives than Democrats.

Currently three Democrats and two Republicans represent parts of Bexar County, which gave Kamala Harris 55% of its vote in 2024.

Under Republicans’ proposed map, that would change to one safe Democratic seat, two overwhelmingly GOP seats, and one new district that Republicans hope they could win. 

The fifth existing seat, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo)’s 28th Congressional District, would no longer include Bexar County, and it would also become an easier target for Republicans.

“Republicans are trying to manufacture a narrative that South Texas is a Republican region, and the only way you can manipulate a map like that is to really disenfranchise minorities in San Antonio,” said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio), one of the Democratic state lawmakers currently holed up in Illinois to deny Texas Republicans the quorum they need to approve the new map.

San Antonio’s two existing Republican congressmen, U.S. Reps. Chip Roy (R-Dripping Springs) in Texas’ 21st Congressional District, and Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) in Texas’ 23rd Congressional Districts, wouldn’t see much change much under the new maps.

But Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar’s deep blue 35th Congressional District, which stretches from Austin to downtown San Antonio, would be completely reshaped into the new GOP pickup opportunity located far from Casar’s home in Austin. 

Members of Congress don’t have to live in their districts, but Casar, a rising progressive star, would likely be left competing with fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett over an entirely Austin-centric district instead.

The new 35th Congressional District would start in San Antonio and stretch southeast to include Guadalupe, Karnes and Wilson counties, which all supported Trump by wide margins in 2024.

Still Republicans have yet to line up a standard-bearer for a district that would have voted for Trump by 10 percentage points in 2024, but still isn’t considered safely red.

This week Bexar GOP Vice Chair Kyle Sinclair, who lives in Alamo Ranch on the Northwest side, told the San Antonio Report that he’s interested in running in the new district even though he doesn’t live there.

He ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) in Texas’ deep blue 20th Congressional District in 2022.

“I live in close proximity [to the proposed new 35th Congressional District], and a Republican that votes the way that the people there want, I think, should do it,” Sinclair said, pointing to the gains Trump made in all four counties in 2024.

“If Greg [Casar] wants to run and represent the liberal socialist wing of the Democratic Party in Austin, then he’s going to have to run for Texas’ 37th,” he continued. “Because [voters in] Texas’ 35th will — as they have done — vote conservative.”

Under the new maps, Bexar County’s last remaining safe blue seat — Castro’s 20th Congressional District — would consolidate most of north central San Antonio into a single district. 

Castro also has bigger ambitions with the Democratic Party, and said that Republicans intentionally drew his home out of the district by about a half mile.

“My office got a call from the Texas Legislative Council shortly before we saw those first maps, and they asked me to verify my home address,” Castro told Texas Public Radio. “And then when I saw the map, my home was about a half mile outside of the boundary for the 20th Congressional District that I now represent.”

Despite the big changes, no public hearings were scheduled in San Antonio, as they were in other cities where districts are poised to undergo major shifts.

“I can’t think of any other region in the state that has been impacted as bad as San Antonio, and did not have an opportunity for citizens to come forward and express their views,” Martinez Fischer said.

The map must still be approved the legislature, which is currently in recess while Democrats left the state to withhold quorum and Republicans consider various options to force them back.

It will inevitably be subject to legal challenges.