Texas’ mid-decade redistricting was intended to produce up to five additional Republican congressional seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
But the new map for Waco’s district, Congressional District 17, could make it somewhat easier for Democrats to compete against Republicans.
CD-17 previously extended eastward from Waco, its largest city, to Nacogdoches, taking in a large slice of conservative deep East Texas.
The new district boundaries skew south along the Interstate 35 corridor, taking in Temple and a larger chunk of the fast-growing Williamson County suburbs north of Austin. In general, the district is more compact, encompassing more of the Waco region including rural Bosque County.
A new interactive map created by the Texas Tribune outlines how CD-17’s new boundaries shift the demographics and composition of eligible voters in the district.
Eligible voters in the new map voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by a margin of 60% to 38.4%, compared with 64% to 34.8% under the old map. The tool is based on Texas Legislative Council data.
McLennan County Democratic and Republican leaders, as well as District 17 Congressman Pete Sessions, R-Waco, agreed that the new district configuration could make it more competitive in the long run.
“Without question there has been a change and this change is rather dramatic,” Sessions said Friday. “We go from an east-west district, to a primarily north-south district, and that means that we get to travel up and down I-35 a lot, and I-35 has its complexities.
Sessions was first elected to Congress in 1996 and is serving his third two-year term as District 17 U.S. representative. He defeated Waco Democrat Mark Lorenzen in 2024 with 66.3% of the vote.
His seat is up for election in 2026 under the new maps.
“It’s either really good or really bad,” Sessions said of the new map. “The primary difference is that it moves a preponderance of the people who live in the district to Williamson County.”
He added that he knows Williamson County well and is comfortable communicating with its suburban voters.
Mclennan County Republican Party Chair Chris DeCluitt said it will take time for the new district boundaries to have an effect on elections.
“Right off the bat, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for the Republicans,” he said. “But it could be in the future, because of the Samsung plant down near Taylor, Texas. That population around Hutto and Taylor is expected just to skyrocket, so it depends on the character of the people moving in there.”
Sessions agreed that industry-driven growth north of Austin “will play a key role” in future election cycles, but agreed with DeCluitt that it is unlikely to have a big impact on the 2026 election.
Mark Hays, the McLennan County Democratic Party chair, described Gov. Greg Abbott’s redistricting push as a naked power play. But he expressed optimism about the reshaped district.
“Immediately, when I saw the new map, I was like, ‘This might offer some opportunities,’ ” he said. “The only place where our congressional candidate won in the last election was in those portions that were in Williamson County.”
Hays said the district, now oriented along the I-35 corridor, provided several possible advantages. The Waco area is no longer the most populous in the district, meaning volunteers, funding and organizational know-how can be coordinated among McLennan County Democrats and their well-established counterparts in Bell and Williamson Counties, Hays said.
“It hasn’t really gone beyond the discussing stage, but we want to figure out some way to coordinate our efforts,” he said. “We can approach this with a united front up and down the highway.”
