Barack Obama blasts Texas redistricting scheme, urges voters to not ‘lose focus’

“This is a power grab that undermines our democracy,” Obama wrote in a post condemning Texas Republicans.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama spoke out against Texas Republicans’ redistricting plan to give them a leg up in next year’s election, calling it clear gerrymandering and a threat to democracy.

The 44th president of the United States urged voters, “We can’t lose focus on what matters.” In response to the new map redrawn by Texas House Republicans, at the direction of Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott and President Donald Trump, Obama wrote on X, “Right now, Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander district lines to unfairly win five seats in next year’s midterm elections.”

The map, released last week, targets five congressional districts represented by Black and Hispanic members of Congress. The original districts, which were predominantly Black and Brown and leaned Democratic, were redrawn to dilute the populations of color and include more majority white, Republican-leaning voters.

The outcome would give Republicans an advantage in the 2026 midterm elections, which will determine whether Republicans or Democrats hold the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. President Trump urged Republicans in Texas to redraw their state map to give the party an edge.

Congressional districts are supposed to be drawn based on U.S. Census data every ten years, not mid-decade. However, despite most of Texas’s population growth being the result of increased Black and Hispanic populations, the Republican majority did not draw district lines that reflect that.

Obama said of the Texas scheme, “This is a power grab that undermines our democracy.” The former president also shared a post from All On The Line, an advocacy organization combating gerrymandering that he helped launch with his former U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder. The post promotes a sign-up for voters to join a “Texas Action Call” hosted by the National Redistricting Foundation to protest Texas’s map.

While it is all but inevitable Republicans will approve the new map, Texas House Democrats have fled the state in protest, which has stalled the procedure as there are not enough state House members to hold a quorum.

Democrats, legal experts, and civil rights leaders have blasted the redrawn map as blatantly undemocratic and racially discriminatory.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, vowed that Democrats would “respond forcefully, aggressively, and relentlessly.” The party will almost certainly challenge the new map in court.

Meanwhile, Democratic Governors Kathy Hochul of New York and Gavin Newsom of California have already vowed to retaliate by redrawing their state congressional maps to give Democrats more seats in Congress.

“We are finding ourselves with a real, existential threat when you see what’s happening,” said Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and national convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable. She told theGrio, “It’s a real modern-day threat to the structure of the system when you can do that.”

“But what’s different is that there was a call from the president of the United States. That has never happened,” said Campbell. She added, “We don’t know where this is going to end, but it’s almost like there’s a civil war around power.”