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Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to increase the redistricting margin for his party if Democratic state lawmakers don’t return to Austin.
Democrats from the Lone Star state have made national headlines for skipping town and protesting efforts by Abbott and Republicans to redraw the map in order to create five congressional seats for their party in hopes of widening the tight margins in the House of Representatives ahead of the 2026 midterms.
In a preview clip of Friday’s installment of the “Ruthless” podcast, Abbott suggested he might not stop at five seats.
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“What I’m thinking now is that if they don’t start showing up, I may start expanding,” Abbott said. “We may make it six or seven or eight new seats we’re going to be adding on the Republican side.”
“The wall just got ten feet higher,” joked “Ruthless” co-host Josh Holmes.
Abbott is convinced that the battle ends with the Democratic lawmakers coming back to Texas, whether it’s “tomorrow,” “next week” or “next month.”
“They’re going to come back, or we’ll be able to track them down. One way or the other, they’re coming back, and it’s going to end with these maps being passed,” Abbott said.
The Texas governor also touted his ongoing effort to have the Democratic lawmakers removed from office, hoping it would be a deterrent for them trying to pull a similar stunt in the future.
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“How embarrassing is that?” Abbott exclaimed of the Democrats fleeing. “That’s something that school kids do, you know, ‘I’m losing the game! I’m just gonna walk away and leave.’ That’s not the way adults operate. It’s not the way that employees operate. But know this, Texans, that’s the way your Texas Democrats operate, and that’s exactly why more and more Texans are voting Republican than ever before.”
The national debate that has erupted over gerrymandering, Abbott says, has put a spotlight on heavily gerrymandered blue states, including Illinois, which even caught the attention of liberal “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, who poked fun at the “crazy” districts carved out by Illinois Democrats during an exchange with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Pritzker, who has been providing political refuge for the fleeing Texas Democrats, joked that a “kindergarten class” drew Illinois’ redistricting map.
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“Americans have now realized how gerrymandered all these blue states are,” Abbott said. “They now see that map in Illinois, they’ve seen the map in New York, they see that 40% of the people in Massachusetts voted for President Trump, and yet there are zero Republican congressional districts there. Look at what happened in California. The worst examples of gerrymandering are Democrat states. And now Americans have realized that.”
The full interview will be on Friday’s installment of “Ruthless.” Tune in to the “variety program” every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday on all podcast platforms and YouTube.
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