Either way, the practical effect is the same: the new lines would even further skew representation away from the actual votes cast, and the brunt of that skew comes at the expense of Black, Latino, and urban voters whose votes get spread thin or corralled into too few districts.

That persistent seat bonus isn’t an accident — it reflects how the district lines were drawn and how Democratic-leaning voters (especially Black and Latino communities in cities and South Texas) are either “packed” into a handful of safe seats or “cracked” across several districts.

* In 2018, when the GOP vote share dipped close to 50 %, they still took 23 seats — 4 or 5 more than the vote would suggest.
* Even after the latest census expansion to 38 seats, the pattern persisted: in 2022–2024 they won about 58 % of the vote but nearly 66 % of the seats.

* Example: in 2020 Republicans got about 53 % of the total vote for House races but 64 % of the seats (23 of 36).

* Across those seven cycles (2012-2024) they’ve usually held 3–5 “extra” seats beyond what a strictly proportional map would give them.

Since 2012, every U S. House election in Texas, Republicans have already consistently come out of Election Day with more seats than their actual share of the statewide vote would normally earn.