Trump's Texas-sized redistricting dreams: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we dive into President Donald Trump’s ambitions in Texas, where Republicans are set to redraw their congressional maps. Plus, Steve Kornacki explores the dilemma facing Zohran Mamdani’s opponents in the New York City mayoral race.

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— Adam Wollner

Trump’s Texas-sized redistricting dreams

President Donald Trump is setting a lofty goal for Texas Republicans as they prepare to tackle redrawing their congressional maps: He wants the party to pick up five House seats as a result of the process.

“A very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats,” Trump told reporters.

That could prove to be a tall order, as Republicans already control 25 of Texas’ 38 congressional districts. The specific areas the GOP could target when they take up redistricting in next week’s special legislative session remain unclear. But two of them could be the Democratic-held South Texas districts that Trump won in 2024.

According to an analysis by NBC News’ Decision Desk, Trump carried Rep. Henry Cuellar’s district by 7 points and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez’s district by 4 points last year. Cuellar won his seat by less than 6 points, while Gonzalez won by less than 3 points.

But any effort to place more Republican voters in Democratic districts risks making GOP-controlled districts more competitive. That’s why some House Republicans in Texas have been skeptical of the effort.

Still, Trump pushed Gov. Greg Abbott to forge ahead with an unscheduled, mid-decade redistricting push. It underscores the challenge Republicans face in protecting, much less expanding, their razor-thin House majority next year. As Steve Kornacki recently noted, the president’s party has lost House seats in 13 of the past 15 midterm elections — and in many of those cases, the losses were steep.

Trump downplayed the potential risk of redrawing Texas’ map during a call with House Republicans in the state today, Melanie Zanona reported, assuring members they’d be able succeed in creating several new GOP seats, according to the source on the call. (Punchbowl News was the first to report the call.)

Sen. John Cornyn, who is facing a GOP primary challenge from state Attorney General Ken Paxton, publicly backed the move. In a post on X, he argued that “Hispanic voters in Texas have rapidly shifted in favor of the GOP,” meaning that the redistricting push “will mean significant gains for Texas Republicans.”

Democrats have been eager to engage on the issue. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender, has even floated redrawing his state’s maps to counter the GOP’s efforts in Texas. But that’s also easier said than done: In California, an independent commission controls the redistricting process.

“It’s painfully clear why Republicans are doing this,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They know they are going to lose the majority next year.”

Mamdani’s opponents are locked in a staring contest in NYC

Analysis by Steve Kornacki

Andrew Cuomo’s decision to stay in the race for New York City mayor means there are three major general election alternatives to Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani. They each recognize that the only (arguably) plausible way of knocking off Mamdani is by consolidating opposition to him behind a single opponent.

But when they look at each other, they all think the same thing: Why would I ever drop out for this guy?

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Start with Cuomo. All of the available polling since the June primary has him running ahead of both current Mayor Eric Adams and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in a multicandidate race against Mamdani. This is why Cuomo is calling for Adams and Sliwa to exit the race if they haven’t overtaken him by September.

But everything else about Cuomo’s position screams “weakness.” His 12-point Democratic primary loss to Mamdani amounted to a political humiliation, given that he came to the race as the overwhelming favorite. And while he runs second to Mamdani, Cuomo’s overall support in the available polling is between just 24% and 26%.

Resistance to the former governor, who left office in scandal four years ago, seems to run high. An Emerson College poll this spring gave him a 41-47% favorable/unfavorable mark with all New York City voters. And a survey released Monday by Data for Progress (which has done work for a pro-Mamdani group) pegged it at 39%-59%. At 67, Cuomo’s energy level has also come into question thanks to a limited public schedule and a series of public performances that were derided as listless.

The way Adams and Sliwa see it, Cuomo already had his chance to stop Mamdani, and he demonstrated that he wasn’t up to it. But good luck convincing Cuomo that either of them would fare any better.

As the incumbent, Adams has the ability to make noise and get attention practically at will. And with new numbers showing a decline in violent crime, Adams is trying to convince New Yorkers that he finally has the city pointed in the right direction.

But his liabilities are enormous. Even before his indictment last year on federal corruption charges, Adams was an unpopular mayor. And since the indictment — and maybe even more significantly, since President Donald Trump’s Justice Department dropped the case — the floor has fallen out for Adams. The May Emerson poll put his favorable rating at a mere 19%, compared to 68% unfavorable. None of the post-primary polling has looked any better.

For his part, Sliwa wields a bloc of voters simply by running on the GOP line. Republicans are a decided minority in New York City but still account for a little more than 1 in 10 registered voters. And Sliwa himself is a familiar presence to New Yorkers: He launched the Guardian Angels in the high-crime 1980s and has remained visible in local media ever since. But the limits of his appeal were seemingly made clear four years ago when, as the GOP nominee against Adams, he earned just 28% of the vote and lost by 40 points.

And so Cuomo, Adams and Sliwa find themselves locked in a staring contest. Each has a claim to a chunk of the electorate. Each has a belief that they could beat Mamdani, if only the others would go away. And each has every reason to believe that the others are full of it.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Dylan Ebs.

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