Democracy’s a pretty simple concept: Voters vote for a politician, the politician with the most votes wins, and that politician then represents voters as an elected official. That’s the idea anyway, right?

But what if — just what if — instead of voters picking politicians, politicians instead could choose their own voters? And basically guarantee their own outcomes?

That’s what’s at play in Texas. Facing such a situation, Texas Democratic lawmakers fled the state Sunday to block passage of a new congressional map designed to regroup Texas voters to all but guarantee the GOP five additional seats in the US House of Representatives next year. Republicans currently have a seven-seat advantage.

It’s a move that has set off a national fight over redistricting ahead of 2026’s midterm elections.

Facing a potentially difficult cycle for Republicans, President Donald Trump demanded Texas remake its maps to boost Republicans’ chances of holding — and expanding — their slim majority in Congress. Texas Democrats have condemned the new maps as a political power grab; their flight from the state prevents the legislature from having enough votes to function.

Gov. Gregg Abbott and Republican state lawmakers have since threatened Democrats with arrest and declaring their seats vacant. US Sen. John Cornyn is seeking to enlist the FBI to find Texas lawmakers who have left the state.

Things are messy and only getting messier.

To understand the showdown in Texas — and its stakes for the rest of the country — Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Texas Tribune’s Eleanor Klibanoff.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Eleanor Klibanoff: So this is something we started hearing about a couple of weeks ago. We heard that President Trump was asking Texas to consider redrawing its congressional maps to strengthen the GOP majority in the House ahead of the 2026 election.

The Texas House has a proposed redraw of the map that tears up a bunch of districts in the Dallas area, the Houston area, the Austin area, as well as the Rio Grande Valley. And based on our initial analysis, it looks like if the 2026 midterms go the way the 2024 election went, they will get five additional seats out of this map. The [Texas] House committee on redistricting held several hearings. …........

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