For a self-described wallflower, State Representative Gene Wu has been getting a whole lot of attention.
As chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, Mr. Wu, a Houston lawyer, recently led his fellow Democrats in a walkout from a special legislative session that Gov. Greg Abbott called, in large part, to enact a gerrymandered congressional map designed to flip as many as five U.S. House seats from Democratic to Republican in the 2026 midterm elections.
For his troubles, Mr. Wu faces a lawsuit from Mr. Abbott that would oust him from office and even broader threats from the state attorney general, who wants to remove all the absent Democrats from their seats. Mr. Wu has been vilified online by some conservatives for his ethnicity, as national Democrats pressure him to hold firm, even as he and his colleagues absorb $500 penalties for each day they stay away from the Capitol in Austin.
There is little doubt that Texas Republicans, who hold a majority in both legislative chambers, will ultimately succeed in pushing their redistricting agenda through.
But Mr. Wu still says it’s been worth it.
“Why should destroying our government be easy?” he asked in a phone interview from Chicago, where more than a dozen Texas Democrats flew to on Sunday. “It was necessary to send a message that the people of Texas are not going down without a fight.”
Mr. Wu might seem an unlikely person to lead that fight. He immigrated to the United States from China with his parents as a young child and said he grew up a shy, nerdy kid who rarely received attention. Now in his seventh term in office, Mr. Wu said he still cringed when people call him “honorable” or “representative.” When left alone, he enjoys tinkering with stereos, gardening, or spending time with his two young sons.
He said personal duty pushed him to run for Democratic caucus chairman ahead of this year’s legislative session, a time he described as “an anti-immigrant wave” following Mr. Trump’s re-election.
“If we quit, real people get hurt,” he reasoned.
No doubt, the Democrats’ tactics in the fight over Texas’ political map have helped escalate a state battle into a national redistricting war. Democrats in California have begun to discuss a new political map to help them win seats currently held by Republicans. National Democratic leaders are looking to redraw maps in Illinois, New York and Maryland. Republicans, for their part, are exploring redistricting in states such as Missouri, Indiana and Ohio.
The clash over redistricting has turned volatile. In a Monday post on social media, State Senator Mayes Middleton, a Galveston Republican, asked, “Is Gene Wu back in China?” Democrats called the remark racist and asked the senator to apologize.
Two days later, Mr. Wu was among a group of Democrats forced to evacuate their Chicago-area hotel after a bomb threat. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a Republican, has also called on the F.B.I. to help locate and arrest the Democratic state lawmakers who fled Texas to avoid a vote on the new map.
Mr. Wu said that threats were to be expected, and he called the lawsuit to remove him from office “embarrassing.”
“You want to remove me from my seat?” he asked. “That will immediately provoke a special election, and I will immediately be re-elected.”
Mr. Wu, a former Houston prosecutor who now legally defends accused juveniles, was elected in 2012 to represent a diverse part of southwestern Houston where he grew up. About 86 percent of the people who live in the district are nonwhite, and 71 percent speak a language other than English at home, according to the Texas Legislative Council. (Houston is home to a large Asian American population, despite the aspersions cast against Mr. Wu.)
Mr. Wu’s passionate speeches on the House floor have drawn attention. In 2017, he delivered a tearful address railing against the state’s sanctuary cities ban. His Reddit posts about the Texas Legislature have been pugilistic. One featured a screen shot of an amendment Mr. Wu filed to rename the far-reaching school vouchers law that passed this year the “Siphoning Classroom Assets for Millionaires Act,” or SCAM Act.
“He’s not afraid to wrestle,” said Odus Evbagharu, treasurer for the Texas Democratic Party. “He’s not afraid to get in the mud.”
Adrian Ozuna, a banker who moved to Mr. Wu’s district, recalled the lawmaker visiting his home to introduce himself. He said he appreciated Mr. Wu’s defense of immigrants, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when many Asian Americans faced attacks.
Representative Briscoe Cain, a Republican from Deer Park, said that he frequently sparred with Mr. Wu on the House floor and that Mr. Wu was “not one to back down from a fight.”
“He’s a passionate fighter for what he believes in,” Mr. Cain said.
Then there is the “caretaker” side of the Democratic leader, said Abbie Kamin, a Houston City Councilwoman who worked with Mr. Wu in the Legislature. He stocks his office with snacks, which are always available to aides working late, regardless of their political affiliation.
“He doesn’t ask to be recognized,” she said. “He just does it.”