House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) sees a potential path to a Democratic majority in an unlikely place: deep-red Texas. 

The White House is reportedly pressing Texas Republicans to redraw the lines for U.S. House districts to help Republicans keep hold of their razor-thin majority in next year’s midterm elections. 

Jeffries, who is already forecasting that Democrats will flip control of the chamber, said the Texas districts are already so gerrymandered in the Republicans’ favor that tweaking the lines might actually play to the Democrats’ advantage by making a handful of safe GOP seats more competitive. He put the number between four and six. 

“A lot of Democrats that we’ve talked to from Texas [have] actually come to the conclusion, based on the fact that the map is already gerrymandered at its height, that they could open up four to six swing seat opportunities that don’t exist right now for Democrats,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. 

Jeffries pointed to another rare, mid-decade redistricting process in North Carolina in 2023, which empowered Republicans to seize three Democratic seats — and turn an evenly split delegation (seven Republicans and seven Democrats) into a lopsided 10-4 advantage for the GOP. The ratio is hardly reflective of the demographics in the Tar Heel State — a true battleground, where the number of registered Republicans and Democrats is roughly identical.

Democrats have decried the shift as an underhanded power grab — “They stole three seats,” Jeffries said Thursday — but they’re hoping a similar effort in Texas will backfire on the Republicans in next year’s midterms. 

“Instead of doing what they did in North Carolina, where they basically snatched victory from the jaws of electoral defeat that they were heading toward, they actually could provide enough seats in Texas alone for Democrats to take the majority back,” Jeffries said. 

“Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it,” he added. “And you won’t like the result.”