https://davesredistricting.org/join/e476466d-9715-45b5-bb98-245d4fa2c7baRan some calculations on the new map.
In 2020 Pres, the partisan breakdown was 85 Trump to 65 Biden. Breakdowns for most other similar elections are similar given the lack of competitive seats and Biden doing the best in suburban Texas where there are a lot of Likley R type seats.
The median seat in 2020 was Trump + 7.9. Still about a 2.5-point bias in the GOP's favour. However, 2 important factors to consider are that narrow Trump seats are disproportionately suburban but also tend to lag topline shifts.
A few other observations:
-For whatever reason, the GOP seemed much more aggressive/greedy when gerrymandering Dallas than Houston or Austin. Collin and Denton counties especially seem like disasters waiting to happen for the GOP whi9le Houston seems a bit more generally secure and in Austin there's really only 1 or maybe 2 seats Dems could gain.
-Right now, Hidalgo and Cameron counties have horrible geography for the GOP. Between the 2 of them, it's pretty much impossible to create a Trump seat even though he won 40% of the vote there. Instead, you get a bunch of Biden + 20ish seats that the GOP could gain down the road if they continue to make enough gains, though I'm skeptical they will win either county outright anytime soon.
-Democrats have quite a high floor relative to the GOP. Seat 60 was Biden + 12.4. Seat 55 was Biden + 18.9. There's virtually no chance Rs win a supermajority in the State House because of this.
-San Antonio's map really isn't that bad and has 2 competitive districts. Seems like VRA constrained Rs a bit. Republicans currently hold the Biden + 3 seat on the South Side of the city.
So yeah, basically Texas county rules and bad geography made it difficult for the GOP to make a gerrymander that's very secure, and if Dems do win they're path likely runs mostly through holding their RGV seats, making gains in the Metroplex, and flipping a few narrow Trump seats here and there throughout the state.
