President Donald Trump attacked the Utah judge who ordered the state to redraw its congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms — a decision that could result in less favorable districts for Republicans in the deeply red state.

Trump, who sparked a redistricting battle after demanding that Texas redraw its political boundaries to favor Republicans ahead of the midterms, called Monday's ruling “absolutely unconstitutional” and urged his party to preserve the state's four GOP-majority districts.

The president accused Judge Dianna Gibson of political bias for ruling that the state can no longer use its current maps and must draw new lines in compliance with an independent commission.

“How did such a wonderful Republican State like Utah, which I won in every Election, end up with so many Radical Left Judges?,” Trump wrote on social media. “All Citizens of Utah should be outraged at their activist Judiciary, which wants to take away our Congressional advantage, and will do everything possible to do so.”

Gibson was appointed to the district court by former Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, in 2018.

Trump’s criticisms of the Utah decision come as both Republicans and Democrats push for mid-decade redistricting around the country. After Trump pressured Texas Republicans to draw new lines, California Democrats responded with a ballot measure that asks voters to approve new congressional maps that would adopt five new Democratic-leaning districts.

Gibson said in her ruling that the state must obey a 2018 ballot measure approved by Utah voters that required districts to be drawn by an independent commission. Nonpartisan congressional maps could present an opportunity for Democrats to challenge for a seat in the Salt Lake City-area.

Trump’s comments echo the defense used by members of the state Legislature who argued the provisions of the 2018 ballot measure were unconstitutional. In her ruling, Gibson said that ballot measures to reform Utah’s voting laws aren't prohibited by state law or the Constitution and are binding.

“Neither the U.S. Constitution nor the Utah Constitution grants sole and exclusive authority over redistricting to the Legislature,” Gibson wrote. “Because legislative power is shared co-equally and co-extensively between the Legislature and the people, and because redistricting is legislative, the people have the fundamental constitution right and authority to propose redistricting legislation that is binding on the Legislature.”

A Utah judge ruled the state must redraw its congressional maps before the 2026 midterms, creating uncertainty about districts that have favored Republicans as both parties seek to reshape political boundaries.

Judge Dianna Gibson ruled on Monday the state can no longer use maps that carved up Salt Lake City, a Democratic stronghold in an otherwise red state, and must draw new lines using an independent commission in compliance with a 2018 ballot measure approved by Utah voters.

The decision thrusts the state into a nationwide redistricting fight ignited by President Donald Trump’s demand that Texas Republicans carve out five new districts to favor the party ahead of the midterms. That in turn drove California Democrats, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, to ask voters in the state to approve a new political map that may lead to five new blue-majority districts.

An independent redraw of Utah’s four congressional districts could make one seat competitive for Democrats, depending on how the maps are drawn. Before Utah Republicans overruled the state’s independent commission and drew partisan maps in 2021, former Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams won a Salt Lake City-area district in 2018.

Still, Republicans are expected to maintain a majority of the congressional seats in the state, where Trump won nearly 60 percent of the vote last year.

Gibson asked the state’s Legislature to submit remedial maps for consideration in 30 days and allowed new proposals for districts from the groups that sued to nullify the state’s maps as well as third-party organizations.

The Utah Democratic Party heralded the ruling as a victory and projected optimism about the chances of competing in newly drawn Utah congressional districts.

“Finally, despite the best efforts of the legislative supermajority, Utahns will be getting fair maps and real representation, something they voted for nearly eight years ago,” Utah Democratic Party chair Brian King said in a statement. “Utah Democrats are ready to hit the ground running next year, and we look forward to holding Republicans accountable to their constituents in these new, fairly-drawn districts.”

The potential for independently drawn maps could give Democrats another avenue to counter Republicans who have pushed governors in Indiana, Missouri and Florida to take up mid-decade redistricting ahead of the midterms. Democrats have fewer opportunities to gain new Democratic-leaning districts through redistricting, although New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore have indicated an openness to redrawing the maps in their states.

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker pushed back Monday on a threat by President Donald Trump to deploy federal troops in Chicago to fight crime, calling it “unconstitutional and unamerican,” and designed more for theater than public safety.

Pritzker, speaking at a news conference along with top Democratic officials from across the state and with the iconic Chicago skyline in the background, said there is no justification for Trump to use soldiers to patrol the city.

“We have crime like other cities do, but let’s be clear, we are actually in better shape than the 30 biggest cities across the United States,” the governor said. “It’s important to understand that the president of the United States is doing this for theatrics.”

Pritzker’s comments came hours after Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, renewed his threat to make Chicago the next focus of his effort to draw public attention to crime even as violent incidents fall back to pre-pandemic levels throughout the nation.

No request for federal assistance has been made, Pritzker said — nor has any communication come from the Trump administration.

“No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor,” the governor said. “No one has reached out to our staffs. No effort has been made to coordinate or to ask for our assistance in identifying any actions that might be helpful to us.”

While most officials in a state dominated by Democrats agree with Pritzker, the leader of the Chicago Police union, John Catanzara, told POLITICO that the department is short 1,000 officers and could use reinforcements. “More manpower is still needed,” he said.

The governor, who arrived by water taxi to emphasize the city’s vibrancy and beauty, made his remarks days after Trump floated the idea of federal intervention in Chicago.

“If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” Trump said at a White House briefing last week, referencing prior National Guard deployments. On Monday, Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric, suggesting the federal government may need to “barge in” on Illinois.

Pritzker, who was joined by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and numerous city and state officials, civic and faith leaders, said Illinois has the authority and the resolve to block any attempt to override local control.

They vowed to fight any National Guard action in the courts, and they urged protests to be peaceful.

Johnson echoed Pritzker in criticizing Trump’s motives. The mayor noted that crime was on the decline in Chicago, down more than 30 percent. “We are being targeted because of who we are as a city,” said Johnson, pointing to Chicago’s progressive roots in labor and immigration.

Chicago Alderwoman Samantha Nugent, who previously worked with the Cook County Department of Homeland Security, said she’s concerned that the National Guard potentially converging in Chicago would only create confusion because there would be a question about “who’s controlling the mission.” The Chicago Police superintendent is in charge of the chain of command, not the Guard, she said.

The high-profile press conference followed Johnson speaking out against Trump over the weekend, telling MSNBC that if the president moves ahead with his threat, it would be a “flagrant violation of our Constitution.”

Over the weekend, former Chicago mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot also criticized Trump.

“When you look at what he did in D.C., he’s not going to actually deal with crime,” Emanuel said on CNN. “This is an attempt to deal with cities that are welcoming cities, known as sanctuary cities, and deal with immigration.”

Trump also said a group of African American “ladies” are “screaming” for the Trump administration to address violence in Chicago. It was an apparent reference to Chicago Flips Red, whose members have criticized Johnson’s handling of the large influx of migrants who needed housing and other services during the Biden administration.

The redistricting war is officially on.

After weeks of bluster from dueling governors and state lawmakers, California and Texas raced forward with parallel action this week to draw new congressional maps, setting into motion a national redistricting fight that could upend the midterms and determine control of the House.

Texas Republicans on Saturday passed a new map that will help the GOP flip as many as five House seats — a partisan play at the hand of President Donald Trump. On Thursday, California Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom preemptively agreed to send a retaliatory ballot measure to voters — the first step in potentially offsetting Texas’ maneuver by creating new Democratic-leaning seats.

The nation’s two largest states had fired the opening salvo in what is likely to become an intense and protracted redistricting campaign by both parties to grasp power in Washington. Now other red and blue state governors face pressure to follow their lead and aggressively gerrymander their congressional maps.

Republicans hold a clear advantage in the arms race: The GOP is poised to move forward with redistricting in Florida, Ohio, Missouri and Indiana, which could yield at least half a dozen more seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have struggled to get gerrymandering efforts moving in blue states beyond California, though leaders in New York, Illinois and Maryland say they are weighing options.

“Right now, these other states need to step up,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from Long Beach, Calif. “I know it’s hard, I know it’s complicated … But, if you’re a blue state governor, the time is now to step up and get it done.”

As the map battles continue, at stake is a national shift away from the norm of once-a-decade, Census-aligned redistricting and toward a more polarized landscape in which both parties redraw political maps at will to shift the balance of power. The escalation has major implications for Trump's post-midterm agenda and the political prospects of several prominent Democrats, including Newsom and his likely presidential run in 2028.

Democrats in the California Legislature framed their vote Thursday in that national context, casting it as a fight to save American democracy from Trump’s “election rigging” — even as they voted nearly unanimously to toss aside lines drawn by the state’s independent commission and put forward a partisan map. The ends, they argued, justified the means.

“We don’t want this fight and we didn't choose this fight, but with our democracy on the line, we cannot and will not run away from this fight,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Democrat from Silicon Valley.

The vote sets off a Nov. 4 special election for Californians, and both parties are gearing up for an all-out campaign sprint. Democrats estimate they will have to raise up to $100 million to mount an advertising blitz across the state’s large and expensive media markets to convince voters, whom early polling shows are skeptical.

Republicans, who have a thin minority in the California statehouse, unsuccessfully tried to derail the vote with a host of procedural maneuvers. They argued California Democrats betrayed voters' trust by adopting a map drawn behind closed doors, sidestepping the state’s voter-created redistricting commission. A GOP-backed legal attempt to thwart Democrats’ map was also dismissed by the California Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a Republican from San Diego, called the vote a “political stunt.” When Democrats said he couldn't use props during his floor speech, he retorted, “Then, why have you become props to Gov. Gavin Newsom's presidential campaign?”

Texas Democrats, a minority in their state House, have pulled their own stunts. House members prolonged passage of the map by leaving the state for two weeks in protest, denying Republicans the quorum needed to conduct official business. When they returned, Rep. Nicole Collier refused to sign a permission slip ordered by GOP leadership allowing law enforcement to supervise her movements and instead staged a sit-in on the House floor.

Unlike California Democrats’ map, which requires voter approval to take effect, the Republicans in the Texas Legislature were able to approve their map without going to voters or mounting a statewide campaign. Both parties have vowed to fight the maps in court, disputes that could ultimately lead to the U.S. Supreme Court. A lawsuit in Texas was filed just hours after the map was approved by the legislature early Saturday.

“The fight is far from over,” Texas Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said on the floor after the map passed the House on Wednesday. “Our best shot is in the courts. This part of the fight is over, but it is merely the first chapter.”

In Texas, Democrats argue the GOP’s map illegally dilutes the voting power of Hispanic and Black voters. In California, where the state’s map preserves minority-opportunity districts, Republicans say the map illegally sidelines the state’s independent redistricting commission.

But in the redistricting wars, voting rights and other legal considerations are taking a backseat to purely partisan interests.

Efforts are underway to carve out more GOP seats in Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Florida — and Trump’s political operation is pressuring individual state lawmakers to act. On Thursday, Trump declared on X that Republicans in Missouri — where the GOP could pick up one more seat by splitting a district in Kansas City — are “IN!” to call a special session to redistrict.

The legal hurdles for Democrats in other deep-blue states could prove more formidable, hampering their party’s quest to retake the House in the 2026 midterms.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to disband a quasi-independent commission in charge of drawing House map. But the panel, created by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, cannot be erased until 2027 at the earliest.

And while the New York governor has talked tough about redistricting, she acknowledged to reporters her hands are tied by the state’s lengthy constitutional amendment process. Any changes must be approved by two separately elected sessions of the Legislature before going to voters in a referendum.

“Now, everyone says, ‘Why don't you do what Gavin Newsom does?’ Gavin Newsom has a very different situation, because if I could, I would,” Hochul told reporters this week. “But I have to have the Constitution changed, and also the voters approved that change, before I can do that.”

Albany Democrats are under pressure to act faster anyway.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, has talked several times in recent weeks with Hochul about their options and this week urged her and other top New York Democrats to expand the state’s voting rights law — which enables legal challenges to local legislative districts — to include congressional seats.

That would open the door to a legal challenge to the existing house lines, a maneuver designed to force a mid-decade redistricting if the map is thrown out. But two New York Democratic officials, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said that would be a long shot given the complexities of the strategy. One of them said there are “no clear options” for what New York can do ahead of the midterms.

That’s leaving Democrats to scour the map for potential redistricting pick-up opportunities outside California.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has spoken boldly about the importance for Democrats to not let Texas go unmatched, and the state hosted many of the Democrats who left the Texas state House. But Illinois has been known for its aggressive Democratic gerrymanders, and it currently has just three Republican seats it can target.

It’s also unclear Illinois Democrats have the political will to take on redrawing the congressional map — most of the redistricting talk this week has been on a whole other set of maps. Former Barack Obama chief of staff Bill Daley, a Chicago Democrat, and Ray LaHood, a Peoria Republican who served as Obama’s transportation secretary, rolled out a “Fair Maps Illinois” proposal this week that would end the process of state lawmakers drawing their own districts.

In Maryland — one of Democrats’ few options to wage a response to the GOP — House Majority Leader David Moon is pushing legislation to open its redistricting process. Gov. Wes Moore has said that “all options are on the table,” but has not laid out any specifics.

“It is not our first choice to fight back against this, and I think it's everybody's preference that we stand down and everyone steps back from the brink here,” Moon said in an interview. “But I think the common sentiment you're seeing from everyone is that we have to be prepared in the event that this thing does explode.”

Shia Kapos and Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.

Texas Republicans approved a new, aggressively gerrymandered congressional map early Saturday morning, moving forward with a power grab pushed by President Donald Trump.

The GOP-controlled state Senate approved the map on a party-line vote after hours of debate that began Friday morning. Republicans used a procedural move to block a Democratic senator’s plans to filibuster the bill, forcing it to a vote — one final show of force from GOP leadership after weeks of partisan fighting.

The map could ultimately help flip as many as five seats for the GOP starting with next year’s midterms. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is set to quickly sign the legislation, capping off a turbulent few weeks in Texas over Republicans’ now-successful effort to further skew the maps in the GOP’s favor ahead of the 2030 census.

Under the new map, Republicans in Texas are aiming to earn 30 House seats — up from their current 25 — as they attempt to hold onto control of the chamber in what could be an unfavorable environment for them next year. Republicans currently have just a three-seat majority in the House, so the new Texas map alone will significantly affect their chances.

The unusual offcycle redistricting effort in Texas has set off a contentious national tit-for-tat. California formally launched its preemptive retaliation on Thursday, with lawmakers approving a ballot measure redrawing the state’s map to create five new Democratic seats to offset Texas. That measure —which would temporarily circumvent the state’s independent redistricting commission — now goes to voters on the November ballot, a gerrymander Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has cast as necessary to preserve democracy.

But Republicans could soon have the advantage as a redistricting battle escalates nationwide: The White House is pressuring other GOP states, like Indiana and Missouri, to take on their own redistricting gambits. Democratic governors in New York and Illinois have vowed to fight back, but have so far taken no concrete steps to do so.

Democrats and civil rights groups have vowed to challenge the legality of the map, and will likely argue that Republicans unlawfully took race into consideration when redrawing the lines.

Republicans, however, contend that they redrew the districts explicitly for partisan purposes and did not account for race or ethnicity.

“I did not take race into consideration when drawing this map,” said state Sen. Phil King, the Texas Republican who wrote the redistricting legislation, at a committee hearing. “I drew it based on what would better perform for Republican candidates.”

Racial gerrymandering claims are one of the last remaining ways to challenge a political map in federal court, since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 barred them from policing partisan gerrymandering. The new map – which was drawn using 2024 election data – creates four new majority-Hispanic districts, drawn to reflect Hispanic voters’ shift toward the GOP.

Texas House Democrats protested the maps by leaving the state for two weeks, depriving Republicans of the ability to conduct legislative business. Those lawmakers returned on Monday — clearing the way for Republicans to quickly pass the legislation. Democrats racked up thousands of dollars in fines for ducking their legislative duties, and when they returned, House Speaker Dustin Burrows sought one last punishment: He ordered law enforcement to chaperone the Democrats to ensure they would be present for passage of the map.

One Democrat, state Rep. Nicole Collier, refused to sign a permission slip allowing an officer to monitor her movements, instead staging a three-day sit-in on the House floor.

“When I press that button to vote, I know these maps will harm my constituents — I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination,” Collier said from the chamber.

The Senate passed its map on Saturday morning after thwarting an attempted filibuster from another Democrat who planned to stage one last protest against the legislation. But Republicans made a procedural move that ended debate and the chamber approved the map along party lines.

Democrats seem to think they can talk their way out of the political wilderness.

Listen closely and you can hear it through the din of their all-caps Trumpian X feeds, their hourslong “manosphere” podcast interviews and their more frequent swearing.

Nearly 10 months after the 2024 elections, and the party is still embroiled in self-recriminations over where they’re talking, what they’re talking about and, now, the actual words they’re using. Or, more precisely: which words they shouldn’t utter.

In a new memo, shared exclusively with POLITICO, the center-left think tank Third Way is circulating a list of 45 words and phrases they want Democrats to avoid using, alleging the terms put “a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities.” It’s a set of words that Third Way suggests “people simply do not say, yet they hear them from Democrats.”

They span six categories — from “therapy speak” to “explaining away crime” — and put in sharp relief a party that authors say makes Democrats “sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness.” In the document, titled “Was It Something I Said?” Third Way argues that to “please the few, we have alienated the many — especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant,” according to the memo.

Among the blacklisted terms: privilege … violence (as in “environmental violence”) … dialoguing … triggering … othering … microaggression … holding space … body shaming … subverting norms … systems of oppression … cultural appropriation … Overton window … existential threat to [the climate, democracy, economy] … radical transparency … stakeholders … the unhoused … food insecurity … housing insecurity … person who immigrated … birthing person … cisgender … deadnaming … heteronormative … patriarchy … LGBTQIA+ … BIPOC … allyship … incarcerated people … involuntary confinement.

“We are doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like they’re leading a seminar at Antioch,” says Matt Bennett, Third Way's executive vice president of public affairs. “We think language is one of the central problems we face with normie voters, signaling that we are out of touch with how they live, think and talk. In recent weeks, this has become a bit of a thing, with comedians like Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman highlighting how insane Dems can sometimes sound. Also, elected officials like [Delaware Rep.] Sarah McBride and [Kentucky Gov.] Andy Beshear are begging their colleagues to just be normal again.”

“People can’t relate to something unless it has some edge about it,” Lanae Erickson, Third Way’s senior vice president, tells Playbook. “And we had shaved off all of our edges in an attempt to never make anyone upset about anything.”

The group doesn’t base its list on any specific polling. And the authors don’t offer specific counter recommendations for these terms. But they do outline the values their vision of the party includes.

“We will never abandon our values or stop doing things to protect those who need help, encouragement, trust, a second chance, acceptance, a fair shake, and the opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness But as the catastrophe of Trump 2.0 has shown, the most important thing we can do for those people and causes is to build a bigger army to fight them,” the memo reads. “Communicating in authentic ways that welcome rather than drive voters away would be a good start.”

It’s worth noting that in certain parts of the country, a lot of people, especially now, do talk in this language and use the phrases Third Way recommends against, even if it doesn't scream big tent enough. It’s also worth noting an inherent irony in all of this: it’s hard to police how politicians talk at the same time that you're asking them to be authentic.

The memo’s authors write “we are not out to police language, ban phrases or create our own form of censorship. Truth be told, we have published papers that have used some of these words as well. But when policymakers are public-facing, the language we use must invite, not repel; start a conversation, not end it; provide clarity, not confusion.”

“The Democratic Party brand is toxic across the country at this point with way too many people — enough that there’s no way for us to win a governing majority without changing that,” Erickson said. “Part of the problem was that we were using words that literally no normal people used — that we were sticking to messages that were so overly scripted that they basically sounded like nothing.”

What about bright spots for the party? Erickson cited three potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders who she says are good examples of how to communicate: Beshear, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

• “Gallego is doing a great job talking about economic success,” she says. “He goes into communities and he’s like, ‘I want you to have a big ass truck, if that’s what you want.’”

• Buttigieg, she said, is “doing a great job of going into spaces that are maybe not hostile, but unusual spaces for him to be in and having real conversations about complicated topics, like transgender people in sports, and saying, ‘you know, I think you should have empathy toward people that are figuring this issue out for the first time. And you should have empathy toward transgender kids and their families.’ But he's not afraid to say those things, and he’s getting yelled at.”

• And Beshear is “getting this so exactly right, talking about how these terms aren't even what those communities use to call themselves,” she said. She recalled Beshear “talking about the fact that ‘justice-involved individuals’ is not a thing that any justice-involved individual would call themselves. They would call themselves incarcerated, call themselves convicted, or they would call themselves a whole lot of other things, but that's not what they or their families would call themselves. So inventing terms that the people that we're talking about and trying to protect don't even use, and then enforcing that that's the only way you can talk about those people, is crazy.”

So, can Democrats really talk their way back to power? It’s an Aaron Sorkin-eqsue idea to think that everything can be solved by the right words and a compelling speech. (And it’s one that the party has been tantalized by, on and off, for decades.) Of course, Democrats face bigger and deeper problems — a yawning voter registration gap among them — and are still figuring out which policies to advocate.

In some ways, Third Way is reaching the same political conclusion VP JD Vance arrived at during his interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham this week. “I mean, look, the autopsy for the Democrats, some free political advice from the president of the United States is: stop sounding like crazy people,” Vance said.

Vance’s remarks came on the same day he had burgers with the National Guard troops at Union Station. Which is itself a glaring reminder of some of the stakes if Democrats don’t get this right.

Erickson mentioned crime as a key issue on which Democrats need to recalibrate, citing Trump’s “invasion of D.C.”

“It shows that people don't think Democrats want to hold criminals accountable at all,” she said. “Like we don't care about violent crime and we don't care if someone hurts someone, that they should be held accountable. That's not true. We’re afraid to say that because we’re afraid that someone is going to criticize us for being too ‘tough on crime.’”

Third Way sees it as a place to start. “We need to reflect on the ways that our bubble and our fear of being criticized by anyone on the left has led to a problem with both our policy and our language,” Erickson said.

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Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett said he will not run for reelection in his home district if the Texas redistricting proposal is approved, avoiding a potential member-on-member primary with Rep. Greg Casar, who was drawn into Doggett’s district in the new maps.

Doggett did not say whether he would retire from Congress if the maps are approved or if he plans to run in another Texas district.

The 78-year-old lawmaker has faced pressure from some Democrats to allow Casar to run in the new Austin-area district. A primary in the 37th District between Doggett and Casar could have reopened old fissures in the party over elderly incumbents — a debate amplified last year by Doggett, who was the first Democrat in Congress to call on then-President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race.

“If the courts give Trump a victory in his scheme to maintain control of a compliant House, I will not seek reelection in the reconfigured CD37, even though it contains over 2/3rd of my current constituents,” Doggett said in the statement.

Doggett said he will run for reelection in his current district if Texas Republicans’ “racially gerrymandered Trump map” is rejected. Doggett’s office did not immediately respond to requests for clarification about his intentions if the maps are approved.

A spokesperson for Casar declined to comment.

Doggett quickly announced his intention to run in his home district last month after Texas released its redrawn maps. Last week, he leaned on Casar to run in the new 35th District, a bloc east of San Antonio where Trump won 54 percent of the vote last year.

Days later, Casar’s chief of staff said he would only run for Congress in his native Austin, and chastised Doggett for attempting to force him to run elsewhere.

“I had hoped that my commitment to reelection under any circumstances would encourage Congressman Casar to not surrender his winnable district to Trump,” Doggett said in the statement. “While his apparent decision is most unfortunate, I prefer to devote the coming months to fighting Trump tyranny and serving Austin rather than waging a struggle with fellow Democrats.”

Pressure against Doggett ramped up in recent days after David Hogg’s super PAC said it planned to financially support Casar if the two members squared off in a primary. Doggett, who holds over $6 million in his campaign account, had said he planned to spend significantly to defend his seat. Hogg’s group said they had intended to help Casar make up some of the difference.

“Thank you, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, for letting the next generation lead and for your decades of progressive service. I hope more members of Congress follow his example and pass the torch,” Hogg said in a statement to POLITICO.