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Wesley Hunt, a United States Army combat veteran, has recently announced his intention to run for Congress a second time in the newly proposed Houston congressional district, according to a report by the Texas Tribune.
Hunt lost a tight congressional election last year in the same district to Democratic Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, D-Houston by three percentage points.
"I am extremely proud to announce my intention to run for Congress in Texas' new 38th Congressional District," Hunt said in a statement. "Together with my family, my team and with the support of patriots across the country and right here at home, we will complete the mission I first embarked on in 2019."
In the same week that Hunt announced his candidacy, Texas lawmakers released a draft of the state's new congressional map, which appears to be designed in a way that favors the Republican Party, according to a report by ABC13.
"Republicans constructed this map with incumbent protection in mind – a strategy that focused on bolstering Republican seats that Democrats targeted over the last two election cycles rather than aggressively adding new seats that could flip from blue to red," ABC13's report states.
The map does improve Republicans' overall position, increasing the number of districts that voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020 from 22 to 25 while the number of districts that voted for President Joe Biden would decrease by one, from 14 to 13.
Texas currently has a 36-member congressional delegation composed of 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Under the proposed map, the state would have 38 congressional seats and 40 electoral votes in future presidential elections.
The maps were proposed by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, who serves as chairwoman of the chamber's redistricting committee.
However, this is still an early draft of the map, which will likely be revised before it is adopted by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.