Texas Scorecard by Travis Morgan October 7, 2025
Adam Kincaid testified that he did not take race into account when creating the new congressional map. EL PASO—Adam Kincaid, the mapmaker at the center of Texas’ 2025 redistricting case, took the stand on Tuesday, offering detailed testimony about his work and methodology in constructing the state’s new congressional boundaries.
Kincaid asserted repeatedly in the federal courtroom that race was never factored into his mapping decisions. Instead, he testified that in his view, it is both wrong and unconstitutional to consider race when drawing political boundaries.
The latest congressional map creates five new GOP-opportunity districts. Plaintiffs suing over the map include the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC).
Methodology ExplainedDuring his testimony, Kincaid described an extensive process using ESRI software that incorporated historic voting patterns and election data stretching back to 2012.
He said partisan instructions played a central role: every Republican incumbent had to remain within their current district, and districts that President Trump carried by above 60 percent in prior elections needed to retain at least that margin.
Instructions also required improving or maintaining performance in districts where Trump had lower support. Criteria for five Republican pickup districts included Trump carrying each by at least ten points, a win by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024, and a solid margin for Gov. Greg Abbott.
Kincaid analyzed a broad range of elections—primary, gubernatorial, presidential, and attorney general—often reaching back more than a decade.
Unlike the Plaintiffs’ map experts Dr. Matt Barreto and Dr. Moon Duchin, who were present in the courtroom, Kincaid said he considered a much wider selection of voter data. He did this by obtaining Texas voter files and analyzing which party’s primary election an individual has voted in, among other factors. He then aggregated this data to the block-level, a granularity that Barreto and Duchin did not have.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/day-6-mapmaker-takes-stand-confirms-partisan-redistricting-in-texas/
