| Texas's 7th congressional district | |
|---|---|
  Interactive map of district boundaries since January 3, 2023 | |
| Representative | |
| Distribution |
|
| Population (2024) | 770,214[2] |
| Median household income | $75,245[2] |
| Ethnicity |
|
| Cook PVI | D+12[3] |
Texas's 7th congressional district of theUnited States House of Representatives comprises a small area of southwesternHouston andHarris County, along with a northern portion of suburbanFort Bend County. As of the 2000census, the 7th district comprises 651,620 people. Since 2019, it has been represented by DemocratLizzie Fletcher.
Before 2022, the district was largely viewed as a wealthy, traditionally Republican district covering much of westernHouston and surrounding suburbs. The district's best known congressman wasGeorge H. W. Bush, who later became the 41stpresident of the United States and retired to the district after his presidency.
| Year | Office | Results[4] |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | President | Obama 56% - 44% |
| 2012 | President | Obama 54% - 46% |
| 2014 | Senate | Cornyn 51% - 49% |
| Governor | Davis 55% - 45% | |
| 2016 | President | Clinton 63% - 33% |
| 2018 | Senate | O'Rourke 67% - 32% |
| Governor | Valdez 59% - 39% | |
| Lt. Governor | Collier 64% - 34% | |
| Attorney General | Nelson 65% - 33% | |
| Comptroller of Public Accounts | Chevalier 59% - 38% | |
| 2020 | President | Biden 64% - 34% |
| Senate | Hegar 60% - 37% | |
| 2022 | Governor | O'Rourke 63% - 35% |
| Lt. Governor | Collier 63% - 34% | |
| Attorney General | Mercedes Garza 63% - 35% | |
| Comptroller of Public Accounts | Dudding 60% - 38% | |
| 2024 | President | Harris 59% - 38% |
| Senate | Allred 62% - 35% |
| Year | Office | Results[5] |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | President | Obama 57% - 43% |
| 2012 | President | Obama 54% - 46% |
| 2014 | Senate | Alameel 50.4% - 49.6% |
| Governor | Davis 56% - 44% | |
| 2016 | President | Clinton 63% - 32% |
| 2018 | Senate | O'Rourke 68% - 31% |
| Governor | Valdez 60% - 38% | |
| Lt. Governor | Collier 65% - 33% | |
| Attorney General | Nelson 66% - 32% | |
| Comptroller of Public Accounts | Chevalier 60% - 37% | |
| 2020 | President | Biden 65% - 34% |
| Senate | Hegar 61% - 37% | |
| 2022 | Governor | O'Rourke 65% - 34% |
| Lt. Governor | Collier 65% - 33% | |
| Attorney General | Mercedes Garza 64% - 33% | |
| Comptroller of Public Accounts | Dudding 61% - 37% | |
| 2024 | President | Harris 60% - 37% |
| Senate | Allred 63% - 34% |
For the118th and successive Congresses (based on redistricting following the2020 census), the district contains all or portions of the following counties and communities:[6]
HarrisCounty(6)
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Texas received a seventh congressional district throughreapportionment in 1881 as a result of population growth reflected in the1880 census; in 1883,Thomas P. Ochiltree, an Independent, was elected its first representative. From 1882 to 1902 the district was located in north central Texas and was represented by WacoanRobert L. Henry. After the redistricting of 1902, the district shifted eastward and was represented by Congressmen from Palestine and Galveston. After 1952, the district again shifted to Waco. From 1885 to 1966, the seventh congressional district elected only Democratic representatives to Congress.
In 1966 the district, then represented by John Dowdy of Waco, was redrawn after theSupreme Court ruled inWesberry v. Sanders two years earlier that congressional district populations had to be equal or close to equal in population. As a result, the old 7th essentially became the new 2nd district, while a new 7th was created in the western portion of Harris County, home toHouston. Previously, Harris County had been divided between the8th and22nd congressional districts. The new 7th stretched fromdowntown Houston through its fast-growing west side (including theMemorial Villages) out to what were then mostly rural western sections of Harris County including theAddicks andBarker reservoirs, the Katy Prairie andFM 1960. These were among the first areas of Greater Houston to turn Republican as Texas began to gradually shift towards the GOP.
The mid-decade redistricting resulted in the election ofGeorge H. W. Bush, a former chairman of the Harris County Republican Party and the son of former Connecticut U.S. senatorPrescott Bush, and who unsuccessfully sought the state's Class 1 Senate seat against DemocratRalph Yarborough in 1964. Bush would go on to hold the district for two terms before making an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate in 1970, losing toLloyd Bentsen who defeated Yarborough in an upset in the Democratic primary. Bush would eventually go on to becomevice president underRonald Reagan and in 1988 would be electedpresident. After losing the1992 election toBill Clinton, Bush would retire to the 7th where he continued to reside until his death in 2018.
Bush was succeeded by fellow RepublicanBill Archer, who would go on to represent the district for 15 terms. Archer would never drop below 79% of the vote as the 7th district, now stretching from the prosperous west side of Houston, including such neighborhoods asRiver Oaks,Tanglewood,Briargrove, theEnergy Corridor and the Memorial Villages, to fast-growing suburbs in the Cypress-Fairbanks and Katy areas and along FM 1960, became reckoned as the most Republican district in the Greater Houston area and arguably one of the most Republican districts in the nation. Archer would rise to prominence in 1994 following theRepublican Revolution in which Republicans gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years, with Archer serving as chairman of the influentialHouse Ways and Means Committee for his final three terms.
In 2000, Archer retired from Congress, leading to a highly competitive Republican primary - traditionally the real contest in the heavily Republican district. In the ensuing runoff,State RepresentativeJohn Culberson, who represented much of the congressional district's western portion, defeated opponent Peter Wareing to win the Republican nomination. By 2002, the district was further reduced in size, now taking in the west side of Houston as well as much of the unincorporated vicinity of theBarker andAddicks reservoirs in west Houston.
Following a controversial 2004 mid-decade redistricting, the district lost Katy and the immediate Barker Reservoir, while also gaining some neighborhoods surrounding Jersey Village and (most penultimately) a southwest section of Houston that encompassedRice University, the center-right inner suburbs ofBellaire andWest University Place, the historically Jewish neighborhood ofMeyerland and the historically liberalMontrose area. The latter portion made up the political base of freshman Democratic congressmanChris Bell's25th district, and historically had not been associated with the 7th during Archer's tenure. While the 7th remained heavily Republican, its dominance was not as strong as in previous elections because of the redistricting. Meanwhile, the bulk of Bell's district had been renumbered as the9th district and reconfigured as a majority-minority district. Instead of running against Culberson, Bell ran in the Democratic primary for the reconfigured 9th losing toAl Green. Meanwhile, Culberson would go on to win reelection in the 7th against a nominal Democratic challenger in 2004, and won again with under 60 percent of the vote in 2006 in what was considered a bad year for Republicans who lost control of the House for the first time in 12 years.
After the 2012 redistricting process, the 7th lost some of its territory to the adjacent2nd district of RepublicanTed Poe, losing a stretch of territory stretching from north ofJersey Village throughMemorial Park toRice University.[7] In exchange, Culberson gained much of theGreater Katy area south ofInterstate 10, as well as a stretch of middle-class suburban areas along the western edge ofHighway 6 that had growing Hispanic populations, which also existed in theSharpstown and Gulfton areas of southwest Houston that were also added to Culberson's district.
Despite the changes, Culberson continued to win reelection in his three successive elections, beating Democratic opponent James Cargas in three consecutive elections from 2012 to 2016. However, the district was one of 23 congressional districts that voted for Democratic presidential candidateHillary Clinton in 2016 after votingMitt Romney in 2012, due in part to backlash from some constituents of RepublicanDonald Trump's campaign rhetoric and stances on such issues as trade and immigration. District residents' favoritism towards free trade and comprehensive immigration reform clashed with Trump's populist stances on these issues. The district swung 23 percent to the left from 2012, more than any other in the nation outside of Utah. Combined with demographic changes in parts of the district as well as the aftermath ofHurricane Harvey, which caused catastrophic damage to many parts of the district in 2017, some political analysts argued the district could be vulnerable to a Democratic takeover in awave election.
In 2018, when Culberson ran against corporate litigatorLizzie Fletcher, who prevailed out of a crowded and well-funded Democratic primary that gained national attention when supporters of Fletcher's primary runoff opponent, journalist and progressive activistLaura Moser, cried foul over theDemocratic Congressional Campaign Committee's supposed preference for Fletcher over Moser in the primary. Despite this controversy, Fletcher prevailed by a comfortable margin in the primary runoff later that May. The race was one of the most closely watched in the nation that year, with Fletcher consistently outraising Culberson throughout the general election. Despite Culberson's proactive leadership in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Fletcher defeated Culberson to become the first Democrat to represent the district since its realignment as a Houston-based seat in 1966, as the 7th became one of 43 Republican seats (over 1/6th of the Republican conference) to flip Democratic in the 2018 election. Culberson held his own in his longtime base of west Houston and Memorial, areas that had been the district's core for its entire existence; he'd represented much of this area for over three decades at the state and federal levels. However, Fletcher swamped him in the portions of southwest Houston that were added in the 2004 redistricting, as well as in the Hispanic-plurality Bear Creek area near the Addicks Reservoir that was heavily affected by flooding from Harvey. As a measure of how Republican the district had historically been, Fletcher was only the fourth Democrat to even garner 40 percent of the vote in the district.
For the 2022 elections, in order to protect surrounding Republican incumbents, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature reconfigured the 7th as a heavily Democratic district connecting northern portions of Fort Bend County (including western parts ofSugar Land with largely Asian-American populations) with much of theWestpark Tollway corridor of southwest Houston and Harris County (including theAlief andMission Bend areas), along with much of inner western Houston insideLoop 610 including portions of theHeights,Midtown,Montrose,Meyerland,Braeswood Place andTimbergrove Manor neighborhoods, as well asThe Galleria,Greenway Plaza and the "island suburbs" of Bellaire, West University Place andSouthside Place. Most of the 7th's longtime constituency in west Houston, includingMemorial City, theEnergy Corridor and its entire stretch of theKaty Freeway, as well as theMemorial Villages,Memorial Park, theRiver Oaks neighborhood and its share of theGreater Katy area, was moved over to the newly drawn38th District that was expected to strongly favor Republicans, while many of the areas near the Addicks Reservoir (home to large numbers of middle-class Hispanics) were moved into the8th District. While the new 7th is not as heavily Democratic as the nearby 9th, 18th and 29th districts, Joe Biden won over 60 percent of the vote in the new 7th in 2020 (even though much of the new district was friendlier to Republicans in past elections), securing the district as a safe seat for Fletcher barring any future redistricting challenges or internal factional trends within the Republican Party.
In 2022, Fletcher won a third term in the newly reconfigured 7th District, defeating Republican challenger Johnny Teague; Fletcher's 2020 challenger, Wesley Hunt, would himself be elected to the new 38th anchored in the 7th's old base in west Houston by a comfortable margin.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 175,440 | 64.1 | −25.1 | |
| Democratic | John Martinez | 91,126 | 33.3 | ||
| Independent | Paul Staton | 3,713 | 1.4 | ||
| Libertarian | Drew Parks | 3,372 | 1.2 | −9.5 | |
| Majority | 84,314 | 30.8 | |||
| Turnout | 273,651 | ||||
| Republicanhold | Swing | -29.2 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 99,318 | 59.2 | −4.9 | |
| Democratic | Jim Henley | 64,514 | 38.5 | +5.2 | |
| Libertarian | Drew Parks | 3,953 | 2.4 | +1.2 | |
| Majority | |||||
| Turnout | 167,785 | ||||
| Republicanhold | Swing | ||||
In 2008, Culberson defeated wind energy executiveMichael Skelly to win a fifth term with 56 percent of the vote, despite being vastly outspent by the latter in a surprisingly competitive race–the first that the district had seen in four decades. He was likely helped byJohn McCain winning the district with 58 percent of the vote in the presidential election.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 162,205 | 55.9 | −3.3 | |
| Democratic | Michael Skelly | 122,832 | 42.3 | +3.8 | |
| Libertarian | Drew Parks | 5,036 | 1.7 | −0.7 | |
| Majority | |||||
| Turnout | 290,073 | ||||
| Republicanhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 143,665 | 81.9 | +26 | |
| Libertarian | Bob Townsend | 31,704 | 18.1 | +16.4 | |
| Majority | |||||
| Turnout | 175,369 | ||||
| Republicanhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 142,477 | 60.8 | −21.1 | |
| Democratic | James Cargas | 85,253 | 36.4 | ||
| Libertarian | Drew Parks | 4,654 | 2 | −16.1 | |
| Green | Lance Findley | 1,811 | 0.8 | ||
| Majority | |||||
| Turnout | 234,195 | ||||
| Republicanhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 90,606 | 63.3 | 2.5 | |
| Democratic | James Cargas | 49,478 | 34.5 | −1.9 | |
| Libertarian | Gerald Fowler | 4,654 | 2.2 | ||
| Majority | |||||
| Turnout | 143,219 | 39.05 | |||
| Republicanhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 143,542 | 56.17 | −7.13 | |
| Democratic | James Cargas | 111,991 | 43.83 | +9.33 | |
| Majority | |||||
| Turnout | 264,267 | 67.04 | 27.99 | ||
| Republicanhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Lizzie Fletcher | 127,959 | 52.5 | |
| Republican | John Culberson (incumbent) | 115,642 | 47.5 | |
| Total votes | 243,601 | 100.0 | ||
| Democraticgain fromRepublican | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Lizzie Fletcher (incumbent) | 158,019 | 50.76 | −1.77 | |
| Republican | Wesley Hunt | 147,802 | 47.47 | 0 | |
| Libertarian | Shawn Kelly | 5,514 | 1.77 | +1.77 | |
| Majority | 10,217 | 3.29 | −1.77 | ||
| Turnout | 311,335 | ||||
| Democratichold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Lizzie Fletcher (incumbent) | 115,994 | 63.79 | |
| Republican | Johnny Teague | 65,835 | 36.21 | |
| Total votes | 181,929 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Lizzie Fletcher (incumbent) | 148,406 | 61.2 | |
| Republican | Caroline Kane | 94,204 | 38.8 | |
| Total votes | 242,610 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
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