Texas's 1st congressional district

Texas's 1st congressional district
Texas' 1st congressional district
Representative	Nathaniel Moran R–Whitehouse
Distribution	56.8% urban[1] 43.4% rural
Population (2023)	785,535[2]
Median household income	$62,182[2]
Ethnicity	60.0% White 17.5% Black 17.0% Hispanic 3.7% Two or more races 1.2% Asian 0.7% other
Cook PVI	R+26[3]

Texas' 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives serves the northeastern portion of the state of Texas. As of 2022, the 1st district contained 775,992 people. It consists largely of three small East Texas metropolitan areas—Texarkana, Texas, Longview–Marshall, and Tyler. With a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of R+26, it is the most Republican district in Texas.^[3] It has been represented by Republican Nathaniel Moran since 2023.

The 1st district once encompassed large parts of North Texas and Central Texas, but as the population of Texas grew, the district got smaller until it only encompassed about half of Northeast Texas.

For most of its history, the district was based in Texarkana, but in a controversial 2003 redistricting orchestrated by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texarkana was drawn out of the district and moved to the neighboring 4th district. Lufkin, Tyler and Longview were added in its place. In the 2021 redistricting, Lufkin was dropped from the district and Texarkana was added back into it.

The district was predominantly rural for much of its history, and thus was far friendlier to electing Democrats to Congress even as most of Texas swung toward the Republicans. The district's four-term Democratic incumbent, Max Sandlin, was a particularly severe critic of the DeLay-led redistricting effort, claiming that lumping rural areas with urban ones stifled the voice of rural voters. The 2003 redistricting made the district more urban and Republican, especially with the addition of the Republican strongholds of Tyler and Longview. Sandlin was easily defeated in November 2004 by Republican Louie Gohmert, a longtime judge in the Tyler area. Gohmert was the first Republican to represent the district since Reconstruction. Proving just how Republican the reconfigured district is, Gohmert was reelected seven times with no less than 68 percent of the vote. The Democrats chose to not put up a candidate in 2008 and 2012. In 2022, Moran was elected to succeed Gohmert, with nearly 80% of the vote, becoming only the second Republican to represent the district since Reconstruction.

The district's best-known congressman, Wright Patman, represented the district for 47 years—the second-longest tenure of any Texan in Congress. He was an early supporter of the New Deal, and later chaired the House Banking Committee for 12 years.