Meet Adam Kincaid: The Hidden Hand Behind the Texas GOP’s Redistricting Power Grab

When it comes to redrawing America’s political lines in ways that secure and expand Republican power — especially at the expense of voters — Adam Kincaid is one of the most central yet overlooked figures.

Kincaid is the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust (NRRT), the GOP’s chief redistricting organization. In that role, he has helped design and defend some of the most aggressive gerrymanders of the past decade, including the ongoing Texas mid-decade redistricting plan that could net up to five new congressional seats for the GOP.

“It’s a priority to keep the House and Republicans should be looking for as many seats as we can get,” he said earlier this year, referring to the GOP’s national strategy to maintain federal power. “There were a handful of seats that weren’t politically possible to get before that may be possible now. It makes sense for Republicans to try ahead of 2026.”

Kincaid, who is from Virginia, has led the effort to entrench the GOP’s power grip in Texas before. 

In 2021, Republicans hired Kincaid — for just $5,000 —  to design the state’s congressional map following the U.S. Census. Texas GOP-hired lawyer, Chris Gober, later testified that Kincaid “had the mouse” on the computer, drawing the district lines himself to help cement Republican control for the decade to come.

That 2021 Texas map has been the subject of federal lawsuits for alleged intentional racial discrimination. Despite Black and Latino voters accounting for 95% of Texas’ population growth in recent years, Kincaid’s map reduced the number of districts where Black and Latino voters could elect their candidates of choice. 

The Department of Justice, under former President Joe Biden, and voting rights advocates challenged the map, alleging it was drawn as an intentional racial gerrymander. But while those lawsuits play out, the state continues to use the map — and is now, again with Kincaid’s leadership, attempting to build on it with a mid-decade redraw.

This year’s redistricting push, ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and endorsed by President Donald Trump, slices into Democratic districts and cracks apart communities of color with Kincaid’s help behind the scenes.

Texas Democrats have attempted to get Kincaid subpoenaed, but Republicans blocked the effort. Redistricting hearings have been minimal, rushed and devoid of meaningful testimony. Kincaid, as in 2021, has stayed relatively silent.

In Tarrant County — a diverse area that includes Fort Worth — Kincaid was hired in 2025 to redraw local commissioner precincts. 

“My entire intention is to allow Tarrant County to go from three Republicans, two Democrats to four Republicans, one Democrat,” GOP Commissioner Matt Krause admitted on record.

Kincaid delivered, submitting seven drafts to the county. All of them packed Black and Latino voters into a single district, allowing white Republican majorities to dominate the others. Unsurprisingly, the Republican majority in the county approved Kincaid’s plan.

Texas is not new territory for Kincaid. He has spent more than a decade working to manipulate electoral maps to Republican advantage — in states like Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. As head of the NRRT and its affiliated dark money group, Fair Lines America, he has overseen the national strategy of structuring political lines to benefit one party alone.

Kincaid has also been a leading voice against independent redistricting commissions — which he claims are rigged and unfairly benefit Democrats.

“These commissions are set up in a way where it favors Democrats and their liberal allies,” he said in 2021. “We’re stuck with them, whether we like them or not, in the places where they are.”

The NRRT and Kincaid have backed lawsuits and campaigns to block independent redistricting reforms.

Kincaid’s work for the GOP is typically conducted through law firms, enabling Republican officials to invoke attorney-client privilege and block disclosure of communications, draft maps and intent. 

As Republicans push a mid-decade congressional redraw in Texas with minimal hearings and almost no transparency, the legal firewall surrounding Kincaid’s involvement allows the state to remake its electoral map without much public input or accountability.

Jen Rice contributed to this reporting.