Texas's 17th congressional district

In 2003, Texas redrew its congressional lines under House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The 17th district was reshaped to be Republican-dominated, with one clear purpose: unseating its longtime incumbent, conservative Democrat Chet Edwards. The Cook Partisan Voting Index rated the new district R plus twenty. That made it, along with a district in Mississippi, the most heavily Republican seat in the country still held by a Democrat. Several of Edwards's Democratic colleagues lost their seats in 2004. He kept his. He kept it again in 2006, and again in 2008. The end came in 2010, when Republican Bill Flores beat him by roughly sixty-two percent to thirty-seven. Flores was the first Republican ever elected from the district, which had existed since 1919. The seat is now held by Pete Sessions, a Waco native. The district takes in Baylor University in Waco, and George W. Bush's McLennan County ranch.