With the release of the latest census data, time is now running out for the Texas legislature to get to work on redrawing congressional and state legislative maps.

But delays in Washington DC and Austin due to the COVID-19 pandemic could impact the timing of next year’s Texas primaries, experts say.

COVID-19 has driven the state demographics census reporting process. This would have forced a special session to handle the recut in any case.

But several special sessions before the redistricting could postpone legislative work on drawing up new maps until late in the fall.

“It is likely that there will be a special redistricting session in October-November of this year, but those dates could slip,” said Cal Jillson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University.

In an email, Brandon Rottinghaus, who teaches political science at the University of Houston, said the timeline was ambitious, given the ongoing walkout by House Democrats.

“That’s assuming the Dems come back and work on the current Bill crop,” Rottinghaus wrote. “I guess it’s more like (December or January) because delays are inevitable as Abbott packs promotions with more items.”

The longer it takes, the harder it will be to complete the 2022 state primaries in March as planned. Even after state lawmakers designate new congressional districts, they may face legal challenges, causing further delays. After the 2010 census, the 2012 primaries were pushed back to May while the maps were under legal review.

In a briefing to present state-level demographics for 2020, Nicholas A. Jones, director of the Census Bureau and senior racial and ethnic research adviser, noted that the state’s Anglo majority had shrunk in the decade: The gap between the non-Hispanic white population and the Hispanic or Latino population in Texas has shrunk by about half a percent, he said.

Since Republicans control both houses of the state legislature, they will have a head start in crafting congressional and statewide legislative maps to bolster and solidify their majorities — but the growing diversity of the state will complicate their efforts.

“That control and that ability to gerrymander is going to be harder and harder to maintain,” said Stephen Klineberg, a demographer and professor emeritus of sociology at Rice University. “No force imaginable in the world will stop Houston, Texas, or America from becoming more African-American, more Asian, more Latino, and less Anglo-Saxon as the 21st century unfolds.”

Klineberg said he expects the Republicans to still succeed — at least in the short term — in creating maps to their advantage, but he stressed that “the redistricting will be less successful this time there are 10 years”.