Texas has had at least four congressional districts since the state was readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. The district’s current seat dates from 1903; only five men have represented it since then. Once a reliably Democratic district, the district swung rapidly into the Republican column as Dallas’ suburbs spilled into the western portion of the district. In fact, it has not supported a Democrat for president since 1964, nor did a Democrat file to run in the district in either the 2014 or 2016 elections. However, even as late as 1996, Bill Clinton carried ten of the sixteen counties currently in this district; many of those counties were in the 1st district at the time. For many years, it was based in Tyler, but a controversial 2003 redistricting orchestrated by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay drew it and neighboring Longview out of the 4th district and into neighboring 1st which made it significantly more Republican. In the process, the 4th district was pushed slightly to the north, picking up Texarkana from the 1st district. Ralph Hall, the one-time dean of the Texas congressional delegation, represented the district from 1981 to 2015. Originally a Democrat, he became a Republican in 2004. Hall’s voting record had been very conservative even by Texas Democratic standards, which served him well as the district abandoned its Democratic roots. By the turn of the century, he was the only elected Democrat above the county level in much of the district. He had been rumored as a party switcher for some time, and many experts believed his district was almost certain to be taken over by a Republican anyway once he retired. Hall was defeated in the 2014 Republican primary by John Ratcliffe, a former United States Attorney and the former mayor of Heath, near Hall’s hometown of Rockwall. No Democrat even filed, though the district is so heavily Republican that any Democratic candidate would have faced nearly impossible odds in any event. Ratcliffe took office in January 2015, becoming only the fifth person to hold the seat. In May 2020, Ratcliffe resigned his seat ahead of his swearing in to become the 6th Director of National Intelligence. The district’s best-known congressman was Sam Rayburn, the longtime Speaker of the House. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in the fourth district.
2012 redistricting
After the 2012 redistricting process, a large portion of Collin County had been removed, and replaced with the portion of Cass County that had been in Texas's 1st congressional district, all of Marion County, and a large portion of Upshur County.
The district was created in 1869, one of two new districts that Texas gained after the 1860 Census, but was not filled due to the Civil War and Reconstruction.
