It includes the Houston suburbs of Jersey Village, Cypress, Tomball, Greater Katy, and Klein.

[4][3] The district was created as a result of the 2022 redistricting to account for rapid growth in Harris County during the previous decade, and includes many of the most Republican areas in Houston and Harris County, including much of the Katy Freeway corridor west of downtown Houston.

The district's first incumbent is Republican Wesley Hunt, an African-American Republican, former Army officer and West Point and Cornell University graduate who narrowly lost in the 7th District to one-term Democratic incumbent Lizzie Fletcher in 2020, the latter having defeated longtime Republican incumbent John Culberson in the same district two years prior; Hunt conceded the race the day after the election.

Having initially being pegged for a rematch against Fletcher in 2022, Hunt wound up running in the new 38th District that was reportedly designed to elect him in redistricting talks (and which as aforementioned takes much of the historical west Houston base of the old 7th.

Hunt easily won the 2022 Republican primary over nine other candidates with over 50 percent of the vote, and easily defeated former Spring Branch ISD superintendent Duncan Klussmann in the general election, becoming the first Black Republican to represent the Houston area in Congress since Reconstruction.