TEXAS — With Texas looking like a battleground state for the White House for the first time in decades, Democrats also hope to score wins up and down the ballot on Election Day, including one particular prize: Taking control of the Texas State House.
Democrats need to flip nine State House seats on Nov. 3 to take the majority. They have targeted 22 races in the 150-seat legislature, focusing on the voters in the rapidly growing suburban populations outside the state’s urban Democratic stronghold cities.
Urban centers have voted Democrat for more than a decade, in contrast to the 224 reliably Republican rural counties in the state. But explosive population growth and diversification of voters in some of the outer suburbs of Dallas, Houston, and Austin have pushed the Democrat footprint outside of the urban center.
As a result, Texas has seen traditional Republican strongholds become increasingly competitive.
Two years ago, Democrats picked up 12 seats in the State House, a substantial increase that came during the same midterm election year in which Democrat Beto O'Rourke narrowly lost a race to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican. In that race, O’Rourke managed to get support from several traditional Republican county strongholds, such as Tarrant County, giving the Democrats huge momentum going into 2020.
"Texas is no longer a one-party, Republican state,” said Ted Harpham, the dean of the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College and a political science professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. "It’s now a question of if the Democrats can extend their reach in the suburbs and how far.”
Harpham points to inner and outer suburbs of north of Dallas, including Collin County, as “the heart of the political transformation in the state.”
But can the Democrats extend and hold on to their gains from 2018?
“Right now they have an advantage because of how [Pres. Donald] Trump has handled COVID,” which has driven many Republicans away from the president’s reelection campaign, he said.
Polls have shown many middle-class, suburban voters in traditionally Republican areas such as Collin County and North Dallas favoring Biden, perhaps because he is seen to be more moderate.
It remains to be seen if the Democrats can turn these voters into long-term Biden Democrats, Harpham said.
Democrats currently have 67 House seats, while the Republicans have 83. Democrats have not controlled the State House since 2003. If they manage to take the majority, it will end an 18-year run on a Republican trifecta of power in Texas.
“There's no doubt that we are going to pick up seats in the Texas House, the question is now how many seats,” said Abhi Rahman, a spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party. “We're on offense this November and everything we're seeing from polling to data suggests that we're going to win up and down the ballot in Texas this year.”
Both parties have been raising an unprecedented amount of campaign funds for races that just two years ago were seen as expensive if they stretched into the low six-figure budgets.
There has been a national focus on getting more Democrats in state legislatures, and Texas Democratic candidates have benefited from in huge influx of donations. So far, the Democratic have reported raising $29.8 million for House races this year, according to the National Institute on Money in Politics. The nonpartisan institute compiles local, state, and federal campaign finance reports into a database on Followthemoney.org.
Republicans in the last month have raised millions to counter the Democrats’ early boosts of cash. A Dallas Morning News analysis reported that 12 Republican candidates raised at least $1 million each in the last month alone, according to filings with the Texas Ethics Commission, as of Oct. 28. The National Institute on Money in Politics’ database showed the Republicans with $39.5 million raised, not including the filings to the Texas Ethics Commission.
“I think we've got an incredible amount of energy and motivation, and I think people understand the importance of keeping the Texas State House,” said Allen West, the chairman of the Texas GOP.
West cast doubt on the Democrats’ ability to flip nine seats this year.
“As a matter of fact, I think we can do very well holding a lot of those seats and maybe winning back some of those 12 that we lost in 2018, just two years ago,” he said.
If Republicans want to hold the House, they will need to defend themselves in races that were narrowly won in 2018. Democrats are also eyeing seats in areas that O’Rourke carried that year.
Any race that a Republican won by 10 points or less in 2018 will be seen by the Democrats as an opportunity, while the races that were between 5 or 6 points, they will be targeting and spending on heavily, explained Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist based in Austin.
Races that were between 3 points or less, “it will be like sharks smelling blood in the water,” he said.
“The Republicans are struggling, and it isn’t just a white, suburban woman problem,” Steinhauser said, referring to a national trend of suburban, white women turning away from supporting Trump this year at the polls. “It’s a young voters problem. It’s an Asian voter problem, it’s a Hispanic voter problem. And a people-moving-in-from-all-over-the-world and from out-of-state voter problem.”
Here are the 22 House races the Democrats are targeting, broken down by the dominant counties in which they fall (some of the districts stretch across two counties).
The House 108 race is perhaps one of the most-watched races in the state and one that the Democrats are “taking to the bank,” Steinhauser said. Democrat Joanna Cattanach is challenging incumbent Morgan Meyer, who beat back Cattanach’s challenge two years ago by just 440 votes. O’Rouke beat Cruz here in 2018 by 15 percentage points. This district encompasses most of North and East Dallas, as well as the affluent inner suburbs of Highland Park and University Park, known as the Park Cities. Democrats are hoping to capitalize on the district’s population of white, highly-educated, and wealthy voters who polls show trending away from Trump for Biden.
In District 112, Republican Angie Chen Button is fighting for her seat against Democratic challenger Brandy Chambers, whom she beat two years ago by just two percentage points. In contrast to 108, this district’s blue wave is not a case of wealthy whites turning their backs on Trump, Steinhauser said. It’s more about the growing population of highly educated immigrants and out-of-staters who don’t share the same concerns about Republican social issues such as abortion and guns and are voting more for Democrats.
Watch this space. Races in Collin County have garnered national attention and unprecedented amounts of fundraising. The race for House District 67 is already in the million-dollar range, with Republican incumbent Jeff Leach counting on $1.7 million in his coffers to beat Democratic challenger Lorenzo Sanchez, who has $1.25 million, according to the Dallas Morning News analysis.
Leach is a young and dynamic candidate and a skilled politician, Steinhauser said. But he won by just over 2 percentage points in 2018 in his district, meaning Leach is having to fight hard to keep his seat this year. O’Rourke won this district in 2018 by about 5.5 percentage points over Cruz.
Collin County’s early voting turnout was one of the highest in the state, and many of those early voters were young, said Mike Rawlins, the chairman of the Collin County Democrats. It’s another reason to keep an eye on House races 66 and 67.
“If you want to see how Texas is doing in this election, watch how the numbers come in for the mail-in and early voting ballots in those races in Tarrant and Collin County races Tuesday night,” Rawlins said. Results for these ballots could begin posting by 7 p.m. on Election Night. “If they start swinging toward the Democrats, Biden is going to do well in the state.”
Tarrant County has been strongly Republican for decades, but two years ago, it surprised most Texans by voting for O’Rourke, albeit by less than a percentage point.
Still, that shift put several of this year’s House races in play, particularly in areas where demographic changes have altered the electorate. The Democrats are looking optimistically at these seats as flippable.
While five Tarrant County races are seen as competitive, House District 96 will be an important bellwether for what’s happening in the State, Steinhauser said. Republican Bill Zedler is retiring, leaving Republican David Cook and Democrat Joe Draggo to battle it out for his open seat. Democratic megadonors list Draggo’s campaign as one to target, but Cook has raised about $1.16 million, making it the second most expensive race in the county. The district sits in the southern half of the county and has seen a lot of growth in the area. If the Republicans lose the seat, it means the so-called blue wave in Texas is real, Steinhauser said.
House District 26 has been an example of the diverse demographic changes happening in the Houston area. Some in the growing Asian immigrant population have run as Republicans here, but O’Rourke carried the district in 2018 by 1.57%. Look for what could be a tight race.
Steve Allison won 53% of the vote over his Democratic rival in 2018. But polls are showing that Biden could carry this district, which is largely affluent and the highly-educated urban area outside San Antonio, the kind of voters who are souring on Trump, Steinhauser said. This could give Democratic challenger Celina Montoya a strong shot at flipping this seat.
The race for Republican Sarah Davis’ seat in District 134 is very competitive. Democrat Ann Johnson is challenging Davis for this seat, which Davis, a moderate Republican, won by about 6 percentage points in 2018. But O’Rouke took this wealthy, inner suburban area of Houston by 21 percentage points that same year, and Democrats think they have a good chance of flipping it.
On the west side of Houston, House District 138 has an open seat where Dwayne Bohac, a conservative Republican, is retiring from representing a constituency that has trended Democrat in recent elections.
Bell County, House District 54; Brazoria County, House District 29; Denton County, House District 64; and Nueces County, House District 32.