AUSTIN, Texas — The fight over the future of Texas elections is far from over. House Democrats temporarily stopped increased voter restrictions, but Gov. Greg Abbott promises to put the issue in a special session later this year.

In a legislature dominated by Republicans, there is little chance for Democrats to completely stifle such a sweeping election measure. Tuesday, Democrats announced a plan in hopes of getting more eligible voters engaged. While efforts to get many Texans registered to vote are nothing new, what is different is how much the Democratic Party plans to spend and how they will track different approaches.

“Voter registration is absolutely critical as a way to close the gap and improve the chances that Democrats will get elected for any seat," Luke Warford, chief strategy officer for the Texas Democratic Party told Capital Tonight. "When we look at who those people are, who the unregistered Texans are, we know that they're young, we know that they're diverse, we know that they are people of color, or people who have just moved here from other states that tend to lean more Democratic."

In 2020, former President Donald Trump won Texas by more than 631,000 votes. Two years earlier, former Congressman Beto O’Rourke got within 225,000 votes of Sen. Ted Cruz.

In their analysis of last year's November general election, Texas Democrats acknowledged they were outperformed by the GOP in turnout. Now Democrats aim to register 2 million eligible voters by the 2022 midterm elections.

Tuesday the party unveiled their plan dubbed "Project Texas." Warford said it would start off with a nearly $2 million investment, but could end up reaching $14 million.

Democrats will try out different tactics geographically including digital ads, apartment registration, mail registration, traditional site-based registration, relational voter registration and an online request tool tied to RegisterTexas.com that would work in conjunction with door-to-door canvassing.

“The idea of trying to test different things and match the correct voter registration tactic to specific voters. I think that is probably the most innovative and cutting edge thing about this program, fundamentally," Warford said.

The Democrats’ announcement comes fresh off a weekend of Republican victories in local elections and a legislative session where staunch conservative priorities dominated. Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser said he can see this session play a major factor in the Republican primaries as well Democrats pointing to those issues. But he believes those statewide issues might fade in the rearview, as national politics gets under the spotlight.

“Democratic hopes have been dashed a couple of times, recently, and I know that they kind of are playing the long game here. But until they start to win elections statewide, or they start to win more Congressional seats or State House and State Senate seats, they are going to have a tough time convincing, you know, their voters [they're] able to turn Texas blue," Steinhauser said.

The 2022 Republican primary is already heating up with one official challenger for the governor’s seat. After one year on the job sprinkled with spats with state leaders, Chairman Allen West of the Republican Party of Texas is stepping down in July prompting speculation around his run for higher office.

Meanwhile, current Land Commissioner George P. Bush launched his bid for Texas Attorney General. Bush broke with his family by supporting Trump.

“The Republican Party is trying to decide what its future looks like, you know, what role does the former president play in that? What are the issues that we should talk about? Who are the types of candidates that we should run for office?” Steinhauser said.

The Democrats’ voter registration plan begins with a pilot program that will run until the end of the year. By 2022 they said they will scale up what tactics are working. The minority party took a lot of heat for not doing enough in-person voter engagement during the 2020 cycle.

Warford said candidate recruitment will be critical, as well as messaging and brand development.

"We know that the thing that results in people ultimately making decisions about whether or not they're going to go vote is fairly complex, right? It's a combination of who the candidates are, what they're saying, the moment in time," he said. 'We're doing our best to think about it holistically and strategically so that our candidates get elected in 2022 and beyond."