In the final days of campaigning, Democrats had high hopes for Texas.
They believed they had a chance to win the presidential race in the state, oust Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and flip the state House.
"They didn't do any of those things," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.
A look at the statewide map shows that Democrats are winning in the major metro areas of Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and Austin but getting soundly defeated in the rural vote.
West, Central and East Texas "remains reliably red and even dark red," Jones said.
“Democrats certainly have high hopes but these high hopes seem to get dashed quite often and this year was one more example of that," he said.
Austin-based GOP consultant Matt Mackowiak says Democrats are out of touch in Texas.
“The issues the Democrats ran on are simply issues you cannot win on in Texas," Mackowiak said. "You cannot win on gun control, you cannot win on an abortion position, you cannot win on a big government health care approach, you can’t win on shutting down fracking."
Democrats have made progress in the suburbs, including in Collin and Denton counties. The party has taken a bigger share of the votes this year compared to the presidential election in 2016.
“You can definitely see the suburbs are trending blue,” said Mike Rawlins, the chair of the Collin County Democratic Party. “We feel it’s just going to be a matter of time before they flip.”
But other suburban areas have remained staunchly Republican, including Rockwall and Ellis counties.
Though those areas don't have huge populations, a vast majority of voters there are Republican, said Jones, the political science professor.
"It can add up and help counteract the Democrat balances in places like Dallas County," he said.