AUSTIN, Texas — This article was originally published by our content partners at the Texas Tribune. Read the original article here.
Texas' political landscape for the next two years may come down to a few key statehouse races in Dallas, San Antonio and South Texas.
Republicans face little danger of losing their majorities in either chamber of the Texas Legislature, having redrawn the state’s political lines three years ago to fortify their incumbents. But Democrats — riding a recent wave of enthusiasm sparked by Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination — think they can flip just enough House seats this November to beat back an all-out push by Republicans to pass school vouchers, which allow public money to be used to pay for private education.
Republicans, however, aren’t content to play defense. Led by Gov. Greg Abbott and his massive campaign war chest, the state’s GOP is projecting confidence that high turnout driven by the presidential election will help them flip more seats in their favor and tighten the conservative grip on the Legislature.
Also at stake is House Speaker Dade Phelan’s control of the chamber amid a revolt from right-wing members who believe the Beaumont Republican is not conservative enough. Democratic wins in certain districts could cut into the support of Phelan’s intra-party challenger, state Rep. David Cook of Mansfield, who has aligned himself with the rightmost flank of the party and vowed to block the minority party from having any leadership positions in the House.
In addition to a boost at the top of the ticket, Democrats hope Dallas Rep. Colin Allred’s increasingly competitive bid against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz will translate into down-ballot wins, akin to when Cruz was last on the ballot in 2018 and Democrats flipped 12 seats.
“I do think that Republicans know that Texas is becoming more Democratic, and it doesn’t matter how much of a gerrymander they try to impose on a state legislature,” said Monique Alcala, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “Their coalition is getting smaller and ours is getting bigger.”
Democrats’ targets
Among Democrats’ top targets are a pair of Republican-controlled House districts where, under the current boundaries, Democrat Joe Biden would have received more votes than Republican Donald Trump in 2020.
In south San Antonio, Democrats are targeting GOP state Rep. John Lujan, who flipped his traditionally Democratic seat in a 2021 special election and won a full term the following year, even as O’Rourke carried the district over Abbott. Lujan is facing off against Kristian Carranza, a Democratic organizer who grew up in the area.
Democrats are also trying to reclaim a Rio Grande Valley district held by state Rep. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito, who won the seat by about 4 points in 2022. Lopez decisively outraised her Democratic challenger, former Cameron County justice of the peace Jonathan Gracia, in the latest campaign finance reporting period, and is headed into the final weeks of the race with nearly five times as much cash on hand.
Democrats also hope to unseat the only two Republicans representing Dallas County in the House: Reps. Angie Chen Button of Richardson and Morgan Meyer of University Park. Both are part of the GOP’s moderate faction but have given Democrats plenty of fodder with their support for school vouchers and the state abortion ban. Trump would have beaten Biden in both of those districts by less than 1 percentage point.
Also on Democrats’ shortlist are several more challenging targets in the Austin and Dallas suburbs, as well as a San Antonio district where in the March primary right-wing conservative Marc LaHood ousted Steve Allison, the moderate Republican incumbent, in a district where school vouchers could be a deciding issue.
In that race, Democrats are holding out hope that political newcomer Laurel Jordan Swift can convince voters in the traditionally Republican district to cross over and form a winning anti-voucher coalition.
Abbott has claimed to have the votes to pass a voucher measure in the House, with a total of 77 House GOP nominees on the ballot this November who have previously voted for vouchers or voiced support on the campaign trail — a narrow majority of the 150-seat House if they all prevail.
Democrats are also trying to challenge Rep. Caroline Harris Davila in Williamson County and Rep. Ben Bumgarner in Denton County. Harris Davila’s district would have gone for Trump by 4 points in 2020 as it’s currently drawn and Bumgarner’s would have gone for him by 6, but Democrats are bullish on making Republicans spend money in suburban areas that have gradually gotten bluer in recent years.
Alcala said voters will punish Republicans in the battleground districts over their actions on education and abortion.
Lawmakers last year failed to tap the state’s massive $33 billion budget surplus to boost school funding after the money got caught up in the voucher fight. In a previous session, the Legislature passed laws to ban abortion, which went into effect when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“People want adults governing. And they don’t want the culture wars,” Alcala said. “Democrats want fully funded schools, access to reproductive care. … These are the things that people care about, and they’re believing enough to participate in a campaign.”
Republicans’ targets
Meanwhile, Democrats will play defense in North Texas where two years ago Rep. Mihaela Plesa became the first Collin County Democrat sent to the state House in decades, when she eked out a win by fewer than 900 votes.
Plesa, who faces off against Republican Steve Kinard, is a top target for the GOP who think high voter turnout during a presidential year will return the district to their column.
Republicans see another promising pickup opportunity in the seat being vacated by state Rep. Tracy King, a Democrat from Uvalde whose district runs from Laredo to just south of San Antonio. King, who was first elected to the House in 1994, was seen as an old-school conservative Democrat who had staying power with the district’s voters. But Abbott carried the district by nearly 6 percentage points in 2022, and under the current boundaries, Trump would have won it by about 4 points in 2020.
The open race pits former Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr., a Republican, against construction company owner Cecilia Castellano, the Democratic nominee. The contest has been roiled by a state vote harvesting investigation that led authorities to confiscate Castellano’s phone; she has dismissed the probe as politically motivated “nonsense.” McLaughlin has high name recognition in the district, often appearing on national television as he led Uvalde through a harrowing school shooting at Robb Elementary in 2022. He has been endorsed by Abbott and received major financial support from the governor, who he previously criticized for the state’s response to the shooting.
Cook, the Republican challenging Phelan for the speakership, counts McLaughlin among his list of supporters, along with Bumgarner, Harris Davila and Kinard. The outcomes of those races could help decide whether Cook has enough support from Republicans in the caucus to win him their endorsement for speaker.
Abbott, meanwhile, has predicted Republicans will pick up the King and Plesa seats, along with a third district held by retiring state Rep. Abel Herrero, a Robstown Democrat whose district covers part of Corpus Christi and spreads west. Herrero was reelected by 15 percentage points in 2022, but O’Rourke carried the district by only 5 points.
Herrero’s seat overlaps with a small chunk of the only Senate district that appears to be up for grabs this fall, represented by state Sen. Morgan LaMantia of South Padre Island. The freshman Democrat faces Republican Adam Hinojosa in a rematch of their 2022 contest, in which LaMantia prevailed by a razor-thin margin of less than 700 votes.
LaMantia recently suffered a political hit when her predecessor, longtime conservative Democrat Eddie Lucio, Jr., endorsed Hinojosa.
The outcome of that race should have little effect on the balance of power in the state Senate, where Republicans control 19 of the 31 seats and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the presiding officer, has long maintained a tight grip on the chamber. But it would add to Republicans’ recent victories in largely Hispanic South Texas, traditionally a Democratic stronghold.
While Democrats are optimistic about their limited prospects this election cycle, Republicans note that the minority party has repeatedly fallen short in recent elections.
In 2020, Democrats went on an all-out blitz to flip control of the state House and failed to net any seats. And in the 2022 midterms, every statewide Democrat lost by double-digit margins despite gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke’s record-setting fundraising haul.
Craig Murphy, a Republican strategist who is working on several of the most competitive House races, said that while nobody in the party is taking the legislative elections for granted, there is also a sense that Democrats “year after year … throw more and more money at Texas, and so far, they continue to fail.”
“I would put it this way: I would love to have the election today,” Murphy said. “We're assuming it's going to be a huge fight, but like other years, we do feel like we have an advantage.”
Two races to watch
Democrats see perhaps their best pickup opportunities in the Button and Lujan districts — both suburban seats where they have young, energetic female candidates who have raised lots of money and are running against pro-voucher, anti-abortion incumbents.
Button is facing a challenge from Averie Bishop, the former Miss Texas-turned-political candidate who is using her high name recognition and large social media following to take on the incumbent. And in San Antonio, Carranza is criticizing Lujan for his support of school vouchers and anti-abortion legislation.
The two Democratic candidates have raised impressive war chests and are pounding the pavement in their respective districts.
“Both Averie and Kristian Carranza are easily the most flippable seats,” Alcala said. “Because of the numbers but also because of the type of candidates we have and the fundraising they’re doing.”
Carranza is betting that vouchers and school funding will especially resonate in an area that includes a number of beleaguered school districts like Harlandale ISD, which closed four elementary schools last year amid a funding deficit. She has also blasted Lujan’s recent remark from a radio interview where he was asked about Texas’ abortion ban, which lacks exceptions for cases of rape and incest. Lujan said that if he had a daughter who became pregnant after being raped, “I would say no, we’re going to have the baby.” Carranza has featured the comments in an ad that characterizes Lujan as “too extreme for Texas.”
Murphy, Lujan’s campaign consultant, told the San Antonio Express-News that Lujan was voicing his personal beliefs and supports exceptions for rape and incest as a matter of state law. Lujan later clarified that he meant he would encourage, not force, his daughter to forgo an abortion; he also said he would work next session to add exceptions for rape and incest.
Lujan rolled out his own TV ad last week in which he recounts fighting off a home invader who cut the neck of his infant son, who survived and appears in the ad as an adult alongside his father. Lujan goes on to describe how the episode led him to a career “protecting families” as a firefighter, sheriff’s deputy and lawmaker.
In the Dallas suburbs, meanwhile, Democrats are once again going after Button, who has represented her district for 15 years. In 2018, Button won a close race by just 1,110 votes and two years later she won a rematch by only 222 votes.
Republicans have chalked up those victories to Button’s head-down approach to the Legislature and her voting record reflecting the needs of her district. She’s the longest-serving incumbent on either party’s target list and outperformed Abbott in her district in 2022 and Trump in 2020.
But Bishop is attacking Button for her support of school voucher legislation, a crucial issue for the district which saw heavy enrollment losses and moved to close four campuses as part of sweeping budget cuts.
Murphy argued that views on vouchers are so split that it’s difficult to make it an effective cudgel. He also said Republicans, like his client Button, can point to their own past spending on teacher pay and cost-of-living adjustments for retired teachers to position themselves as pro-public education. Democrats counter that Texas schools are facing a funding crisis and teachers remain underpaid, especially after the money to pay for raises became a casualty of the voucher fight.
Genevieve Collins, director for the Texas chapter of the conservative political group Americans for Prosperity, said the top issues — based on her group’s weekly polling and knocking the doors of swing voters in key House districts — are the economy, border security and “education empowerment,” or school vouchers. Cost of living concerns are especially resonant, she said.
“‘It's the economy, stupid,’” Collins said, referring to the phrase popularized by Democratic political strategist James Carville. “Families have really struggled over these last four years financially, with the cost of gas, the cost of groceries, and just overall, the cost of living has gone up.”
