After the routing they delivered in the 2024 election, Texas Republicans were on a roll, pushing through conservative priorities, drawingredder congressional maps and excising Democrats from legislative leadership positions.
What a difference 18 months can make.
With November fast approaching, Texas Republicans are in their weakest position in a generation, facing voter revolt over data centers, transmission lines and a faltering economy tied to the party's standardbearer, President Donald Trump. Scandal-plagued Senate nominee Ken Paxton is polling several points behind Democrat James Talarico, and once-untouchable GOP incumbents have started slinging mud at opponents who are creeping up in the polls.
Texas hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since 1994. Republicans have controlled the Texas House since 2002. But this year, the perennially disappointed Democrats see their best shot at breaking through the GOP's political monopoly, as they aim to capture independents and disaffected moderate Republicans.
Certainly, they've said that before: every cycle, Democrats promise this will be the time they eke back into power. But this year, it's Republicans who are warning about the threat Democrats pose as polls, fundraising and public sentiment show an unprecedented level of enthusiasm for the blue team — and anger at the red one.
"We're in a little bit of uncharted territory here," said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican consultant who led Sen. John Cornyn's unsuccessful primary bid against Paxton. "In GOP circles in Texas, there's a deep feeling that this could be the most competitive statewide election in a long time."
National forecasters have begun to validate the hype: VoteHub recently shifted its prediction to reflect that Talarico is narrowly favored to win the Senate race, and the Center for Politics "crystal ball" rating has moved the race to a toss-up. The group also designated the governor's race as "likely Republican," a less sure rating than its previous "safe Republican."
"There's an opening that I've never seen before in the decades I've been involved in politics in Texas," said Wendy Davis, a former state senator who unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Democrat against Abbott in 2014. "We have to make sure we're showing that there is an alternative that will be good for [voters], and that we'll be fighting for the things that matter to them."
The Paxton problem
The last time Democrats felt this specific shade of hope was 2018, when former El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke ran against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. The midterm environment was similar to 2026 — an unpopular Republican leading a ticket saddled with the baggage of the Trump administration and facing an energetic fresh voice who was galvanizing disengaged, demoralized Democrats.
O'Rourke lost to Cruz by just 2.6 points, less than 200,000 votes, a nailbiter that sent shockwaves through both parties. But at no point during the runup to 2018 did he lead Cruz in the polls, let alone by the margin that Talarico has on Paxton, said Josh Blank, with the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. A composite of recent polls, analyzed by The Texas Tribune, shows Talarico currently leading in more polls than Paxton, for a total spread of more than three points.
"That's really the only election in which Democratic enthusiasm or competitiveness even came close to achieving what we're seeing now, but none of our polling then showed what we're seeing here at this point," Blank said. "The polling has been telling us a pretty consistent story, which is that Democrats are uniformly behind Talarico in a way that Republicans have not yet consolidated behind Paxton."
This is the position many party leaders worried the GOP would find itself in if Paxton won the nomination. Cornyn, the longtime incumbent, is a fundraising juggernaut and party stalwart who had never lost an election. Paxton, a MAGA darling, has long operated under a cloud of alleged personal and professional scandals and has struggled with fundraising and robust campaigning. By the time Paxton defeated Cornyn in a costly, contentious runoff, Talarico had already raked in record-setting cash that he used to remind Texans about Paxton's record of impeachment, indictment and infidelity.
Talarico's financial advantage may be slipping away — just this week, national groups poured more than $60 million into television ads for Paxton, giving them a chance to start defining the race on Paxton's terms. But concerns remain, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. There's a worry some voters will leave the Senate race blank, vote for a third party candidate or stay home entirely if they're unmotivated by the top of the ticket. "We're in an unusual position where the most competitive race is the top of the ticket," Mackowiak said.
Abbott has stepped into the void, at times running more aggressively against Talarico than his own opponent, Austin state Rep. Gina Hinojosa. With a record-setting campaign war chest, Abbott is the state's de facto party leader and has warned about the risk of losing GOP dominance if Republicans become complacent.
But Abbott is facing his own challenges as rural voters revolt over what's seen as a welcoming posture towards data centers and other AI infrastructure. Last month, Hinojosa released a video in which self-proclaimed former Abbott voters in Hood County promised to "break rank" from the GOP due to their anger over data centers. Almost 60% of Texas voters oppose data centers, breaking across party lines. Some polls show Hinojosa closing the gap with Abbott.
Abbott has tried to ameliorate these concerns by requiring all new data centers to be audited by the state, a step that policy experts and Democrats have criticized as insufficient. This organic anger bubbling up across rural and suburban parts of the state has changed the terms of the race between Abbott and Hinojosa, Davis said.
"I believe she has a real shot at beating him, and honestly, I think he believes that, too," she said. "Whether she does win or she comes terribly close, no matter what, he is being held to account in a way that he's never needed to worry about before."
A spokesperson for Abbott said the governor is planning to run a competitive race, as usual, against Hinojosa. Paxton's campaign did not respond to request for comment.
The GOP ticket took another blow this week, as Railroad Commission nominee Bo French drew criticism for a social media post criticizing a group of South Asian students celebrating the University of Texas' victory of Ohio State University.
That controversy, and the subsequent intra-party sparring, has proven a distraction as Republicans are trying to push their own races over the finish line.
"They've got a ticket of MAGA extremists, and they're being dragged down by that," Davis said. "They've got to own the consequences of what that looks like to voters."
Skepticism remains
Ross Hunt, a GOP political strategist and pollster, believes the election will still break for Republicans, despite these headwinds. Unlike 2018, when O'Rourke's rise caught some off guard, the party has been preparing for Talarico since the spring. He anticipates Paxton will underperform compared to the rest of the ticket, but credits Abbott and others for generating enough voter enthusiasm to make up that gap.
"There's a sense of urgency for Republicans, for sure," Hunt said. "Will Talarico drive turnout and enthusiasm among some independents to some extent? Sure. But there are fewer independents to boost, because more people are locked in on either side."
Truly independent voters make up a relatively small proportion of the Texas electorate, but in a tight election, they could prove crucial.
Mike Collier, who faced Patrick as a Democrat in 2018 and 2022, said the party needs to grapple with the fact that many Texans who traditionally vote Republican do not see voting for a Democrat as a viable option, even if they oppose the candidates themselves.
"Republicans have shown us that they will vote for a flawed candidate, as long as that flawed candidate is Republican. They think they can fix any issues after the election," said Collier. "But if Democrats win, they think that can't be fixed."
Collier launched a bid for lieutenant governor as an independent this cycle, on the belief that a lot of Texans are turned off from both Republicans and Democrats. He was unable to get the required signatures in time to get on the ballot and subsequently sued, saying the rules for third party candidates are too onerous; that lawsuit is ongoing.
Blank said Democrats sometimes see the parties as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, while Republicans see it as, say, Coca-Cola and milk.
"I'm not saying which is which, I'm just saying people don't reach for one just because they don't want the other," Blank said. "They're not substitute products."
The enthusiasm that Talarico has engendered is real, and really scary to Republicans, but to close the gap, Democrats need "everything to go right for them," Blank said, noting that they have the harder job of trying to convert independents, whereas Republicans merely need to hold on to voters who have supported them in the past.
Down-ballot impacts
To motivate their base, Republicans have spent their energy fomenting fears of what it might mean for a Democrat to win statewide office. At the midterm GOP convention last week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick warned that the "radical Democrat communism movement in this country — it's real, and it's the most danger our country has ever faced."
Abbott, meanwhile, emphasized that the election presented "a choice between common sense and crazy," adding, "common sense always wins. It will win this year, too." He has hammered Hinojosa for opposing legislation that banned trans minors from accessing gender-transition care and limited what sports teams they could play on.
But if 2018 is any guide, even a close election could have seismic impacts. When O'Rourke nearly unseated Cruz, twelve Democrats flipped state House seats previously held by Republicans, narrowing the gap between the parties and holding off some of the GOP's priorities during the next legislative session.
"They called that the consensus session," Davis said. "Whether we're able to pick up a majority or not, we know we'll have at least a session of more accountability, and Democrats will have even more power to elect the speaker and influence policy making."
Among the Democrats who ousted Republicans in 2018: Talarico and Vikki Goodwin, who is running unusually close to Patrick in the race for lieutenant governor. Nathan Johnson also unseated state Sen. Don Huffines, a Dallas Republican that cycle; Johnson is now running for attorney general, and Huffines for comptroller. Their candidacies are proof of the impact statewide candidates can have on down-ballot races, even if they don't win, Goodwin said.
"We could have significant change here in the state," Goodwin said. "When Democrats have the power of the Legislature … we can have such an impact on what's going on in our state in terms of our schools, our health care, affordability."
That's exactly what's terrifying Republicans so much. In April, Patrick warned that Republicans are "going to have a tough time" holding the Texas House this cycle, a sentiment political consultants and party leaders have echoed repeatedly in the month since.
"Every Republican I'm aware of realizes this year requires a full commitment, in terms of time, effort, resources," Mackowack said. "I don't think you're going to see a lot of candidates giving half effort."
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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