With Republicans bracing for a difficult midterm election, Texas appears to have its biggest slate of competitive races for the Texas Legislature and U.S. Congress in years. The Texas Tribune has compiled a list of the most competitive general election contests, a measure of which are most likely to flip.
We evaluated all legislative and congressional districts in Texas up for election this year, spanning 38 U.S. House seats, all 150 seats in Texas House and 16 of the 31 seats in the Texas Senate. We assigned each a rating, with the most competitive battlegrounds tagged as “hot” and the least contentious as “cold.” Some districts had less competitive heat but could still be in the mix during a wave year; we rated those as “warm.”
For our analysis, we looked at how each district voted in the 2024 presidential and 2018 U.S. Senate elections. The closer the margins, the likelier the 2026 race would be hot.
We also considered whether an incumbent is running for reelection and, if so, whether the incumbent outperformed their party’s presidential nominee within the district in 2024. Other factors included polling trends, such as the leftward shift of Latino voters when we weighed the “hotness” of districts in the Rio Grande Valley, and which districts the parties have identified as being on their radar.
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Note: The data we used for previous elections’ margins comes from the Texas Legislative Council, which allows us to analyze the results of the 2024 and 2018 elections as if they occurred under district boundaries that are in place for this year’s elections.
U.S. House
All four of the state’s most competitive U.S. House races are in majority-Hispanic districts across South Texas, and each went for President Donald Trump by 10 points or more in 2024. In that election, Hispanic voters in South Texas made large shifts toward the Republican Party.
Three of these districts are among the Democratic seats targeted by the Texas GOP’s redrawn congressional map, which was designed to net the party up to five more seats in the U.S. House.
Under the new boundaries, Trump won Districts 28, 34 and 35 each by about 10 points. But in 2018, the new 28th and 34th Districts would have been carried by Democratic Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, the Democratic incumbents, are banking on their crossover appeal and the GOP’s sagging Latino support to overcome the mid-decade redraw..
In District 35, however, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz would have beaten O’Rourke by less than half of a percentage point. Democrats also lack the advantage of incumbency here, with Rep. Greg Casar running in another district and leaving District 35 open.
Democrats are playing offense, meanwhile, in another one of Texas’ most competitive U.S. House races. Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz is running against Tejano musician Bobby Pulido in a redrawn District 15 that now includes southeastern Hidalgo County and part of the Coastal Bend.
Other congressional races to watch include District 9, which includes the eastern Houston area, and District 23, a sprawling and largely rural district that runs from San Antonio to the outskirts of El Paso. Neither has an incumbent running. Trump would have won both districts by at least 15 points last cycle, but the margins would have been slimmer in the 2018 U.S. Senate race.
Texas House
At least a dozen Texas House districts are highly competitive, the majority of which Trump won by less than 10 points in 2024. About half of the most competitive races are in major urban areas or their surrounding suburbs, such as the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio regions.
Republicans control an 88-62 majority in the Legislature’s lower chamber. Democrats would need to flip 14 seats to gain control of the House, though they could still change the shape of next year’s legislative session — and make governing difficult for Republicans — if they significantly narrow the GOP’s advantage.
In 2018, Democrats rode O’Rourke’s coattails to a 12-seat pickup in the Texas House.
Several of the most competitive races are also concentrated in South Texas, where Democrats see a chance to win back previously blue seats if Latino voters abandon the GOP.
In Corpus Christi’s District 34, a seat where 71% of the eligible voting population is Hispanic, Republican state Rep. Denise Villalobos outperformed the top of the ticket in 2024, winning by a margin of 9.3 points compared to Trump’s 1.4-point edge. But In the 2018 U.S. Senate election, O’Rourke won the district by 16.5 points, leaving room for Democratic challenger Stephanie Guerrero Sáenz to flip the seat.
Democrats are also targeting the Valley’s District 37, which state Rep. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito, brought under GOP control in 2022.
And in North Texas, they are going after perennial targets Morgan Meyer and Angie Chen Button, whose Dallas County districts each went for Trump by under 6 points in 2024.
Texas Senate
Only 16 of the 31 Texas Senate seats are up for election this year, an overwhelming majority of which have incumbents seeking reelection.
The most competitive race is Senate District 9 in the northern Fort Worth area. Democratic state Sen. Taylor Rehmet took office months ago after he won a special election, flipping the GOP district that Trump previously won by 17 points.
He faces his special election opponent, Republican Leigh Wambsganss, for a rematch in November.
The surprising upset in SD 9, paired with the buzz surrounding Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico at the top of the ticket, has energized Texas Democrats as they look to make gains statewide and flip GOP-leaning suburban districts.
Additionally, Districts 19 and 21 along the Mexico border, both controlled by Democrats, are rated as warm. Democratic 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris won them by slim margins, at 1 point and 3 points, respectively.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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