Within the Margin

The Lone Star State brings several competitive races this year, and they’re not where we came to expect them the last two cycles.

Texas – 38 seats, after gaining two from the 2020 Census.

Current: 24 Reps, 12 Dems

Projected: 25 Reps, 13 Dems

Redistricting is a decennial (or sometimes more frequent when political exigencies demand) bloodbath in Texas, where Republicans race to stay ahead to demographic shifts and maximize their Congressional delegation. Their 2012 map was on the verge of imploding in the Trump era, as Dems flipped two suburban seats in the Dallas and Houston metro areas in 2018 and threatened many more in 2020. They fell short in each, and Republicans duly redrew the map to put those seats back out of reach, while conceding the 2018 flips by making them safe for Dems. Texas also gains two seats: TX-37 is a new Dem seat in the Austin area while TX-38 is a new Rep seat in the western Houston suburbs. A few competitive seats remain, thanks in part to political shifts in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.

TX-15: the new TX-15 in South Texas shifts from a seat Biden won by two to one that Trump won by 3. Republicans are all in on this seat in an attempt to take advantage of a potential realignment among Latino voters in South Texas; the Dem incumbent, Vicente Gonzalez, has fled to greener pastures in TX-34. Republican Monica de la Cruz, who narrowly lost to Gonzalez in 2020, is favored, though we don’t have much polling to work with here – just a Rep-aligned poll showing her up 4 in July and a Dem-aligned poll showing the race even in October. I’ll trust that the insider buzz around continuing Dem erosion in this region of the state is accurate, but I do sometimes wonder if Republicans are over-selling their progress here a bit. Tilt Rep.

TX-28: The Laredo-based seat has been the site of heated Democratic primaries; incumbent Henry Cuellar is one of the most conservative Dems in Congress and Jessica Cisneros has tried to defeat him the last two cycles. He survived again and now faces a general election in an RGV landscape where the political sands are shifting rapidly. The Republican candidate is former Ted Cruz staffer Cassy Garcia, and it’s possible she’s a little too conservative even for increasingly winnable voters here. We have no polling to work with – just Cuellar’s experience and the Democratic lean (for now) of the district. Biden carried it by seven points, though things are changing fast here. Likely Dem.

TX-34: Republican Mayra Flores flipped the 34th in a pre-Dobbs special election earlier this year. It was a notable win but maybe not a sustainable one; she now runs in a redrawn district Biden carried by almost 16 points instead of 4. And 15th District incumbent Vicente Gonzalez faces her this time. This race lacks public polling since August, but supposedly it’s a toss-up. I think the district’s partisanship keeps Dems alive and gives them a flip…for this cycle. We’ll see again in 2024. Tilt Dem.