PREVIOUSLY: State House 2022
We’ve had our first look at the way the new State House districts performed, and while we can expect the 2024 election to be a little different, it’s clear at this time that there aren’t many swing seats out there, even with a fairly expansive definition of “swing”. That’s by design, of course, and it’s clear Republicans have gotten pretty good at doing what they do. But I think we all recall feeling similar emotions following the 2012 election, and while it took awhile, we did see some massive changes in how districts were perceived over time. So let’s wind the clock back a decade and see what the landscape looked like at first. We’ll start with the Republican seats as of this time in 2013, using the same “under 55%” and “55-60%” standards as before.
Dist Romney Rom% Obama Obama%
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023 31,282 54.6% 25,365 44.2%
043 25,017 52.0% 22,554 46.9%
052 30,763 54.7% 23,849 42.4%
054 25,343 52.9% 21,909 45.7%
102 29,198 53.0% 24,958 45.3%
105 23,228 52.1% 20,710 46.5%
107 27,185 51.8% 24,593 46.9%
113 27,095 52.5% 23,891 46.3%
Dist Romney Rom% Obama Obama%
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032 28,992 56.9% 21,104 41.4%
045 35,298 55.2% 26,757 41.8%
047 50,843 58.0% 34,440 39.3%
065 31,456 57.5% 22,334 40.8%
096 36,190 58.6% 24,838 40.2%
097 39,614 59.6% 25,881 38.9%
108 40,564 59.0% 27,031 39.3%
112 28,221 55.0% 22,308 43.5%
114 35,795 55.2% 28,182 43.5%
115 30,275 55.4% 23,556 43.1%
132 31,432 58.9% 21,214 39.8%
134 46,926 56.4% 34,731 41.7%
135 32,078 58.8% 21,732 39.8%
136 35,296 55.1% 26,423 41.2%
138 27,489 59.2% 18,256 39.3%
Ironically, the first two districts listed here are ones that quickly disappeared from the “competitive” rankings. Both HDs 23 and 43 trended red over the decade, and neither has had a serious Democratic challenge since 2014. (HD23 was won, for the last time, by Democrat Craig Eiland in 2012; HD43 became Republican after the 2010 election when its incumbent switched parties.) Most of the other districts in both tables above are now Democratic, with HD132 being Dem for one cycle after being flipped in 2018 and flipped back in 2020. HD107 was the first Dem takeover, in 2016, while HD134 turned blue in 2020. All the rest came over in 2018.
It should be noted that as of the 2012 election, there were only 55 Democrat-held districts. Three went red in the 2014 debacle, with two of those (HDs 117 and 144) plus HD107 flipping back in 2016. Dems have 64 seats now, and could with a bit of optimism get to the 67 that they had after the 2018 wave. After that, you’re relying on either a steady march of favorable demographic progress, or another shakeup in the national landscape that makes formerly unfriendly turf more amenable. Which is indeed what happened last decade – in the previous decade, it was more the march of demography – but past performance does not guarantee future results. The Republicans have made some gains in formerly dark blue turf, too, as they had in 2010 when they managed to finally win in historically Democratic rural areas. You can’t say from here which way or how far the wheel will spin.
In the end, there were 22 “competitive” seats by our metric as of 2013. Fourteen of them were won after then at least once by a Democrat, with thirteen of them net for Team Blue. I have 34 such seats in 2023. I’d say that’s a combination of Texas being modestly bluer overall – remember that Mitt Romney took 57% in 2012 while Donald Trump took 52% in 2020; Greg Abbott got 59% in 2014 and 54% in 2022 – with Republicans having to spread themselves a little thinner in order to hold as many of these seats as a result. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all ends up.
On the other side of the ledger, the “swing” Dem-held seats of a decade’s hence:
Dist Romney Rom% Obama Obama%
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034 19,974 44.2% 24,668 54.6%
078 19,013 44.0% 23,432 54.3%
117 20,036 46.7% 22,234 51.8%
144 11,606 47.9% 12,308 50.8%
Dist Romney Rom% Obama Obama%
===================================
041 14,906 42.3% 19,935 56.5%
048 32,025 39.5% 46,031 56.8%
050 22,906 38.8% 34,110 57.8%
074 16,738 41.5% 22,955 56.9%
118 17,824 43.3% 22,719 55.2%
125 19,004 39.5% 28,374 59.0%
148 16,296 41.1% 22,449 56.6%
149 18,183 41.8% 24,839 57.1%
Not nearly as many as there are now, and basically none of them became more competitive over the course of the 2010s. HDs 117 and 144 did flip in 2014 but returned to the fold the following election. A couple of these districts, specifically HDs 34 and 74, are legitimately competitive now, at least by the statewide numbers, and of course HD118 was drawn to be considerably redder and is now Republican-held but tenuously so. While it’s on the Dem target list now, I expect it will be on the Republicans’ target list in two years.
I have a total of 19 competitive-by-this-metric seats as of now, but as noted I only expect a couple of them to truly behave that way. Dems will have more “real” targets, up until such time as they begin winning them. But maybe some of those South Texas seats will begin to drift away and we’ll be having a very different conversation in, say, 2026. Again, we’ll just have to see how it plays out. For now, it’s clear that there are more “competitive” seats in 2023 than there were in 2013. We’ll check back later to see how or if that changes.
