Texas Democrats and Republicans are beginning to gear up for a presidential election cycle in which opportunities to flip seats for Congress and the Legislature appear limited.
It’s a natural outcome after Republicans redrew legislative and congressional district boundaries in 2021 to shore up their majorities for the next decade, stamping out most districts that had turned competitive by the end of the last decade. Most of the remaining competitive territory was in South Texas, which is predominantly Hispanic, and where the GOP poured almost all their resources in 2022 — to mixed results.
On paper, there are few obvious pickup opportunities based on an analysis of the governor’s race results in each district. Among U.S. House seats, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke did not carry any districts that are currently held by a representative from the other party. The same was true in the Texas Senate. And among state House districts, Abbott and O’Rourke each won only one that is currently controlled by the opposing party.
The statewide election results often provide a helpful guide of how a district is trending given that they often represent the highest-turnout contest in a district.
The size of the battlefield in 2024 could depend on the top of the ticket, which will be the presidential race. President Joe Biden is expected to run for reelection, and the Republican frontrunner to challenge him is former President Donald Trump, whose 2016 and 2020 runs yielded some of the closest presidential races in Texas in recent history. His closest competitor for the nomination is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not launched a campaign yet but is widely expected to jump in.
There are other factors for the down-ballot contests that remain to be seen.
Even though Abbott signed off on redistricting in 2021, the lines could still change for the 2024 election. Various groups are suing over the maps, alleging things like intentional discrimination and efforts to dilute voters of color, and they are currently awaiting a trial in federal court in El Paso. On the line in the case are boundaries for seats such as a San Antonio state House seat currently held by GOP Rep. John Lujan; that seat is a top battleground in the Texas House.
My initial view of the new map, which looked at the past elections of the decade, is here, and an index of my look at the results from the 2020 election under the old maps is here. I’ll look at the other types of results in future posts, but today we focus on the State House. The 2022 data for the new map is here.
The gist of this story is that the Republican redistricting was very effective and that there aren’t many competitive districts, which means we’re headed for some boring elections, much as we had in the first couple of cycles last decade. That’s slightly less true for the State House than it is for the other entities, and I think the 2024 environment will at least differ enough from last year to produce some variance.
I’m presenting the districts of interest in two groups. One is the competitive Dem-held districts, the other is the same for Republicans. I’ve sorted them further into districts where Abbott or Beto took less than 55%, and districts where they won between 55 and 60 percent. With all that said, here we go. First up are the closer districts currently held by Dems.
Dist Abbott Abb% Beto Beto%
===================================
022 17,170 44.5% 20,822 54.0%
034 18,285 47.0% 20,128 51.7%
070 27,581 45.9% 31,749 52.8%
074 18,915 48.7% 19,218 49.5%
080 20,611 51.9% 18,249 46.0%
035 9,867 39.9% 14,517 58.7%
036 10,835 39.0% 16,525 59.4%
039 12,056 40.0% 17,686 58.7%
041 17,364 43.5% 22,125 55.5%
045 26,119 38.9% 39,783 59.2%
076 20,148 39.8% 29,705 58.6%
078 21,133 41.4% 29,140 57.0%
092 14,217 40.2% 20,680 58.4%
105 13,086 42.1% 17,515 56.4%
113 17,848 41.2% 24,854 57.4%
115 22,605 42.1% 30,334 56.5%
135 16,443 40.0% 24,121 58.6%
144 11,566 43.3% 14,683 55.0%
148 15,451 41.2% 21,460 57.2%
As the story notes, the Republicans somehow failed to field a challenger to Rep. Tracy King in HD80, an oversight I expect they’ll fix in 2024. They made the same mistake in 2010 with then-Rep. Allan Ritter in HD21, but Ritter, an old school conservative rural Dem, rectified their error by switching parties. King, whose district is considerably bluer than Ritter’s was, seems unlikely to follow suit; among other things, he’s been pushing to raise the age to buy automatic weapons from 18 to 21, which puts him at odds with Republican orthodoxy. Never say never, and if the district continues a trend towards the red King could be amenable to such overtures, but for now I don’t see that happening.
For the others, HD70 is a newly-drawn Dem district, and I’d expect it to get bluer over time. HD74, which Rep. Eddie Morales won by 11 despite its closeness at the statewide level, was modestly blue based on 2020 results and should be more so in 2024, though if that isn’t true then expect a bigger fight later on. HD34 was purple-ish before redistricting, and as with HD74 I think it will be bluer next year, but again keep an eye on it. The one district that I think will become more vulnerable over time is HD22, in Jefferson County, which has a declining population and much like Galveston County in the 2000s and 2010s a reddish trend over the past decade. I’d like to see some effort made to shore it up, but I don’t know enough about the local conditions to know how feasible that is. Feel free to chime in if you do.
None of the other districts concern me. The Latino districts, I’d like to see what they look like in 2024. They’re all actually pretty spot on to the 2020 numbers, which given the overall lackluster Dem showing in many areas is moderately encouraging. The rest of them are in overall strong Dem areas, and I don’t expect any reversion of past trends.
Now for the Republican-held seats that Dems might like to target:
Dist Abbott Abb% Beto Beto%
===================================
037 20,551 51.1% 19,202 47.7%
052 41,813 52.5% 36,500 45.8%
063 35,831 54.8% 28,630 43.8%
094 34,479 54.7% 27,557 43.8%
108 46,796 52.6% 41,022 46.1%
112 35,245 50.6% 33,467 48.0%
118 25,172 48.5% 25,952 50.0%
121 40,300 51.1% 37,368 47.4%
122 47,856 54.7% 38,491 44.0%
133 33,195 54.4% 26,971 44.2%
138 31,077 54.1% 25,464 44.3%
014 27,936 56.9% 20,207 41.1%
020 48,367 56.5% 35,743 41.8%
025 31,545 59.3% 20,785 39.1%
026 36,266 57.7% 25,683 40.8%
028 38,940 58.1% 27,061 40.4%
029 33,393 58.8% 22,579 39.7%
054 23,763 59.7% 15,463 38.8%
055 28,125 58.4% 19,322 40.1%
057 37,715 58.1% 26,311 40.5%
061 39,753 56.1% 30,211 42.7%
065 41,487 56.9% 30,451 41.7%
066 41,464 56.9% 30,421 41.8%
067 38,127 56.3% 28,647 42.3%
089 38,701 57.5% 27,643 41.1%
093 34,136 57.6% 24,310 41.0%
096 35,260 55.2% 27,877 43.6%
097 36,059 55.2% 28,336 43.4%
099 31,869 58.6% 21,719 39.9%
106 41,639 58.3% 28,875 40.5%
126 35,835 59.4% 23,627 39.1%
127 39,102 58.5% 26,791 40.1%
129 37,118 56.8% 27,144 41.5%
132 35,079 57.0% 25,603 41.6%
150 33,857 58.3% 23,303 40.1%
I think it’s fair to say that the failure to win back HD118 was a big disappointment last year. I’ll use a stronger word if we get the same result in 2024. HD37 remains the subject of litigation – if there’s anything on the agenda to address it in this legislative session, I am not aware of it at this time. It had a slight Democratic tilt in 2020 and will clearly be a top target next year. As will HDs 112 and 121, with 108 and 52 a notch below them, though 108 is starting to feel a bit like a white whale to me. All things being equal, Dems should be in position to make a small gain in the House next year, with some potential to do better than that, and given everything we’ve seen since the dawn of time, the potential to do a bit worse as well.
The farther-out districts are mostly those we had identified as targets following the 2018 election, with a few adjustments for the new map. They’re all in counties and regions that had been trending Democratic. For the most part, I expect that to continue, but that doesn’t have to be monotonic, nor does it have to be at a fast enough pace to make any of these places actually primed to flip. I’ve said before that the way Tarrant County was sliced up it gives me “Dallas County 2012” vibes, but whether than means that a bunch of districts eventually flip or they all hold on if by increasingly tight margins remains to be seen. We’ll know more after 2024.
In theory, there won’t be many truly competitive districts in 2024, like there weren’t last year. The national environment, plus the higher turnout context, plus whatever yet-unknown factors may be in play will surely affect that, by some amount. I’d like to see an optimistic view for next year and get as many strong candidates in as many of these districts as possible, but that’s far easier said than done. This is not that different than how things looked after the 2012 elections, and we know how things went from there. Doesn’t mean anything will go any particular way or on any timetable, it’s just a reminder that there’s only so much we can know right now. I’ll have some thoughts about the other district types going forward. Let me know what you think.
